To this exhaustive statement a late generalization and specialization has been made by Mr. Fiske, especially applicable to social evolution, as follows: The progress of society is a continuous establishment of psychical relations within the community, in conformity to physical and psychical relations arising within the environment, during which, both the community and the environment pass from a state of incoherent homogeneity to a state of coherent heterogeneity, and during which the constitutional units of the community become ever more distinctly individuated.
Having now arrived at that point where history must furnish the facts upon which the subject rests, it may be well to comprehensively recapitulate a perhaps somewhat too long introduction. It was seen that all over the face of the earth where human life was represented, government exists, and that this government was representative of one or another of the three orders of aggregates of individuals—the family, the tribal, or the nations, and that an aggregate of nations would add the fourth order. It was also seen that the evolution of government was the objective result of the persistence of force among its component parts. Fixing the basis of government in this philosophic fact, it was necessary to examine the history of government to see if in its evolution it had conformed to this law, according to present accepted formulas; and if so found to have done, to extend the same into the future, to ascertain if possible what the future would be. Thus by a present understanding of the law and its tendencies, all modifications and changes made in present systems and forms might be so made in harmony therewith, and not with a simple view to meet the present exigencies, but with an understanding that would meet all exigencies of all time, which alone is perfect legislation.
THE TENDENCIES OF GOVERNMENT.
[Revised from the New York Herald of April 25, 1870.]
SECOND PART OF MRS. VICTORIA C. WOODHULL’S PHILIPPIC—LAWS, PEOPLES AND COMMUNITIES FROM A FEMALE POINT OF VIEW—LESSONS IN HISTORY, POLITICS AND WAR.
[Mrs. Victoria C. Woodhull, head of the firm of female brokers in Broad street, presents to the readers of the Herald the following communication, the second part of her paper on “The Tendencies of Government,” the preface to which has already appeared. Mrs. Woodhull has undertaken the difficult task of enlightening the public mind on the best means of running the Government machine of America. Though her views, expressed in this paper, have a wide range, it must be said that she is but putting herself in wind for a tremendous attack on “the best Government the world ever saw.” Being already in the race for the Presidency (not of the Sorosis, but of the United States), her pronunciamentos are of course very important:]
It must begin to be apparent that the proposition is, that the evolution of government does not differ from that of simplest organic forms either in principle or in mode of operation. The same laws that govern the growth and multiply the plant also govern society and multiply it. The same laws that bring fruit to perfection and dissolution perfect and dissolve societies. The same laws that produce and control the units of the animal kingdom produce and control the units of society. The same law that governs the ebbing and flowing of the tides, that determines whether the component parts of water shall exist as water or vapor, determines the movements of society and the conditions of its existence; and the same law that produces an earthquake here, a volcanic eruption there or a terrific hurricane elsewhere, produces the earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and the hurricanes that are ever modifying and changing society. Symbols of all the various processes society passes through in its growth and extension can be found in every other department of the universe; or, to assert the same fact differently, everywhere in the universe there is a constant effort to attain an equilibrium—a continuous working to supply wants, an unceasing process of demand and supply, which are universal exemplifications of the law that motion is always in the direction of the least resistance or the greatest traction, or the resultant of the two operating conjointly.
But what does history tell of the foundation and dissolution of governments, and what illustrations of the law of progress does it afford? As before stated, those who have most earnestly studied pre-historic time have found ample evidence that the time was when the head of the family was the highest sovereign power, and so absolute in its character that the individual was entirely submerged in it, and State supremacy was an impossibility. Nothing but anarchy and confusion could have attended such rule; constant rivalry, jealousy and contention must have kept up a continual strife between adjacent families, which could know no settlement except through the subjugation or destruction of the weaker of the contending parties. Of this order of governmental aggregations, it is questionable if the earth at present furnishes any illustrations, unless it be in some part thereof to which the discoverer has not yet penetrated. Of the next, or tribal, order of aggregates, it does, however; and with this second order the real analysis and comparison must begin, though we have no objective means of demonstrating the conditions stated as existing. When family sovereignty was universal it can readily be seen that the continued existence of such conditions would be impossible, for the continuous subjugations and amalgamations of families would lead directly to tribal communities, at first in absolute subjection to one tribe, which would grow into some power, distributed among the several tribes. So also would the joining together of several weak families to resist a more powerful neighbor lead directly to confederation.
The subjugation and reduction of families to bondage and slavery was the beginning of that system of interdependence now so broadly extended into commerce, exchange and mutual dependence for almost the necessities of life. In the times referred to every man was his own farmer, tailor, carpenter and cook, and this condition was only modified when the individuals of conquering families began to rely upon the conquered for certain services they otherwise would have been obliged to render themselves. All of these facts exemplify another philosophic proposition—that for anything in the universe to remain in its homogeneous condition is impossible, which impossibility is the result of the fact that motion must produce change, while constant motion is inevitable so long as force persists and matter resists.
That eminent historian of the third decade of the eighteenth century, Rollin, thus remarks of the earliest monuments which are preserved, treating of the progress from simple to complex forms of government:—“To know in what manner the states and kingdoms were founded that have divided the universe, the steps whereby they rose to that pitch of grandeur related in history, by what ties families and cities united in order to constitute one body of society, and to live together under the same laws and common authority, it will be necessary to trace things back in a manner to the infancy of the world and to those ages in which mankind, being dispersed into different regions, began to people the earth.” In these early ages every father was the supreme head of his family; the arbiter and judge of whatever contests and divisions might arise within it; the natural legislator over his little society, the defender and protector of those who, by their birth, education and weakness, were under his protection and safeguard. The laws which the paternal vigilance established in this domestic senate being dictated with no other view than to promote the general welfare, were concerted with such children as were come to years of maturity and accepted by the inferiors with a full and free consent, were religiously kept and preserved in families as an hereditary polity, to which they owed their peace and security.