The family group, the clan, the tribe, the town, the city, the state, the nation, have been stages in the process of closer and closer co-operation. Confederation, association, combination, require adjustment, compromise, regulation. Hence the germ of government. To live together each man must give way in something to the other. Man is gregarious ; he is naturally social ; instinctively he availed himself of the companionship of other men. The social status, the foedera generis huviani, were slowly evolved from the increasing demands of man upon man ; they were not the result of bargaining. What a magnificent drama ; the world the theatre ; all mankind, emerging from primitive ignorance, the actors. How many or how long the acts were, we know not ; but through " that duration which maketh pyramids pillars of snow, and all that's past a moment," the wonderful scenes moved on.
Out of the strong came forth sweetness. From brute selfis'hness, from animal passion, came love. Slowly the central idea was reached, and, in the sublime language of the Scripture, man became a living soul ! and his body became the temple of the Holy Spirit ; his consciousness a part of the infinite consciousness ; his personality a world-copy of a divine universe. Reason, conscious, love, were his dower. The curtain has not yet fallen, and will never fall, upon the last act. We live in a world which is always in process. Nature's genesis is unceasing. " Without haste, witfhout rest," her creative and re-creative processes are always operating. When one undertakes to talk about government he is drawn instinctively to some historic models.
As thinking persons realized in every age the insufficiency of contemporaneous governments, there has scarcely been a time when the academic reformer was