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drawn off from one assertion on this subject which may be made; I
think; upon trustworthy evidence that; from the moment when a
tribal community settles down finally upon a definite space of
land; the Land begins to be the basis of society in place of the
Kinship。 The change is extremely gradual; and in some particulars
it has not even now been fully accomplished; but it has been
going on through the whole course of history。 The constitution of
the Family through actual blood…relationship is of course an
observable fact; but; for all groups of men larger than the
Family; the Land on which they live tends to become the bond of
union between them; at the expense of Kinship; ever more and more
vaguely conceived。 We can trace the development of idea both in
the large and now extremely miscellaneous aggregation s of men
combined in States or Political Communities; and also in the
smaller aggregations collected in Village…Communities and Manors;
among whom landed property took its rise。 The barbarian invaders
of the Western Roman Empire; though not uninfluenced by former
settlements in older homes; brought back to Western Europe a mass
of tribal ideas which the Roman dominion had banished from it;
but; from the moment of their final occupation of definite
territories; a transformation of these ideas began。 Some years
ago I pointed out ('Ancient Law;' pp。 103 et seq。) the evidence
furnished by the history of International Law that the notion of
territorial sovereignty; which is the basis of the international
system; and which is inseparably connected with dominion over a
definite area of land; very slowly substituted itself for the
notion of tribal sovereignty。 Clear traces of the change are to
be seen in the official style of kings。 Of our own kings; King
John was the first who always called himself King of England。
(Freeman; 'Norman Conquest;' I。 82; 84。) His predecessors
commonly or always called themselves Kings of the English。 The
style of the king reflected the older tribal sovereignty for a
much longer time in France。 The title of King of France may no
doubt have come into use in the vernacular soon after the
accession of the dynasty of Capet; but it is an impressive fact
that; even at the time of the Massacre of St。 Bartholomew; the
Kings of France were still in Latin 'Reges Francorum;' and Henry
the Fourth only abandoned the designation because it could not be
got to fit in conveniently on his coins with the title of King of
Navarre; the purely feudal and territorial principality of the
Bourbons。 (Freeman; loc。 cit。) We may bring home to ourselves the
transformation of idea in another way。 England was once the
country which Englishmen inhabited。 Englishmen are now the people
who inhabit England。 The descendants of our forefathers keep up
the tradition of kinship by calling themselves men of English
race; but they tend steadily to become Americans and Australians。
I do not say that the notion of consanguinity is absolutely lost;
but it is extremely diluted; and quite subordinated to the newer
view of the territorial constitution of nations。 The blended
ideas are reflected in such an expression as 'Fatherland;' which
is itself an index to the fact that our thoughts cannot separate
national kinship from common country。 No doubt it is true that in
our day the older conception of national union through
consanguinity has seemed to be revived by theories which are
sometimes called generally theories of Nationality; and of which
particular forms are known to us as Pan…Sclavism and
Pan…Teutonism。 Such theories are in truth a product of modern
philology; and have grown out of the assumption that linguistic
affinities prove community of blood。 But wherever the political
theory of Nationality is distinctly conceived; it amounts to a
claim that men of the same race shall be included; not in the
same tribal; but in the same territorial sovereignty。
We can perceive; from the records of the Hellenic and Latin
city…communities; that there; and probably over a great part of
the world; the substitution of common territory for common race
as the basis of national union was slow; and not accomplished
without very violent struggles。 'The history of political ideas
begins;' I have said elsewhere; 'with the assumption that kinship
in blood is the sole possible ground of community in political
functions; nor is there any of those subversions of feeling which
we emphatically term revolutions so startling and so complete as
the change which is accomplished when some other principle
such as that; for instance; of local contiguity establishes
itself for the first time as the basis of common political
action。' The one object of ancient democracies was; in fact; to
be counted of kin to the aristocracies; simply on the ground that
the aristocracy of old citizens; and the democracy of new; lived
within the same territorial circumscription。 The goal was reached
in time both by the Athenian Demos and by the Roman Plebs; but
the complete victory of the Roman popular party was the source of
influences which have not spent themselves at the present moment;
since it is one of the causes why the passage from the Tribal to
the Territorial conception of Sovereignty was much more easy and
imperceptible in the modern than in the older world。 I have
before stated that a certain confusion; or at any rate
indistinctness of discrimination; between consanguinity and
common subjection to power is traceable among the rudiments of
Aryan thought; and no doubt the mixture of notions has helped to
bring about that identification of common nationality with common
allegiance to the King; which has greatly facilitated the
absorption of new bodies of citizens by modern commonwealths。 But
the majesty with which the memory of the Roman Empire surrounded
all kings has also greatly contributed to it; and without the
victory of the Roman Plebeians there would never have been; I
need hardly say; any Roman Empire。
The new knowledge which has been rapidly accum