Given the same innate capacity, and it is evident that social
development will go on faster or slower, will stop or turn back,
according to the resistances it meets. In a general way these obstacles
to improvement may, in relation to the society itself, be classed as
external and internal--the first operating with greater force in the
earlier stages of civilization, the latter becoming more important in
the later stages.
Man is social in his nature. He does not require to be caught and tamed
in order to induce him to live with his fellows. The utter helplessness
with which he enters the world, and the long period required for the
maturity of his powers, necessitate the family relation; which, as we
may observe, is wider, and in its extensions stronger, among the ruder
than among the more cultivated peoples. The first societies are
families, expanding into tribes, still holding a mutual blood
relationship, and even when they have become great nations claiming a
common descent.
Given beings of this kind, placed on a globe of such diversified surface
and climate as this, and it is evident that, even with equal capacity,
and an equal start, social development must be very different.
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