First published in 1911, and reprinted in 1919, 1923, 1927, 1929,
1934, 1942 and 1944
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
The modern State is the distinctive product of a unique civilization.But it is a product which is still in the making, and a part of theprocess is a struggle between new and old principles of social order. Tounderstand the new, which is our main purpose, we must first cast aglance at the old. We must understand what the social structure was,which—mainly, as I shall show, under the inspiration of Liberalideas—is slowly but surely giving place to the new fabric of the civicState. The older structure itself was by no means primitive. What istruly primitive is very hard to say. But one thing is pretty clear. Atall times men have lived in societies, and ties of kinship and of simple[Pg 8]neighbourhood underlie every form of social organization. In thesimplest societies it seems probable that these ties—reinforced andextended, perhaps, by religious or other beliefs—are the only ones thatseriously count. It is certain that o