Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/35

I language, of religion, of sentiment or historical association, and lastly of land, i.e. of the territory which the State occupies. The most important artificial ties are law, custom, executive government; these are common bonds which the people have gradually developed for themselves, and are not, in the same degree as the natural ties, original factors in their cohesion. There are also other ties which do not fall exactly under either of these divisions, such as the common interests of commerce and of self-defence.

Now it is obvious that a State, in order to deserve the name, need not be held together by all these ties at once. Very few, if any, States have realised them all. But every State must have what we call the artificial ties, in some" tolerably obvious form; that is, every State must have at least some laws which bind the whole community, and a common government to enforce obedience to those laws. Without these the word State cannot be applied to it, but only some such vague expression as "nation," or "race," or "people," words which in our language do not usually connote governmental cohesion. We speak, for example, of the Celtic race, of the Irish, or even of the Welsh, nation, of the people of the Jews; and we never use the word "State" of these, because they have no constitution or secular government of their own. Nor can any community be properly called a State which is not wholly independent of every other community. India, for example, is not a State, though it has a government and a law of its own, because that law and government