Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/51

II formation of the State was actually brought about.

In each of these three steps we are dealing with questions of extreme difficulty, which are still but partially investigated. But only the leading results of the comparative method can be indicated here in outline, so far as we have them at present; and on these we can depend with some confidence, leaving details to be corrected as our knowledge advances.

Peoples who have not yet reached the stage of civilisation at which the State begins are never found to be without some kind of organisation. For example, they have a leader or chief, and they reckon their descent, and their relationship to each other, on some sort of principle. We are not here concerned with the various stages through which man has passed before reaching the State, nor with the changes in the idea of relationship which he gradually developed in the course of ages. That is the work of the anthropologist, not of the historian. All we need to ascertain is the nature of the organisation which, in most cases at least, immediately preceded that of the State, and served therefore as a basis for it to grow from.

No true State can come into existence except when the people composing it have been for some time settled down on a definite territory. No wandering or nomad people can make a State in our sense of the word; they must have reached a stage in which they can live comfortably by certain fixed occupations, of which the most important, for