Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/55

II such as Wellington (the settlement of the Wellings), Watlington, Wallingford, etc. It was probably the same in India. And though this leading idea of kinship tends ever to become fainter the longer the group remains fixed on the land, and thus loses much of its original binding force, it still may survive as a fiction firmly believed in, or at least as a bond of brotherhood, creating a sense of mutual obligation between the members of the group. Even if it passes, as it has passed in Russia and India, from a sense of common descent to a sense of common interest only, it has left a legacy of feeling behind it which could never have been gained, so far as we can see, from any other mode of union.

Secondly, the government of the group was in the hands of a council consisting of the heads of the families constituting the group, sometimes with a headman to preside over it. The evidence does not seem to show clearly at present whether the council or the headman is the original form of government, or whether they both worked together from the beginning. Sir H. Maine tells us that in the most perfect village communities in India, i.e. in those which have preserved best their original form, it is the council which rules; and in these cases the other institution is either not to be found, or only survives in some form which easily escapes recognition. But it is difficult to imagine a