ABSTRACT

Contrary to what might have been expected, they are not local divisions-not, that is, primitive forms of territorial organization. The village community or, in a still less artificial manner, spatial proximity does not in fact seem to be a primary mode of grouping among men. That is in­ telligible when we recall that agricultural and sedentary civilizations are not the first that are known, and so it is quite natural that before their appearance the relation between man and a definite area of territory should not be the factor in social organization that it was subsequently to become. A multitude of signs conduce to the belief that, before geography, religion was called upon to decide the manner in which men should be grouped. The original constitutional right is mystic in nature. It further may be shared in all the ways which are characteristic of mystic thought itself. That is why it appears vain to try and dis­ tinguish, according to modern categories of thought, between political groupings and family groupings-vain, for instance, to make the family the primary cell of society and to con­ struct genuine political divisions after the image of the family, the city becoming an enlarged family, and so on.