ABSTRACT
For once, the opening of a century marks a real point in the development of a people, for it was in 1801 that the first British Census was taken. In ancient times, social unity was of a quite different kind, and was attained by quite different means, from those of the modern world. It implied efficient control of obedient masses of subjects by a governing class small enough for all its parts to be familiarly acquainted; when this personal intimacy broke down, the State itself was in danger of breaking down. In the Middle Ages, the bond of society was found in local landownership, and its mutual obligations. Everybody knew everybody else in the village; the King was far away, only a greater landowner, the Holy Empire was a splendid myth, a ritual, an ideal, momentarily made fact by some rare superman. The greater dimensions, complexity, and vigour of modern life have called into being, where geographical and historical circumstances are favourable, a new form of social union, the nation—a body of people so large that personal acquaintance even between all the important persons is impossible, and objective knowledge must be called in as an agent of common feeling.
