742 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
pay much attention to changes in the mechanism of local govern- ment. Furthermore, the increasing importance of national affairs was absorbing the political energies of the people. Thus a change, which at first glance would seem to violate the funda- mental political principles of a liberty-loving people was effected without violence, and almost without opposition.
In granting the new charters the crown appointed the mem- bers of the corporation, giving to these appointees power to fill all vacancies. Thus the community as a body of citizens and the borough as a corporation became distinct entities. Under such conditions it is not surprising that the civic life of the boroughs of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries possesses little of interest to the student of local institutions. Town life does not again offer a fruitful field of investigation until the appear- ance of the new urban centers, which owe their rise to the indus- trial changes of the end of the eighteenth century.
THE MODERN CITY.
With the breaking up of the mediaeval system of independent town units we enter upon a period of political development in which the city is given a position fundamentally different from that which it occupied during previous periods. The change was one that affected not merely the relation between city and state, but also profoundly influenced the attitude of the popu- lation toward the city and its government. With the Reforma- tion period the transformation of political ideas and ideals becomes distinctly apparent ; a movement which was hastened by the radical changes in territorial relations throughout Europe.
In the cities of the ancient and mediaeval world the individual in all his personal and property interests was subordinated to the community. The communitates occupied first place in the politi- cal thinking of the time ; political ideals were grouped about the city. Individual welfare was, in fact, so closely bound up with the city's activity that this interpretation of the relation of the individual to the community was not only logical but necessary. Every relation of trade, industry, or commerce was dependent upon the public authority. In fact, in the mediaeval towns, as
