attacks from without, and the gangrene spreading from the centre, pulled that Empire to pieces, and on its ruins was established and developed a new civilisation^ which is ours today.
And if, putting aside antique empires, we study the origin and development of that young barbarian civilisation till the time when it gave birth to our modern States, we shall be able to grasp the essence of the State. We shall do it better than we should have done if we had launched ourselves into the study of the Roman Empire, of the empire of Alexander, or else of despotic Eastern monarchies. In taking these powerful barbarian destroyers of the Roman Empire as a starting point, we can retrace the evolution of all civilisation from its origin till it reaches the stage of the State.
II
Most of the philosophers of the last century had conceived very elementary notions about the origin of societies.
At the beginning, they said, men lived in small, isolated families, and perpetual war among these families represented the normal condition of existence. But one fine day, perceiving the drawbacks of these endless struggles, they decided to form a society. A "social contract" was agreed upon among scattered families, who willingly submitted to an authority, which authority (need I tell you?) became the starting point and the initiative of all progress. Must I add, as you have already been told in school, that our present governments have ever since impersonated the noble role of salt of the earth, the pacifiers and civilisers of humanity?
This conception, which was born at a time when little was known about the origin of man, prevailed in the last century; and we must say that in the hands of the Encyclopædists and of Rousseau the idea of a "social contract" became a powerful weapon with which to fight royalty and divine right. Nevertheless, in spite of services it may have rendered in the past, that theory must now be recognised as false.
