short, neither individual nor State. The clan, or some association founded upon the model of the clan, and its subdivisions, filled the whole of our forefathers' social life. Within its limits was their world. Beyond it, they could find no resting place. For the origin of this clan relation, we must ascend a long way in the history of the human mind. It is due neither to force nor to fraud, nor to any calculation of personal advantage. It has its source in the sentiment of religion. In archaic society, the one unfailing centripetal force was community of worship. As many as were forms of worship, so many were the associations of men. Where men were associated, there a special worship is found. The symbol of the common worship was a meal shared in honour of the Deity. Of these various worships, probably the oldest, and certainly the most persistent, was the worship of the Lares, or house spirits, or, in other words, deceased ancestors. These spirits, together with their living descendants—whether natural, or adoptive—in their several ranks formed collectively that corporate body which, though it is known by a variety of names, I have called the household. Over the household the House Father presided, with powers limited only by the custom of his race. He was generally the eldest male of the line. He represented the household in all external dealings. He was charged with the management of its property and with the celebration of its worship. Sooner or later, when the household became inconveniently large, it spontaneously divided into several households, all related to each other, but each having a separate existence, each holding distinct corporate property, and each maintaining its special worship. The continued increase of these related households gave rise to the clan, the form in which, historically, our ancestors first become apparent to us. This wider association, which naturally resembled, in many respects, the household of
