in Calcutta, the habit and the power of exercising it have almost altogether disappeared.

Spain had numerous local centres. Association there existed to a great extent, not only among the enlightened Moors, but among the people of Castile and Arragon, Biscay and Leon. The discovery of this continent, of which the government became the absentee landlord, greatly increased the central power, with corresponding decline in local activity and local association, and the consequences are visible in the depopulation and weakness that have since ensued.

In Germany we find the home of the decentralization of Europe —of jealousy of central power-and of the maintenance of local rights as a consequence of which the tendency towards association has always been strong among her people, and has now been followed up by the union of her communities in the Zoll- Verein, one of the most important events recorded in the history of Europe. Like Greece, Germany has always been deficient as regards the sun around which the numerous planets might peacefully revolve, and as in Greece, powers exterior to her system have been enabled to use one community against another to an extent that has greatly retarded the progress of civilization at home, although as a rule, she has interfered little with its progress abroad.* Strong for defence, she has, therefore, been weak for offence, and has exhibited no tendency towards wars for conquest, or towards the levying of contributions upon her poorer neighbors, as has been so much the case with her highly centralized neighbor, France. Abounding always in local centres of attraction, it has been found impossible to create a great central city to direct the modes of thought and action, and to that it is due that Germany is now so rapidly taking the position of the great intellectual centre, not only of Europe, but of the world at large.

Among the states of Germany there is none whose policy has so much tended to the maintenance of local centres of action, as advantageous to the best interests of the people and the state, as Prussia. All the ancient divisions, from the communes to the provinces, have been carefully preserved, and their constitutions as

* Austria is a compound of numerous bodies, a large portion of which is entirely exterior to Germany. Her wars in Italy have mostly been Austrian and not Germanic.

carefully respected, as a consequence of which it is that here we find the people advancing towards freedom with great rapidity while the state is rapidly advancing in wealth and power. The peaceful effects of decentralization are here fully exhibited in the fact that, under the lead of Prussia, Northern Germany has been brought under a great federal system, by help of which internal commerce has been placed on a footing almost precisely corresponding with that of these United States.

Nowhere in Europe had decentralization more existed, and nowhere had the tendency to peaceful association, or the strength of resistance to attacks from without consequent upon union, been more fully exhibited than in Switzerland, notwithstanding the existence of the widest religious differences. The wars and revolutions of the period ending in 1815, and the constant revolutions. and growing centralization of France, have here, however, produced their usual effect in the establishment of increased centralization, under which the weaker cantons have been deprived of rights they had for ages enjoyed, and tyranny and oppression are gradually taking the place of the freedom and exemption from taxation that before existed.

The French Revolution annihilated, when it should have strengthened the local governments—and thus was centralization increased when it should have been diminished, the consequences of which are seen in a perpetual succession of wars and revolutions. Much was done towards decentralization when the lands of absentee nobles and of the church were divided among the people, and to the counteracting effect of this measure it is due that France has grown in strength notwithstanding the extraordinary centralization of her system.

Belgium and Holland present remarkable instances of the power of local action to produce habits of association. In both, the towns and cities were numerous, and the effect of combined action is seen in the wonderful productiveness of what was originally one. of the poorest countries of Europe.

In no part of Europe was the division of land so complete, or its possession so secure, as in Norway, at and before the date of the Norman conquest of England; and in none, consequently, was the power of local attraction so fully exhibited. The habit of asso

ciation, therefore, existed to an extent then unknown in France and Germany, developing itself in the establishment of "a literature in their own language, and living in the common tongue and minds of the people."* Elsewhere, the languages of the educated and uneducated classes have differed so widely as to render the literature used by the former entirely inaccessible to the latter; and, as a necessary consequence, there has been "a want of that circulation of the same mind and intelligence through all classes of the social body, differing only in degree, not in kind, in the most educated and most ignorant, and of that circulation and interchange of impressions, through a language and literature common to all, which alone can animate a population into a nation.Ӡ They were in advance of other nations, too, in the fact that employments were diversified, affording further proof of the existence of the habit of association and combination. "Iron," continues Mr. Laing, "is the mother of all the useful arts; and a people who could smelt it from the ore, and work it into all that is required for ships of considerable size, from a nail to an anchor, could not have been in a state of such utter barbarism as they have been represented to us. They had a literature of their own, and laws, institutions, social arrangements, a spirit and character, very analogous to the English, if not the source from which the English flowed; and were in advance of all Christian nations in one branch of the useful arts, in which great combinations of them are required-the building, fitting out, and navigating large vessels."

The same habit of local association has ever since existed, accompanied by a tendency to union whose effects were fully exhibited in the establishment, forty years since, of a system of government, in which the centralizing and decentralizing forces are balanced to an extent not exceeded in the world; and, as a consequence, this little people has exhibited a force of resistance to centralization, sought to be introduced from abroad, to which it would be difficult to find a parallel in history.§

* Chronicle of the Sea-Kings of Norway. Introductory chapter by S. Laing, p. 33.

† Ibid., p. 36.

Ibid., p. 146.

§ The reader who may desire fully to appreciate the strength of resistance of free governments, can scarcely fail to derive advantage from Mr.

The attraction of local centres, throughout the British islands, formerly so great, has, for a long time past, tended steadily to diminish-Edinburgh, once the metropolis of a kingdom, having become a mere provincial city; and Dublin, once the seat of an independent Parliament, having so much declined, that were it not for the fact, that it is the place at which the representative of majesty holds his occasional levées, it would scarcely at all be heard of. London and Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham, have grown rapidly; but with those exceptions, the population of the United Kingdom was stationary in the period from 1841 to 1851. Everywhere, there is exhibited an increasing tendency towards centralization, accompanied by diminution in the strength of local attraction, increase of absenteeism, and decline in the power of voluntary association—the diminution of the latter wonderfully exhibited, in the few past years, in the emigration from its shores. With every step in that direction, there is witnessed a steady increase in the necessity for involuntary association, manifested by an increase of fleets and armies, and an increase in the amount of contributions required for their support.

The Northern States of the Union present, as has been already shown, a combination of the centralizing and decentralizing forces to an extent that has never elsewhere been equalled; and there, accordingly, we find existing in a high degree, the tendency to local action for the creation of schools and school-houses, the making of roads, and the formation of associations for almost every imaginable purpose. The system of laws that maintains harmony throughout the Universe is here exactly imitated-each State constituting a body perfect in itself, with local attraction tending to maintain its form, despite the gravitating tendency towards the centre, around which it, and its sister States, are required to revolve.

As a consequence of this it is, that the course of the North has been always peaceful-there having been, at no period, the smallest manifestation of a desire for the acquisition of territory, or for interference with the rights of neighboring States. Annex

Laing's account of his residence in Norway during the period of the several conflicts between the Swedish and Norwegian governments, in the period from 1830 to 1840.

ation of the British provinces, with their millions of free inhabitants, would add largely to the northern strength; and yet, while co-operating with the South for the purchase of Florida and Louisiana, and for the acquisition of Texas, the question of incorporating Canada into the Union, can scarcely be regarded as having ever, seriously, been considered.

Looking to the Southern States, the reverse of the picture is presented to our view. Masters, there, own men who are denied all power of voluntary association, and may not even sell their own labor, or exchange its product for that of the labor of others. This is centralization, and hence it is, that we see throughout the South, so strong a tendency towards disturbance of the power of association elsewhere. All the wars of the Union have here had their origin. War tends to increase the number of human machines that carry muskets, and require for their support large contributions, that might be better employed in the construction of roads or mills, by help of which association would be promoted.

Barbarism is a necessary consequence of the absence of association. Deprived of this, man-losing his distinctive qualitiesceases to be the subject of social science.

§ 2. The next distinctive quality of man is INDIVIDUALITY. Each rat or robin, fox or wolf, is the type of his species wherever found, possessing habits and instincts in common with all his race. Not such is the case with man, in whom we find differences of tastes, feelings, and capacities, almost as numerous as those observed in the human countenance. In order, however, that these differences may be developed, it is indispensable that he be brought into association with his fellow man; and where that has been denied, the individuality can no more be found, than it would be, were we searching for it among the foxes, or the wolves. The wild men of Germany, and those of India, differ so little, that in reading the description of the one, we might readily suppose we were reading that of the other. Passing from these, to the lower forms of association, such as exist among savage tribes, we find a growing tendency to the development of the varieties of individual character; but, desiring to find their highest development, we must