and Rome; and as is now shown in Paris and London, New York and Philadelphia. Gravitation is here, as everywhere, in the direct ratio of the mass, and the inverse one of the distance.

Why then do not all men tend to come together on a single spot? Because of that same simple and universal law which maintains the beautiful order of the solar system, COUNTERATTRACTION. Each of the great bodies of which the universe is composed, has its own centre of attraction, which holds its parts together. Were those centres annihilated, all would crumble at once to ruin. In like manner, we see everywhere throughout the world, local centres of attraction exercising an amount of influence that is in near proportion to their size, and to the mental development of their population.

London and Paris may be regarded as the rival suns of Europe; and but for the counter-attraction of local centres, like Vienna and Berlin, Florence, Brussels, and other cities, Europe would present one great centralized system, whose population was tending always towards them, there to make their exchanges, and thence to receive their laws. So, too, is it in these United States. The tendency is strong towards New York, despite the attractions of local centres such as Philadelphia, Washington, Cincinnati, and New Orleans, and the capitals of the several States. Were we to obliterate these local centres, and place in New York a strong centralized government, like those of England, France, and Russia, that city would soon far exceed the present size of London. The local governments would fall to pieces, and voluntary association would speedily be replaced by the forced association of masters and dependents. Every village requiring to have a road, bridge, or bank, would be forced to apply at the great city, paying innumerable officers, as is now the case in France, before obtaining the desired permission. Every community suffering from any oppression would find its voice drowned by those who profited by the abuse, as is the case with complaints to Parliament from Ireland or India. Instead of obtaining the required laws without cost from the little capital, they would be compelled to employ agents, who, as is now the case in England, would accumulate fortunes at their expense. Much of this is already seen at Washington, but very trivial is it compared with what it would be were all the business transacted by State Legislatures and County Boards, brought before Congress, as it now is before the British Parliament.

The centralizing tendency of the State Capital is, in its turn, neutralized by the attraction of the various countyseats. Obliterate these, and the State Capital would grow rapidly, while local associations would be in a great degree annihilated.

Further, whatever tends to the production of local employment for time and talent, gives value to land, promotes its division, and enables parents and children to remain in closer connection with each other. On the contrary, whatever diminishes local employment, tends to the consolidation of land, the breaking up of families, the increase of absenteeism, and the building up of great cities at the expense of the country at large.

History furnishes evidence that the tendency to association, without which the human animal cannot become the true MAN, has everywhere grown with the growth of local centres of attraction, and declined with their decline. Such centres existed in nearly all the Grecian Islands, while Laconia and Attica, Boeotia, Argos, and other States, possessed each its own. Local association there existed to an extent till then unequalled in the world, yet the tendency towards general association was shown in the establishment of the Olympic and other games, which drew together the distinguished men of Greece, as well as those of Italy and Asia. The Amphictyonic League gave further evidence of the tendency to general as a consequence of local association; but, unhappily, the attractive power of this central sun was insufficient for maintaining order among the planets, which, as a consequence, frequently shot madly from their spheres, and jostled one another.

Destroy local centres, and centralize power in the hands of the general government, and there will be diminution in the power of voluntary association for the purposes of peace, and a tendency towards involuntary association for the purposes of war. Destroy the central government, and conflicts amongst the States become inevitable. The people of Greece had all this yet to learn; and their frequent wars at length resulted in the establishment of a highly centralized government, controlling the funds contributed by subject cities, whose people, having lost the power of defending their own rights, had to seek justice at the hands of Athens. To that city resorted all who sought power or profit, all who were unable to obtain a living at home, and all who preferred plunder to labor; until at length, as voluntary associa

tion disappeared, Attica became to a great extent the property of a single individual, surrounded by slaves, and all the States of Greece became involved in one common ruin.

So was it, too, in early Italy, which possessed numerous cities, each the centre of a district in which local association existed in a high degree. In time, however, as Rome, perpetually disturbing her weaker neighbors, grew by help of plunder, power became centralized within her walls, her people became more and more dependent on the public treasury, and voluntary association gradually disappearedall Italy presenting thenceforward the spectacle of great landlords occupying palaces and surrounded by troops of slaves.

Looking next to modern Italy, we see Milan, Genoa, Venice, Florence, Rome, and other cities, each a local centre such as had once existed among the Greeks. For want, however, of a sun with attractive force sufficient for the maintenance of harmony, they were perpetually at war among themselves, thereby enabling Austria and France to become masters of the peninsula, after which the habit of voluntary association wholly disappeared.

Besides

India had once numerous centres of attraction. its various capitals, each village was a self-governing community, in which the power of association existed to an extent unknown elsewhere; but with the centralization of power in Calcutta it has almost entirely disappeared.

Spain once had numerous local centres. Association existed to a great extent, not only amongst the enlightened Moors, but also amongst those of the Christian faith. The discovery of the New World, of which the government became the absentee landlord, unduly increasing the central power, local activity and association declined, and weakness and depopulation were the necessary consequences.

Germany is the home of European decentralization, of jealousy of central power, and of zeal for local rights. Local association having steadily grown, it has been followed up, in our own day, by the formation of the Zollverein, or Customs Union, one of the most important events in modern European history. Germany, however, like Greece, wanting the central sun round which the numerous planets might peacefully revolve, has been retarded in civilization by the interference of foreign powers, who have stirred up internal discord. Strong for defence, she has been weak for offence, and has shown no such tendency towards wars for conquest as has

been exhibited by her highly centralized neighbor, France. Though abounding in local centres of attraction, she has had no great central city to direct the modes of thought; and to this it is due, that Germany is now rapidly taking the position of the great intellectual centre of Europe, and even of the world.

Amongst the states of Germany, Prussia is pre-eminent for a policy tending to the maintenance of local centres. All the ancient divisions, from the communes to the provinces, have been preserved, and their rights respected, in consequence of which the people advance rapidly in freedom as the state advances in power. Under the lead of Prussia, Northern Germany has been brought under a great federal system which places internal commerce on a footing very similar to that of these United States.

No state in Europe has, more than Switzerland, exhibited a tendency to decentralization, and to that peaceful association within which gives strength for resistance to attacks from without.

In France, the revolution of 1789 annihilated the local governments and thus increased centralization, the consequences of which are seen in a perpetual succession of wars and revolutions. Much was done towards decentralization when the lands of the Church, and of absentee nobles, were divided amongst the people, and to this it is partly due that France has grown in strength, notwithstanding the extraordinary centralization of her system.

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

In no part of Europe was the division of land so completo as in Norway, even before the Norman Conquest of England. The tendency of local attraction to produce habits of association was shown in the development of a popular literature which diffused a common intelligence throughout all parts of the social body. The skill exhibited in working iron, and the great diversification of employments, furnish striking evidence of the existence of the habit of combination at that early period. The same habit still exists, giving to this little people a force of resistance to centralization that has recently been exhibited in a manner scarcely paralleled in history.

The attraction of local centres in the British Islands, formerly so great, has long steadily diminished. Edinburgh, once the metropolis of a kingdom, has become a mere provincial city; while Dublin, once the seat of an independent Parliament, has so declined, that were it not the place where a representative of majesty holds his occasional levees, it would scarcely now be heard of. London and Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham, have grown rapidly; but with these exceptions, the population was stationary in the decade ending with 1851. Everywhere is seen a steady tendency towards centralization, with decrease of local attraction, increase of absenteeism, and decline in the power of voluntary association, the latter strikingly shown in the emigration of the few past years. With every step in that direction is seen an increase in the necessity for involuntary association, manifested by an increase in fleets and armies, and in the amount of contributions required for their support.

The Northern States of the Union present such a combination of the centralizing and decentralizing forces as has not been elsewhere equalled; and there we find, in the highest degree, the tendency to local action for the erection of schools, the making of roads, and for every other imaginable purpose. In the Southern States the reverse of this is seen; masters owning men who may not even sell their labor, or exchange its products. This is centralization; and hence it is that we here see so great a tendency to disturbance of the power of association elsewhere. All the wars of the Union have here had their origin.

Barbarism is the necessary consequence of the absence of ASSOCIATION. Deprived of this, Man, losing his distinctive qualities, ceases to be the subject of Social Science.

§ 2. The next distinctive quality of man is INDIVIDUALITY. Each animal is the type of all his species; but in man we find differences of tastes, feelings, and capacities almost as numerous as are those of the human countenance. That these differences may be developed he needs association with his fellows; and their highest development is found in towns and cities, where there is the greatest variety of employment, and therefore the greatest power of association.

"The more imperfect a being," says Goethe, "the more do its parts resemble each other, and the more do the parts resemble the whole. The more perfect a being, the more dissimilar are the parts. In the former case, the parts are