Teutonic
civilization passed directly from the stage of tribal into that of
national organization, before any Teutonic city had acquired sufficient
importance to have claimed autonomy for itself; and at the time when
Teutonic nationalities were forming, moreover, all the cities in Europe
had so long been accustomed to recognize a master outside of them in the
person of the Roman emperor that the very tradition of civic autonomy,
as it existed in ancient Greece, had become extinct. This difference
between the political basis of Teutonic and of Graeco-Roman civilization
is one of which it would be difficult to exaggerate the importance; and
when thoroughly understood it goes farther, perhaps, than anything else
towards accounting for the successive failures of the Greek and Roman
political systems, and towards inspiring us with confidence in the
future stability of the political system which has been wrought out by
the genius of the English race.
We saw, in the preceding lecture, how the most primitive form of
political association known to have existed is that of the _clan_, or
group of families held together by ties of descent from a common
ancestor. We saw how the change from a nomadic to a stationary mode of
life, attendant upon the adoption of agricultural pursuits, converted
the clan into a _mark_ or village-community, something like those which
exist to-day in Russia.
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