actions and impulses of bodies of men are, as has often been observed,
different from those which, under the same circumstances, would be
called forth in individuals. The fighting qualities of a regiment may be
very different from those of the individual soldiers. But there is no
need of illustrations. In our inquiries into the nature and rise of
rent, we traced the very thing to which I allude. Where population is
sparse, land has no value; just as men congregate together, the value of
land appears and rises--a clearly distinguishable thing from the values
produced by individual effort; a value which springs from association,
which increases as association grows greater, and disappears as
association is broken up. And the same thing is true of power in other
forms than those generally expressed in terms of wealth.

Now, as society grows, the disposition to continue previous, social
adjustments tends to lodge this collective power, as it arises, in the
hands of a portion of the community; and this unequal distribution of
the wealth and power gained as society advances tends to produce greater
inequality, since aggression grows by what it feeds on, and the idea of
justice is blurred by the habitual toleration of injustice.

In this way the patriarchal organization of society can easily grow
into hereditary monarchy, in which the king is as a god on earth, and
the masses of the people mere slaves of his caprice. It is natural that
the father should be the directing head of the family, and that at his
death the eldest son, as the oldest and most experienced member of the
little community, should succeed to the headship. But to continue this
arrangement as the family expands, is to lodge power in a particular
line, and the power thus lodged necessarily continues to increase, as
the common stock becomes larger and larger, and the power of the
community grows. The head of the family passes into the hereditary king,