71:1.22 (801.10) The great weakness in Roman civilization, and a factor in the ultimate collapse of the empire, was the supposed liberal and advanced provision for the emancipation of the boy at twenty-one and the unconditional release of the girl so that she was at liberty to marry a man of her own choosing or to go abroad in the land to become immoral. The harm to society consisted not in these reforms themselves but rather in the sudden and extensive manner of their adoption. The collapse of Rome indicates what may be expected when a state undergoes too rapid extension associated with internal degeneration.
71:1.23 (801.11) The embryonic state was made possible by the decline of the blood bond in favor of the territorial, and such tribal federations were usually firmly cemented by conquest. While a sovereignty that transcends all minor struggles and group differences is the characteristic of the true state, still, many classes and castes persist in the later state organizations as remnants of the clans and tribes of former days. The later and larger territorial states had a long and bitter struggle with these smaller consanguineous clan groups, the tribal government proving a valuable transition from family to state authority. During later times many clans grew out of trades and other industrial associations.
71:1.24 (801.12) Failure of state integration results in retrogression to prestate conditions of governmental techniques, such as the feudalism of the European Middle Ages. During these dark ages the territorial state collapsed, and there was a reversion to the small castle groups, the reappearance of the clan and tribal stages of development. Similar semistates even now exist in Asia and Africa, but not all of them are evolutionary reversions; many are the embryonic nucleuses of states of the future. 2. The Evolution of Representative Government
71:2.1 (801.13) Democracy, while an ideal, is a product of civilization, not of evolution. Go slowly! select carefully! for the dangers of democracy are:
71:2.2 (801.14) 1. Glorification of mediocrity.
71:2.3 (801.15) 2. Choice of base and ignorant rulers.
71:2.4 (801.16) 3. Failure to recognize the basic facts of social evolution.
71:2.5 (801.17) 4. Danger of universal suffrage in the hands of uneducated and indolent majorities.
71:2.6 (801.18) 5. Slavery to public opinion; the majority is not always right.
71:2.7 (802.1) Public opinion, common opinion, has always delayed society; nevertheless, it is valuable, for, while retarding social evolution, it does preserve civilization. Education of public opinion is the only safe and true method of accelerating civilization; force is only a temporary expedient, and cultural growth will increasingly accelerate as bullets give way to ballots. Public opinion, the mores, is the basic and elemental energy in social evolution and state development, but to be of state value it must be nonviolent in expression.
71:2.8 (802.2) The measure of the advance of society is directly determined by the degree to which public opinion can control personal behavior and state regulation through nonviolent expression. The really civilized government had arrived when public opinion was clothed with the powers of personal franchise. Popular elections may not always decide things rightly, but they represent the right way even to do a wrong thing. Evolution does not at once produce superlative perfection but rather comparative and advancing practical adjustment.
71:2.9 (802.3) There are ten steps, or stages, to the evolution of a practical and efficient form of representative government, and these are:
71:2.10 (802.4) 1.
71:2.11 (802.5) 2.
71:2.12 (802.6) 3.
71:2.13 (802.7) 4.
71:2.14 (802.8) 5.
71:2.15 (802.9) 6.
71:2.16 (802.10) 7.
