When the
sept come to cluster their habitations, or encampments, in one or more
spots, and to admit strangers in blood to dwell among them, these
hamlets, or camps, gradually reach the magnitude of a _village_. When
a number of these _villages_, belonging to different _septs_, come to
be contiguous to one another, this mere juxtaposition does not make of
them a State. Nor does interchange of commodities, nor intermarriage,
nor an offensive and defensive alliance: these are the mutual
relations of a _confederacy_, [Greek: xymmaxia], but all these and
more are needed for a State, [Greek: polis]. To be a State, it is
requisite that these septs and villages should agree to regulate the
conduct of their individual members by a _common standard of social
virtue_, sufficient for their well-being as one community. This common
standard is fixed by common consent, or by the decision of some power
competent to act for all and to punish delinquents. The name of this
common standard is _law_. (_Ethics_, c. vii., n. 1, p. 126.) The
community thus formed leads a life _complete and self-sufficient_, not
being a member of another, but a body by itself,--not part of any
ulterior community, but complete in the fulness of social good and
social authority.
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