be considered.  Thus, amongst institutions of the internal kind, the family by itself presents a wide field of research; though in certain cases it is liable to be overshadowed by some other sort of organization, such as, notably, the clan.  Under the same rubric fall the many forms of more or less voluntary association, economic, religious, and so forth.  On the other hand, outside the circle of the body politic there are, at all known stages of society, mutual understandings that regulate war, trade, travel, the celebration of common rites, the interchange of ideas.  Here, then, is an abundance of types of human association, to be first scrutinized separately, and afterwards considered in relation to each other.

Closely connected with the previous subject is the history of law.  Every type of association, in a way, has its law, whereby its members are constrained to fulfil a certain set of obligations.  Thus our student will pass on straight from the forms of society to the most essential of their functions.  The fact that, amongst the less civilized peoples, the law is uncodified and merely customary, whilst the machinery for enforcing it is, though generally effective enough, yet often highly indefinite and occasional, makes the tracing of the growth of legal institutions from their rudiments no less vitally important, though it makes it none the easier.  The history of authority is a strictly kindred topic.  Legislating and judging on the one hand, and governing on the other, are different aspects of the same general function.  In accordance, then, with the order already indicated, law and government as administered by the political society in the person of its representatives, chiefs, elders, war-lords, priest-kings, and so forth, must first be examined; then the jurisdiction and discipline of subordinate bodies, such as the family and the clan, or again the religious societies, trade guilds, and the rest; then, lastly, the international conventions, with the available means of ensuring their observance.

Again, the history of religion is an allied theme of far-reaching interest.  For the understanding of the ruder forms of society it may even be said to furnish the master-key.  At this stage, religion is the mainstay of law and government.  The constraining force of custom makes itself felt largely through a magnifying haze of mystic sanctions; whilst, again, the position of a leader of society rests for the most part on the supernormal powers imputed to him.  Religion and magic, then, must be carefully studied if we would understand how the various persons and bodies that exercise authority are assisted, or else hindered, in their efforts to maintain social discipline.  Apart from this fundamental inquiry, there is another, no less important in its way, to which the study of religion and magic opens up a path.  This is the problem how reflection manages as it were to double human experience, by setting up beside the outer world