GOVERNMENT (Lat. gubernaeulum, a rudder. The Romans compared the state to a vessel, and applied the term gubernator, helmsman, to the leader or actual ruler of a state. From the Latin, this word has passed into most of the modern European languages). That institution or aggregate of institutions by which a state makes and carries out those rules of action which are necessary to enable men to live in a social state, or which are imposed upon the people forming a state.
2. We understand, in modern political science, by state, in its widest sense, an independent society, acknowledging no superior, and by the term gov ernment, that institution or aggregate of institu tions by which that society makes and carries out those rules of action which are necessary to enable men to live in a social state, or which are imposed upon the people forming that society by those who possess the power or authority of prescribing them. Government is the aggregate of authorities which rule a society. By administration, again, we under stand in modern times, and especially in more or leas free countries, the aggregate of those persona in whose bands the reins of government are for the time-being (the chief ministers or heads of depart ments). But the terms stafc, government, and ad ministration are not always used in their strictness. The government of a state being its most promi nent feature, which is most readily perceived, government has frequently been used for state; and the publicists of the last century almost always used the term government, or form of government, when they discussed the different political societies or states. On the other hand, government is often used, to this day, for administration, in the sense in which it has been explained. We shall give in this article a classification of all governments and political societies which have existed and exist to this day.
Governments, or the authorities of societies, are, like societies themselves, grown institutions. See INSTITUTION.
3. They are never created by agreement or compact. Even where portions of government are farmed by agreement, SF, for instance, when a certain family is called to rule over a country, the nontracting parties most previously be conscious of having authority to do so. As society originates
with the family, so does authority or government. Nowhere do men exist without authority among them, even though it were but-in its mere iuoipieney. Men are forced into this state of things by the fun damental law that with them, and with them alone of all mammals, the period of dependence of the young upon its parents outlasts by many years the period of lactation : so that, during this period of post-lactational dependence, time and opportunity are given for the development of affection and the habit of obedience on the one hand, and of affec tion and authority on the other; as well as of mu tual dependence. The family is a society, and expands into clusters of familes, into tribes and larger societies, collecting into communities, always carrying the habit and necessity of authority end mutual support along with them. As men ad vance, the great and pervading law of mutual de pendence shows itself more and more clearly, and acts more and more intensely. Man is eminently a social being, not only as to an instinctive love of aggregation, nut only as to material necessity and security, but also as to mental and sffectional de velopment, and not only as to a given number of existing beings, or what we will call as to extent, but also as to descent of generation after generation, or, as we may call it, transmission. Society, and its government along with it, are continuous. Gov ernment exists and continues among men, and laws have authority for generations which neither made them nor bad any direct representation in making them, because the necessity of government—neces sary according to the nature of social man and to his wants—is a continuous necessity. But the fa mily is not only the institution from which once, at a distant period, society, authority, government arose. The family increases in importance, dis tinctness, and intensity of action as man advances, and continues to develop authority, obedience, af fection, and social adhesiveness, and thus acts with reference to the state as the feeder acts with refer ence to the canal : the state originates daily anew in the family.