Having thus glanced at the nature of the instinctive machinery which has
controlled human communities throughout the greater part of man's
history we now return to ask ourselves: What have become of the tribal
instincts which were so deeply grafted in the nature of our ancestors?
Our tribal forefathers are not so far removed from us. We can still
trace the distribution of the Highland clans in Scotland; the tribal
spirit is still strong in the Scottish glens. The organization of
Ireland was on a tribal basis even when the Anglo-Normans settled there;
in subsequent centuries, even until the times of the British
settlements, the tribal spirit was still rampant in Ireland; even now it
is very much alive. Two thousand years ago Great Britain was in a tribal
state from end to end. Practically every one of us is the descendant of
ancestors who, forty generations back, were exercising their tribal
instincts to the full. The Roman occupation did much to break down the
tribal organization of Britain; the Saxon colonization did still more.
The forces, however, which forged the tribal links into a national chain
were commerce, communication, and the building of massed populations.
Tribes were united to form nations, but there is no greater mistake than
to suppose that the subconscious tribal impulses or instincts were
wholly converted into a sense of common nationality.