As an historical theory to explain the origin of human society it is of course demonstrably false, but as a weapon for breaking up the concentration of sovereign power and distributing it, the idea has played a mighty role in history. It is almost certain to appear wherever there is an absolutism which men feel the need of checking. But the [p267] theory of the social compact disappears when power has become so widely diffused that no one can any longer locate the sovereign. That is what is happening in the advanced modern communities. The sovereign, whom it was once desirable to put under contract, has become so anonymous and diffuse that his very existence to-day is a legal fiction rather than a political fact. And loyalty by the same token is no longer provided with a personal superior of indubitable prestige to which it can be attached. 3. _Pluralism_ The relationship between lord and vassals in which each man attaches himself for better or worse to some superior person tends gradually to disappear in the modern world. Its passing was somewhat prematurely announced by the Declaration of the Rights of Man; it did not wholly disappear by the dissolution of the bonds which bound one man to another, for the psychological bonds are stronger than the legal. Nevertheless the effect of modern civilization is to dissolve these psychological bonds, to break up clannishness and personal dependence. Men and women alike tend to become more or less independent persons rather than to remain members of a social organism. The reason for this lies in the diversification of their interests. Life in the ancestral order was not only simpler and contained within narrower limits than it is to-day, but there was a far greater unity in the activity of each individual. Working the land, fighting, raising a family, worshipping, were so closely related that they could be governed by a very simple allegiance to the chief of the tribe [p268] or the lord of the manor. In the modern world this synthesis has disintegrated and the activities of a man cannot be directed by a simple allegiance. Each man finds himself the center of a complex of loyalties. He is loyal to his government, he is loyal to his state, he is loyal to his village, he is loyal to his neighborhood. He has his own family. He has his wife’s family. His wife has her family. He has his church. His wife may have a different church. He may be an employer of thousands of men. He may be an employee. He must be loyal to his corporation, to his trade union, or his professional society. He is a buyer in many different markets. He is a seller in many different markets. He is a creditor and a debtor. He owns shares in several industries. He belongs to a political party, to clubs, to a social set. The multiplicity of his interests makes it impossible for him to give his whole allegiance to any person or to any institution.