We have already seen that the earliest social unit is the family—a small group of individuals bound together by intimate ties. But the family was but one unit in a larger group, the clan, made up of families assumed to be descended from a common ancestor. The various clans united to form the tribe which, as an organization, rested upon a common race, language, and religion. These tribes, although at first roving bodies, wandering from place to place, at length acquired some definite territory and settled permanently there. The beginnings of a state were then at hand and with the state, or even before it, came government. In all probability that is the process through which the earliest governments came into being,—a process extending through many generations. The tribal chiefs became kings and passed on the kingship to their sons. As time went on the kings gathered greater power until despotism became the customary form of government in most countries of the world. It was not until near the end of the eighteenth century that the world began to shake off the despotic authority of kings and to establish governments based upon the consent of the people. [Sidenote: Aristotle’s classification.] =The Classification of Governments.=—During this long evolution from the early tribal organizations down to the complex governments of the present day many forms of rule have been tried in various countries. Even in ancient Greece the philosopher Aristotle was able to divide states into six classes, three of which he called _normal_ types and three _perverted_. Where political power was lodged in the hands of a single individual, he called the state a monarchy; where it was lodged with a few men he called it an aristocracy; and where it was vested in many hands he called it a democracy. Each of these normal types had its corresponding perversion or travesty. A perverted monarchy he termed despotism; a perverted aristocracy he termed oligarchy; and a perverted democracy he called a demagogism or state ruled by mob methods. This method of classifying states is of little value today and would be in many ways misleading. [Sidenote: Monarchies and republics.]