The development of law, or of a general method, is the necessary result of social interchange, through which thoughts and feelings become contagious and mould a general will. In primitive society, individuals are isolated, and it matters little to others what any individual does; hence he is allowed to settle his own difficulties in his own way. He is let alone in a way so terrible, that similar treatment would be social death to a man of culture. We repeat, there is nothing like absolute individuality, except among isolated and unsocial savages. In an advanced state of society, human interests become interrelated--a complete network of complexity; and what any particular individual does becomes a matter of interest to many, since the many are, to a certain extent, affected thereby. The individual of civilization has developed relations external to himself, and his rights can only be secured and his tastes and wants gratified by mutual understanding, cooeperation, and combination. His individuality is of a far higher order than that of the uncultivated man; and precisely because it is higher, does it develop law as the embodiment of the general will, and require organization for its expression. 'It is through association that the highest form of individuation becomes possible; and nationality wisely developed will terminate in a cosmopolitan identity of interests, and a general unity founded upon a reciprocity of services among all the divisions of mankind.' (Slack.) It is owing to this same fact of the interrelation and dependence of interests, that the movement of unitization has not stopped in Europe with the organization of a distinct government for each nation. We have observed that when primitive individuals develop relations with each other, they form into small societies, and that when these develop relations with like societies, they unite and form larger associations; and further, that these states, cities, baronies, come at length to develop relations with each other, and the result is their union into kingdoms. But this tendency of growth does not cease here. One nation cannot long remain isolated and distinct from other nations. The interests of one kingdom become, in many ways, interrelated with the interests of other kingdoms; and there must be new governmental appliances to meet the case. Diplomacy, a new function of government, arose from this necessity. This is a political activity of quite recent development: it originated in the fifteenth century. Like all progressive developments, it was at first immature; 'it was not till the seventeenth century that it became really systematic; before then it had not brought about long alliances, great combinations, and especially combinations of a durable nature, directed by fixed principles, with a steady object, and with that spirit of consistency which forms the true character of established government.' (Guizot.)