Social theory made available a generic model of native society, newly defined as traditional society in opposition to modern society, that stressed the primacy of the social in understanding the nature of native society. The intimate connection between the socio-theoretic model of traditional society and late imperial ideology emerges in its clearest and most influential articulation in the social and political theory of Henry Maine. The origin of modern social theory is often understood as primarily a methodological revolution, linked to the discovery of society as an organic and independent entity, whose inner law like dynamics can be discerned through scientific analysis. The re-evaluation of Rome following the French Revolution demonstrates forcefully two characteristic propositions of modern social theory, both of which are simultaneously methodological and substantive theses. Maine's reconceptualization of Indian society provided an enormous fillip to the growth of official anthropology and its influence in crafting imperial policy.