Political Institutions, being Part V of the Principles of Sociology

[1876]

By Herbert Spencer

[Political Institutions, being Part V of the Principles of Sociology (The Concluding Portion of Vol. II) (London: Williams and Norgate, 1882).]

CHAPTER VIII.

Consultative bodies.

§ 490. Two parts of the primitive tri-une political structure have, in the last two chapters, been dealt with separately; or, to speak strictly, the first has been considered as independent of the second, and again, the second as independent of the first: incidentally noting its relations to the third. Here we have to treat of the two in combination. Instead of observing how from the chief, little above the rest, there is, under certain conditions, evolved the absolute ruler, entirely subordinating the select few and the many; and instead of observing how, under other conditions, the select few become an oligarchy tolerating no supreme man, and keeping the multitude in subjection; we have now to observe the cases in which there is established a cooperation between the first and the second.

After chieftainship has become settled, the chief continues to have sundry reasons for acting in concert with his head men. It is needful to conciliate them; it is needful to get their advice and willing assistance; and, in serious matters, it is desirable to divide responsibility with them. Hence the prevalence of consultative assemblies. In Samoa, “the chief of the village and the heads of families formed, and still form, the legislative body of the place.” Among the Fulahs, “before undertaking anything important or declaring war, the king [of Rabbah] is obliged to summon a council of Mallams and the principal people.” Of the Mandingo states we read that “in all affairs of importance, the king calls an assembly of the principal men, or elders, by whose counsels he is directed.” And such cases might be multiplied indefinitely.

That we may understand the essential nature of this institution, and that we may see why, as it evolves, it assumes the characters it does, we must once more go back to the beginning.

§ 491. Evidence coming from many peoples in all times, shows that the consultative body is, at the outset, nothing more than a council of war. It is in the open-air meeting of armed men, that the cluster of leaders is first seen performing that deliberative function in respect of military measures, which is subsequently extended to other measures. Long after its deliberations have become more general in their scope, there survive traces of this origin.

In Rome, where the king was above all things the general, and where the senators, as the heads of clans, were, at the outset, war-chiefs, the burgesses were habitually, when called together, addressed as “spear-men:” there survived the title which was naturally given to them when they were present as listeners at war-councils. So during later days in Italy, when the small republics grew up. Describing the assembling of “citizens at the sound of a great bell, to concert together the means of their common defence,” Sismondi says —“this meeting of all the men of the State capable of bearing arms, was called a Parliament.” Concerning the gatherings of the Poles in early times we read:—“Such assemblies, before the establishment of a senate, and while the kings were limited in power, were of frequent occurrence, and…were attended by all who bore arms;” and at a later stage “the comitia paludata, which assembled during an interregnum, consisted of the whole body of nobles, who attended in the open plain, armed and equipped as if for battle.” In Hungary, too, up to the beginning of the sixteenth century, “les seigneurs, à cheval et armés do pied en cap comme pour aller en guerre, se réunissaient dans le champ de courses de Rakos, près de Pesth, et là discutaient en plain air les affaires publiques.” Again, “the supreme political council is the nation in arms,” says Stubbs of the primitive Germans; and though, during the Merovingian period, the popular power declined, yet “under Chlodovech and his immediate successors, the People assembled in arms had a real participation in the resolutions of the king.” Even now the custom of going weapon in hand, is maintained where the primitive political form remains. “To the present day,” writes M. de Laveleye, “the inhabitants of the outer Rhodes of Appenzell come to the general assembly, one year at Hundwyl and the other at Trogen, each carrying in his hand an old sword or ancient rapier of the middle ages.” Mr. Freeman, too, was witness to a like annual gathering in Uri, where those who joined to elect their chief magistrate, and to deliberate, came armed.

It may, indeed, be alleged that in early unsettled times, the carrying of weapons by each freeman was needful for personal safety; especially when a place of meeting far from his home had to be reached. But there is evidence that though this continued to be a cause for going prepared for fight, it was not by itself a sufficient cause. While we read of the ancient Scandinavians that “all freemen capable of bearing arms were admitted” to the national assembly, and that after his election from “among the descendants of the sacred stock,” “the new sovereign was elevated amidst the clash of arms and the shouts of the multitude;” we also read that “nobody, not even the king or his champions, were allowed to come armed to the assizes.”

Even apart from such evidence, there is ample reason to infer that the council of war originated the consultative body, and gave outlines to its structure. Defence against enemies was everywhere the need which first prompted joint deliberation. For other purposes individual action, or action in small parties, might suffice; but for insuring the general safety, combined action of the whole horde or tribe was necessary; and to secure this combined action must have been the primary motive for a political gathering. Moreover, certain constitutional traits of early assemblies among the civilized, point to councils of war as having initiated them. If we ask what must happen when the predominant men of a tribe debate military measures in presence of the rest, the reply is that in the absence of a developed political organization, the assent of the rest to any decision must be obtained before it can be acted upon; and the like must at first happen when many tribes are united. As Gibbon says of the diet of the Tartars, formed of chiefs of tribes and their martial trains, “the monarch who reviews the strength, must consult the inclination, of an armed people.” Even if, under such conditions, the ruling few could impose their will on the many, armed like themselves, it would be impolitic to do so; since success in war would be endangered by dissension. Hence would arise the usage of putting to the surrounding warriors, the question whether they agreed to the course which the council of chiefs had decided upon. There would grow up a form such as that which had become established for governmental purposes at large among the early Romans, whose king or general, asked the assembled burgesses or “spear-men,” whether they approved of the proposal made; or like that ascribed by Tacitus to the primitive Germans, who, now with murmurs and now with brandishing of spears, rejected or accepted the suggestions of their leaders. Moreover, there would naturally come just that restricted expression of popular opinion which we are told of. The Roman burgesses were allowed to answer only “yes” or “no” to any question put to them; and this is exactly the simple answer which the chief and head warriors would require from the rest of the warriors when war or peace were the alternatives. A kindred restriction existed among the Spartans. In addition to the senate and co-ordinate kings, there was “an Ekklesia or public assembly of citizens, convened for the purpose of approving or rejecting propositions submitted to them, with little or no liberty of discussion”—a usage quite explicable if we assume that in the Homeric agora, from which the Spartan constitution descended, the assembled chiefs had to gain the assent of their followers before important actions could be undertaken.

Concluding, then, that war originates political deliberation, and that the select body which especially carries on this deliberation first takes shape on occasions when the public safety has to be provided for, we shall be prepared the better to understand the traits which characterize the consultative body in later stages of its development.

§ 492. Already we have seen that at the outset the militant class was of necessity the land-owning class. In the savage tribe there are no owners of the tract occupied, save the warriors who use it in common for hunting. During pastoral life good regions for cattle-feeding are jointly held against intruders by force of arms. And where the agricultural stage has been reached, communal possession, family possession, and individual possession, have from time to time to be defended by the sword. Hence, as was shown, the fact that in early stages the bearing of arms and the holding of land habitually go together.

While, as among hunting peoples, land continues to be held in common, the contrasts which arise between the few and the many, are such only as result from actual or supposed personal superiority of one kind or other. It is true that, as pointed out, differences of wealth, in the shape of chattels, boats, slaves, &c., cause some class-differentiations; and that thus, even before private land-owning begins, quantity of possessions aids in distinguishing the governing from the governed. When the pastoral state is arrived at and the patriarchal type established, such ownership as there is vests in the eldest son of the eldest; or if, as Sir Henry Maine says, he is to be considered as trustee for the group, still his trusteeship joins with his military headship in giving him supremacy. At a later stage, when lands come to be occupied by settled families and communities, and land-ownership gains definiteness, this union of traits in each head of a group becomes more marked; and, as was shown when treating of the differentiation of nobles from freemen, several influences conspire to give the eldest son of the eldest, superiority in extent of landed possessions, as well as in degree of power. Nor is this fundamental relation changed when a nobility of service replaces a nobility of birth, and when, as presently happens, the adherents of a conquering invader are rewarded by portions of the subjugated territory. Throughout, the tendency continues to be for the class of military superiors to be identical with the class of large landowners.

It follows, then, that beginning with the assemblage of armed freemen, all of them holding land individually or in groups, whose council of leaders, deliberating in presence of the rest, are distinguished only as being the most capable warriors, there will, through frequent wars and progressing consolidations, be produced a state in which this council of leaders becomes further distinguished by the greater estates, and consequent greater powers, of its members. Becoming more and more contrasted with the armed freemen at large, the consultative body will tend gradually to subordinate it, and, eventually separating itself, will acquire independence.

The growth of this temporary council of war in which the king, acting as general, summons to give their advice the leaders of his forces, into the permanent consultative body in which the king, in his capacity of ruler, presides over the deliberations of the same men on public affairs at large, is exemplified in various parts of the world. The consultative body is everywhere composed of minor chiefs, or heads of clans, or feudal lords, in whom the military and civil rule of local groups is habitually joined with wide possessions; and the examples frequently exhibit this composition on both a small and a large scale—both locally and generally. A rude and early form of the arrangement is shown in Africa. We read of the Kaffirs that “every chief chooses from among his most wealthy subjects five or six, who act as counsellors to him…the great council of the king is composed of the chiefs of particular kraals.” A Bechuana tribe “generally includes a number of towns or villages, each having its distinct head, under whom there are a number of subordinate chiefs,” who “all acknowledge the supremacy of the principal one. His power, though very great and in some instances despotic, is nevertheless controlled by the minor chiefs, who in their pichos or pitshos, their parliament, or public meetings, use the greatest plainness of speech in exposing what they consider culpable or lax in his government.” Of the Wanyamwezi, Burton says that the Sultan is “surrounded by a council varying from two to a score of chiefs and elders… His authority is circumscribed by a rude balance of power; the chiefs around him can probably bring as many warriors into the field as he can.” Similarly in Ashantee. “The caboceers and captains…claim to be heard on all questions relating to war and foreign politics. Such matters are considered in a general assembly; and the king sometimes finds it prudent to yield to the views and urgent representations of the majority.” From the ancient American states, too, instances may be cited. In Mexico “general assemblies were presided over by the king every eighty days. They came to these meetings from all parts of the country;” and then we read, further, that the highest rank of nobility, the Teuctli, “took precedence of all others in the senate, both in the order of sitting and voting:” showing what was the composition of the senate. It was so, too, with the Central Americans of Vera Paz. “Though the supreme rule was exercised by a king, there were inferior lords as his coadjutors, who mostly were titled lords and vassals; they formed the royal council…and joined the king in his palace as often as they were called upon.” Turning to Europe, mention may first be made of ancient Poland. Originally formed of independent tribes, “each governed by its own kinaz, or judge, whom age or reputed wisdom had raised to that dignity,” and each led in war by a temporary voivod or captain, these tribes had, in the course of that compounding and re-compounding which wars produced, differentiated into classes of nobles and serfs, over whom was an elected king. Of the organization which existed before the king lost his power, we are told that—

“Though each of these palatines, bishops, and barons, could thus advise his sovereign, the formation of a regular senate was slow, and completed only when experience had proved its utility. At first, the only subjects on which the monarch deliberated with his barons related to war: what he originally granted through courtesy, or through diffidence in himself, or with a view to lessen his responsibility in case of failure, they eventually claimed as a right.”

So, too, during internal wars and wars against Rome, the primitive Germanic tribes, once semi-nomadic and but slightly organized, passing through the stage in which armed chiefs and freemen periodically assembled for deliberations on war and other matters, evolved a kindred structure. In Carolingian days the great political gathering of the year was simultaneous with the great military levy; and the military element entered into the foreground. Armed service being the essential thing, and questions of peace and war being habitually dominant, it resulted that all freemen, while under obligation to attend, had also a right to be present at the assembly and to listen to the deliberations. And then concerning a later period, as Hallam writes—

“In all German principalities a form of limited monarchy prevaled, reflecting, on a reduced scale, the general constitution of the Empire. As the Emperors shared their legislative sovereignty with the diet, so all the princes who belonged to that assembly had their own provincial states, composed of their feudal vassals and of their mediate towns within their territory.”

In France, too, provincial estates existed for local rule; and there were consultative assemblies of general scope. Thus an “ordinance of 1228, respecting the heretics of Languedoc, is rendered with the advice of our great men and prudhommes;” and one “of 1246, concerning levies and redemptions in Anjou and Maine,” says that “having called around us, at Orleans, the barons and great men of the said counties, and having held attentive counsel with them,” &c.

To meet the probable criticism that no notice has been taken of the ecclesiastics usually included in the consultative body, it is needful to point out that due recognition of them does not involve any essential change in the account above given. Though modern usages lead us to think of the priestclass as distinct from the warrior-class, yet it was not originally distinct. With the truth that habitually in militant societies, the king is at once commander-in-chief and high priest, carrying out in both capacities the dictates of his deity, we may join the truth that the subordinate priest is usually a direct or indirect aider of the wars thus supposed to be divinely prompted. In illustration of the one truth may be cited the fact that before going to war, Radama, king of Madagascar, “acting as priest as well as general, sacrificed a cock and a heifer, and offered a prayer at the tomb of Andria-Masina, his most renowned ancestor.” And in illustration of the other truth may be cited the fact that among the Hebrews, whose priests accompanied the army to battle, we read of Samuel, a priest from childhood upwards, as conveying to Saul God’s command to “smite Amalek,” and as having himself hewed Agag in pieces. More or less active participation in war by priests we everywhere find in savage and semi-civilized societies; as among the Dakotas, Mundrucus, Abipones, Khonds, whose priests decide on the time for war, or give the signal for attack; as among the Tahitians, whose priests “bore arms, and marched with the warriors to battle;” as among the Mexicans, whose priests, the habitual instigators of wars, accompanied their idols in front of the army, and “sacrificed the first taken prisoners at once;” as among the ancient Egyptians, of whom we-read that “the priest of a god was often a military or naval commander.” And the naturalness of the connexion thus common in rude and in ancient societies, is shown by its revival in later societies, notwithstanding an adverse creed. After Christianity had passed out of its early non-political stage into the stage in which it became a State-religion, its priests, during actively militant periods, re-acquired the primitive militant character. “By the middle of the eighth century [in France], regular military service on the part of the clergy was already fully developed.” In the early feudal period, bishops, abbots, and priors, became feudal lords, with all the powers and responsibilities attaching to their positions. They had bodies of troops in their pay, took towns and fortresses, sustained sieges, led or sent troops in aid of kings. And Orderic, in 1094, describes the priests as leading their parishioners to battle, and the abbots their vassals. Though in recent times Church dignitaries do not actively participate in war, yet their advisatory function respecting it—often prompting rather than restraining—has not even now ceased; as among ourselves was lately shown in the vote of the bishops, who, with one exception, approved the invasion of Afghanistan.

That the consultative body habitually includes ecclesiastics, does not, therefore, conflict with the statement that, beginning as a war-council, it grows into a permanent assembly of minor military heads.

§ 493. Under a different form, there is here partially repeated what was set forth when treating of oligarchies: the difference arising from inclusion of the king as a co-operative factor. Moreover, much that was before said respecting the influence of war in narrowing oligarchies, applies to that narrowing of the primitive consultative assembly by which there is produced from it a body of land-owning military nobles. But the consolidation of small societies into large ones effected by war, brings other influences which join in working this result.

In early assemblies of men similarly armed, it must happen that though the inferior many will recognize that authority of the superior few which is due to their leaderships as warriors, to their clan-headships, or to their supposed supernatural descent; yet the superior few, conscious that they are no match for the inferior many in a physical contest, will be obliged to treat their opinions with some deference—will not be able completely to monopolize power. But as fast as there progresses that class-differentiation before described, and as fast as the superior few acquire better weapons than the inferior many, or, as among various ancient peoples, have warchariots, or, as in mediæval Europe, wear coats of mail or plate armour and are mounted on horses, they, feeling their advantage, will pay less respect to the opinions of the many. And the habit of ignoring their opinions will be followed by the habit of regarding any expression of their opinions as an impertinence.

This usurpation will be furthered by the growth of those bodies of armed dependents with which the superior few surround themselves—mercenaries and others, who, while unconnected with the common freemen, are bound by fealty to their employers. These, too, with better weapons and defensive appliances than the mass, will be led to regard them with contempt and to aid in subordinating them.

Not only on the occasions of general assemblies, but from day to day in their respective localities, the increasing powers of the nobles thus caused, will tend to reduce the freemen more and more to the rank of dependents; and especially so where the military service of such nobles to their king is dispensed with or allowed to lapse, as happened in Denmark about the thirteenth century.

“The free peasantry, who were originally independent proprietors of the soil, and had an equal suffrage with the highest nobles in the land, were thus compelled to seek the protection of these powerful lords, and to come under vassalage to some neighbouring Herremand, or bishop, or convent. The provincial diets, or Lands-Ting, were gradually superseded by the general national parliament of the Dannehof, Adel-Ting, or Herredag; the latter being exclusively composed of the princes, prelates, and other great men of the kingdom.… As the influence of the peasantry had declined, whilst the burghers did not yet enjoy any share of political power, the constitution, although disjointed and fluctuating, was rapidly approaching the form it ultimately assumed; that of a feudal and sacerdotal oligarchy.”

Another influence conducing to loss of power by the armed freemen, and gain of power by the armed chiefs who form the consultative body, follows that widening of the occupied area which goes along with the compounding and re-compounding of societies. As Richter remarks of the Merovingian period, “under Chlodovech and his immediate successors, the people assembled in arms had a real participation in the resolutions of the king. But, with the increasing size of the kingdom, the meeting of the entire people became impossible:” only those who lived near the appointed places could attend. Two facts, one already given under another head, may be named as illustrating this effect. “The greatest national council in Madagascar is an assembly of the people of the capital, and the heads of the provinces, districts, towns, villages,” &c.; and, speaking of the English Witenagemot, Mr. Freeman says—“sometimes we find direct mention of the presence of large and popular classes of men, as the citizens of London or Winchester:” the implication in both cases being that all freemen had a right to attend, but that only those on the spot could avail themselves of the right. This cause for restriction, which is commented upon by Mr. Freeman, operates in several ways. When a kingdom has become large, the actual cost of a journey to the place fixed for the meeting, is too great to be borne by a man who owns but a few acres. Further, there is the indirect cost entailed by loss of time, which, to one who personally labours or superintends labour, is serious. Again, there is the danger, which in turbulent times is considerable, save to those who go with bodies of armed retainers. And, obviously, these determent causes must tell where, for the above reasons, the incentives to attend have become small.

Yet one more cause co-operates. An assembly of all the armed freemen included in a large society, could they be gathered, would be prevented from taking active part in the proceedings, both by its size and by its lack of organization. A multitude consisting of those who have come from scattered points over a wide country, mostly unknown to one another, unable to hold previous communication and therefore without plans, as well as without leaders, cannot cope with the relatively small but well-organized body of those having common ideas and acting in concert.

Nor should there be omitted the fact that when the causes above named have conspired to decrease the attendance of men in arms who live afar off, and when there grows up the usage of summoning the more important among them, it naturally happens that in course of time the receipt of a summons becomes the authority for attendance, and the absence of a summons becomes equivalent to the absence of a right to attend.

Here, then, are several influences, all directly or indirectly consequent upon war, which join in differentiating the consultative body from the mass of armed freemen out of which it arises.

§ 494. Given the ruler, and given the consultative body thus arising, there remains to ask—What are the causes of change in their relative powers? Always between these two authorities there must be a struggle—each trying to subordinate the other. Under what conditions, then, is the king enabled to over-ride the consultative body? and under what conditions is the consultative body enabled to over-ride the king?

A belief in the superhuman nature of the king gives him an immense advantage in the contest for supremacy. If he is god-descended, open opposition to his will by his advisers is out of the question; and members of his council, singly or in combination, dare do no more than tender humble advice. Moreover, if the line of succession is so settled that there rarely or never occur occasions on which the king has to be elected by the chief men, so that they have no opportunity of choosing one who will conform to their wishes, they are further debarred from maintaining any authority. Hence, habitually, we do not find consultative bodies having an independent status in the despotically-governed countries of the East, ancient or modern. Though we read of the Egyptian king that “he appears to have been attended in war by the council of the thirty, composed apparently of privy councillors, scribes, and high officers of state,” the implication is that the members of this council were functionaries, having such powers only as the king deputed to them. Similarly in Babylonia and Assyria, attendants and others who performed the duties of ministers and advisers to the god-descended rulers, did not form established assemblies for deliberative purposes. In ancient Persia, too, there was a like condition. The hereditary king, almost sacred and bearing extravagant titles, though subject to some check from princes and nobles of royal blood who were leaders of the army, and who tendered advice, was not under the restraint of a constituted body of them. Throughout the history of Japan down to our own time, a kindred state of things existed. The Daimios were required to reside in the capital during prescribed intervals, as a precaution against insubordination; but they were never, while there, called together to take any share in the government. So too is it in China. We are told that, “although there is nominally no deliberative or advisatory body in the Chinese government, and nothing really analogous to a congress, parliament, or tiers état, still necessity compels the emperor to consult and advise with some of his officers.” Nor does Europe fail to yield us evidence of like meaning. I do not refer only to the case of Russia, but more especially to the case of France during the time when monarchy had assumed an absolute form. In the age when divines like Bossuet taught that “the king is accountable to no one…the whole state is in him, and the will of the whole people is contained in his”— in the age when the king (Louis XIV.), “imbued with the idea of his omnipotence and divine mission,” “was regarded by his subjects with adoration,” he “had extinguished and absorbed even the minutest trace, idea, and recollection of all other authority except that which emanated from himself alone.” Along with establishment of hereditary succession and acquirement of semi-divine character, such power of the other estates as existed in early days had disappered.

Conversely, there are cases showing that where the king has never had, or does not preserve, the prestige of supposed descent from a god, and where he continues to be elective, the power of the consultative body is apt to over-ride the royal power, and eventually to suppress it. The first to be named is that of Rome. Originally “the king convoked the senate when he pleased, and laid before it his questions; no senator might declare his opinion unasked; still less might the senate meet without being summoned.” But here, where the king, though regarded as having divine approval was not held to be of divine descent, and where, though usually nominated by a predecessor he was sometimes practically elected by the senate, and always submitted to the form of popular assent, the consultative body presently became supreme. “The senate had in course of time been converted from a corporation intended merely to advise the magistrates, into a board commanding the magistrates and self-governing.” Afterwards “the right of nominating and cancelling senators originally belonging to the magistrates was withdrawn from them;” and finally, “the irremovable character and life-tenure of the members of the ruling order who obtained seat and vote, was definitely consolidated:” the oligarchic constitution became pronounced. The history of Poland yields another example. After unions of simply-governed tribes had produced small states, and generated a nobility; and after these small states had been united; there arose a kingship. At first elective, as kingships habitually are, this continued so—never became hereditary. On the occasion of each election out of the royal clan, there was an opportunity of choosing for king one whose character the turbulent nobles thought fittest for their own purposes; and hence it resulted that the power of the kingship decayed. Eventually—

“Of the three orders into which the state was divided, the king, though his authority had been anciently despotic, was the least important. His dignity was unaccompanied with power; he was merely the president of the senate, and the chief judge of the republic.”

And then there is the instance furnished by Scandinavia, already named in another relation. Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish kings were originally elective; and though, on sundry occasions, hereditary succession became for a time the usage, there were repeated lapses into the elective form, with the result that predominance was gained by the feudal chieftains and prelates forming the consultative body.

§ 495. The second element in the tri-une political structure is thus, like the first, developed by militancy. By this the ruler is eventually separated from all below him; and by this the superior few are gradually integrated into a deliberative body, separated from the inferior many.

That the council of war, formed of leading warriors who debate in presence of their followers, is the germ out of which the consultative body arises, is implied by the survival of usages which show that a political gathering is originally a gathering of armed men. In harmony with this implication are such facts as that after a comparatively settled state has been reached, the power of the assembled people is limited to accepting or rejecting the proposals made, and that the members of the consultative body, summoned by the ruler, who is also the general, give their opinions only when invited by him to do so.

Nor do we lack clues to the process by which the primitive war-council grows, consolidates, and separates itself. Within the warrior class, which is also the land-owning class, war produces increasing differences of wealth as well as increasing differences of status; so that, along with the compounding and re-compounding of groups, brought about by war, the military leaders come to be distinguished as large land-owners and local rulers. Hence members of the consultative body become contrasted with the freemen at large, not only as leading warriors are contrasted with their followers, but still more as men of wealth and authority.

This increasing contrast between the second and third elements of the tri-une political structure, ends in separation when, in course of time, war consolidates large territories. Armed freemen scattered over a wide area are deterred from attending the periodic assemblies by cost of travel, by cost of time, by danger, and also by the experience that multitudes of men unprepared and unorganized, are helpless in presence of an organized few, better armed and mounted, and with bands of retainers. So that passing through a time during which only the armed freemen living near the place of meeting attend, there comes a time when even these, not being summoned, are considered as having no right to attend; and thus the consultative body becomes completely differentiated.

Changes in the relative powers of the ruler and the consultative body are determined by obvious causes. If the king retains or acquires the repute of supernatural descent or authority, and the law of hereditary succession is so settled as to exclude election, those who might else have formed a consultative body having co-ordinate power, become simply appointed advisers. But if the king has not the prestige of supposed sacred origin or commission, the consultative body retains power; and if the king continues to be elective, it is liable to become an oligarchy.

Of course it is not alleged that all consultative bodies have been generated in the way described, or are constituted in like manner. Societies broken up by wars or dissolved by revolutions, may preserve so little of their primitive organizations that there remain no classes of the kinds out of which such consultative bodies as those described arise. Or, as we see in our own colonies, societies may have been formed in ways which have not fostered classes of land-owning militant chiefs, and therefore do not furnish the elements out of which consultative bodies, in their primitive shapes, are composed. Under conditions of these kinds the assemblies answering to them, so far as may be, in position and function, arise under the influence of tradition or example; and in default of men of the original kind are formed of others—generally, however, of those who by position, seniority, or previous official experience, are more eminent than those forming popular assemblies. It is only to what may be called normal consultative bodies which grow up during that compounding and recompounding of small societies into larger ones which war effects, that the foregoing account applies; and the senates, or superior chambers, which come into existence under later and more complex conditions, may be considered as homologous to them in function and composition so far only as the new conditions permit.

CHAPTER IX.

Representative bodies.

§ 496. Amid the varieties and complexities of political organization, it has proved not impossible to discern the ways in which simple political heads and compound political heads are evolved; and how, under certain conditions, the two become united as ruler and consultative body. But to see how a representative body arises, proves to be more difficult; for both process and product are more variable. Less specific results must content us.

As hitherto, so again, we must go back to the beginning to take up the clue. Out of that earliest stage of the savage horde in which there is no supremacy beyond that of the man whose strength, or courage, or cunning, gives him predominance, the first step is to the practice of election—deliberate choice of a leader in war. About the conducting of elections in rude tribes, travellers say little: probably the methods used are various. But we have accounts of elections as they were made by European peoples during early times. In ancient Scandinavia, the chief of a province chosen by the assembled people, was thereupon “elevated amidst the clash of arms and the shouts of the multitude;” and among the ancient Germans he was raised on a shield, as also was the popularly-approved Merovingian king. Recalling, as this ceremony does, the chairing of a newly-elected member of parliament up to recent times; and reminding us that originally an election was by show of hands; we are taught that the choice of a representative was once identical with the choice of a chief. Our House of Commons had its roots in local gatherings like those in which uncivilized tribes select head warriors.

Besides conscious selection there occurs among rude peoples selection by lot. The Samoans, for instance, by spinning a cocoa-nut, which, on coming to rest, points to one of the surrounding persons, thereby single him out. Early historic races supply illustrations; as the Hebrews in the affair of Saul and Jonathan, and as the Homeric Greeks when fixing on a champion to fight with Hector. In both these last cases there was belief in supernatural interference: the lot was supposed to be divinely determined. And probably at the outset, choice by lot for political purposes among the Athenians, and for military purposes among the Romans, as also in later times the use of the lot for choosing deputies in some of the Italian republics, and in Spain (as in Leon during the twelfth century) was influenced by a kindred belief; though doubtless the desire to give equal chances to rich and poor, or else to assign without dispute a mission which was onerous or dangerous, entered into the motive or was even predominant. Here, however, the fact to be noted is that this mode of choice which plays a part in representation, may also be traced back to the usages of primitive peoples.

So, too, we find foreshadowed the process of delegation. Groups of men who open negociations, or who make their submission, or who send tribute, habitually appoint certain of their number to act for them. The method is, indeed, necessitated; since a tribe cannot well perform such actions bodily. Whence, too, it appears that the sending of representatives is, at the first stage, originated by causes like those which re-originate it at a later stage. For as the will of the tribe, readily displayed in its assemblies to its own members, cannot be thus displayed to other tribes, but must, in respect of inter-tribal matters be communicated by deputy; so in a large nation, the people of each locality, able to govern themselves locally, but unable to join the peoples of remote localities in deliberations which concern them all, have to send one or more persons to express their will. Distance in both cases changes direct utterance of the popular voice into indirect utterance.

Before observing the conditions under which this singling out of individuals in one or other way for specified duties, comes to be used in the formation of a representative body, we must exclude classes of cases not relevant to our present inquiry. Though representation as ordinarily conceived, and as here to be dealth with, is associated with a popular form of government, yet the connexion between them is not a necessary one. In some places and times representation has co-existed with entire exclusion of the masses from power. In Poland, both before and after the so-called republican form was assumed, the central diet, in addition to senators nominated by the king, was composed of nobles elected in provincial assemblies of nobles: the people at large being powerless and mostly serfs. In Hungary, too, up to recent times, the privileged class which, even after it had been greatly enlarged reached only “one-twentieth of the adult males,” alone formed the basis of representation. “A Hungarian county before the reforms of 1848 might be called a direct aristocratical republic:” all members of the noble class having a right to attend the local assembly and vote in appointing a representative noble to the general diet; but members of the inferior classes having no shares in the government.

Other representative bodies than those of an exclusively aristocratic kind, must be named as not falling within the scope of this chapter. As Duruy remarks—“Antiquity was not as ignorant as is supposed of the representative system.… Each Roman province had its general assemblies.… Thus the Lycians possessed a true legislative body formed by the deputies of their twenty-three towns.” “This assembly had even executive functions.” And Gaul, Spain, all the eastern provinces, and Greece, had like assemblies. But, little as is known of them, the inference is tolerably safe that these were but distantly allied in genesis and position to the bodies we now distinguish as representative. Nor are we concerned with those senates and councils elected by different divisions of a town-population (such as were variously formed in the Italian republics) which served simply as agents whose doings were subject to the directly-expressed approval or disapproval of the assembled citizens. Here we must limit ourselves to that kind of representative body which arises in communities occupying areas so large that their members are obliged to exercise by deputy such powers as they possess; and, further, we have to deal exclusively with cases in which the assembled deputies do not replace pre-existing political agencies but cooperate with them.

It will be well to set out by observing, more distinctly than we have hitherto done, what part of the primitive political structure it is from which the representative body, as thus conceived, originates.

§ 497. Broadly, this question is tacitly answered by the contents of preceding chapters. For if, on occasions of public deliberation, the primitive horde spontaneously divides into the inferior many and the superior few, among whom some one is most influential; and if, in the course of that compounding and re-compounding of groups which war brings about, the recognized war-chief develops into the king, while the superior few become the consultative body formed of minor military leaders; it follows that any third co-ordinate political power must be either the mass of the inferior itself, or else some agency acting on its behalf. Truism though this may be called, it is needful here to set it down; since, before inquiring under what circumstances the growth of a representative system follows the growth of popular power, we have to recognize the relation between the two.

The undistinguished mass, retaining a latent supremacy in simple societies not yet politically organized, though it is brought under restraint as fast as war establishes obedience, and conquests produce class-differentiations, tends, when occasion permits, to re-assert itself. The sentiments and beliefs, organized and transmitted, which, during certain stages of social evolution, lead the many to submit to the few, come, under some circumstances, to be traversed by other sentiments and beliefs. Passing references have been in several places made to these. Here we must consider them seriatim and more at length.

One factor in the development of the patriarchal group during the pastoral stage, was shown to be the fostering of subordination to its head by war; since, continually, there survived the groups in which subordination was greatest. But if so, the implication is that, conversely, cessation of war tends to diminish subordination. Members of the compound family, originally living together and fighting together, become less strongly bound in proportion as they have less frequently to cooperate for joint defence under their head. Hence, the more peaceful the state the more independent become the multiplying divisions forming the gens, the phratry, and the tribe. With progress of industrial life arises greater freedom of action—especially among the distantly-related members of the group.

So must it be, too, in a feudally-governed assemblage. While standing quarrels with neighbours are ever leading to local battles—while bodies of men-at-arms are kept ready, and vassals are from time to time summoned to fight—while, as a concomitant of military service, acts of homage are insisted upon; there is maintained a regimental subjection running through the group. But as fast as aggressions and counter-aggressions become less frequent, the carrying of arms becomes less needful; there is less occasion for periodic expressions of fealty; and there is an increase of daily actions performed without direction of a superior, whence a fostering of individuality of character.

These changes are furthered by the decline of superstitious beliefs concerning the natures of head men, general and local. As before shown, the ascription of superhuman origin, or supernatural power, to the king, greatly strengthens his hands; and where the chiefs of component groups have a sacredness due to nearness in blood to the semi-divine ancestor worshipped by all, or are members of an invading, god-descended race, their authority over dependents is largely enforced. By implication then, whatever undermines ancestorworship, and the system of beliefs accompanying it, favours the growth of popular power. Doubtless the spread of Christianity over Europe, by diminishing the prestige of governors, major and minor, prepared the way for greater independence of the governed.

These causes have relatively small effects where the people are scattered. In rural districts the authority of political superiors is weakened with comparative slowness. Even after peace has become habitual, and local heads have lost their semi-sacred characters, there cling to them awe-inspiring traditions: they are not of ordinary flesh and blood. Wealth which, through long ages, distinguishes the nobleman exclusively, gives him both actual power and the power arising from display. Fixed literally or practically, as the several grades of his inferiors are during days when locomotion is difficult, he long remains for them the solitary sample of a great man. Others are only known by hearsay; he is known by experience. Inspection is easily maintained by him over dependent and sub-dependent people; and the disrespectful or rebellious, if they cannot be punished overtly, can be deprived of occupation, or otherwise so hindered in their lives that they must submit or migrate. Down to our own day, the behaviour of peasants and farmers to the squire, is suggestive of the strong restraints which kept rural populations in semi-servile states after primitive controlling influences had died away.

Converse effects may be expected under converse conditions; namely, where large numbers become closely aggregated. Even if such large numbers are formed of groups severally subordinate to heads of clans, or to feudal lords, sundry influences combine to diminish subordination. When there are present in the same place many superiors to whom respectively their dependents owe obedience, these superiors tend to dwarf one another. The power of no one is so imposing if there are daily seen others who make like displays. Further, when groups of dependents are mingled, supervision cannot be so well maintained by their heads. And this which hinders the exercise of control, facilitates combination among those to be controlled: conspiracy is made easier and detection of it more difficult. Again, jealous of one another, as these heads of clustered groups are likely in such circumstances to be, they are prompted severally to strengthen themselves; and to this end, competing for popularity, are tempted to relax the restraints over their inferiors and to give protection to inferiors ill-used by other heads. Still more are their powers undermined when the assemblage includes many aliens. As before implied, this above all causes favours the growth of popular power. In proportion as immigrants, detached from the gentile or feudal divisions they severally belong to, become numerous, they weaken the structures of the divisions among which they live. Such organization as these strangers fall into is certain to be a looser one; and their influence acts as a dissolvent to the surrounding organizations.

And here we are brought back to the truth which cannot be too much insisted upon, that growth of popular power is in all ways associated with trading activities. For only by trading activities can many people be brought to live in close contact. Physical necessities maintain the wide dispersion of a rural population; while physical necessities impel the gathering together of those who are commercially occupied. Evidence from various countries and times shows that periodic gatherings for religious rites, or other public purposes, furnish opportunities for buying and selling, which are habitually utilized; and this connexion between the assembling of many people and the exchanging of commodities, which first shows itself at intervals, becomes a permanent connexion where many people become permanently assembled—where a town grows up in the neighbourhood of a temple, or around a stronghold, or in a place favoured by local circumstances for some manufacture.

Industrial development further aids popular emancipation by generating an order of men whose power, derived from their wealth, competes with, and begins in some cases to exceed, the power of those who previously were alone wealthy—the men of rank. While this initiates a conflict which diminishes the influence previously exercised by patriarchal or feudal heads only, it also initiates a milder form of subordination. Rising, as the rich trader habitually does in early times, from the non-privileged class, the relation between him and those under him is one from which there is excluded the idea of personal subjection. In proportion as the industrial activities grow predominant, they make familiar a connexion between employer and employed which differs from the relation between master and slave, or lord and vassal, by not including allegiance. Under earlier conditions there does not exist the idea of detached individual life—life which neither receives protection from a clan-head or feudal superior, nor is carried on in obedience to him. But in town populations, made up largely of refugees, who either become small traders or are employed by great ones, the experience of a relatively-independent life becomes common, and the conception of it clear.

And the form of cooperation distinctive of the industrial state thus arising, fosters the feelings and thoughts appropriate to popular power. In daily usage there is a balancing of claims; and the idea of equity is, generation after generation, made more definite. The relations between employer and employed, and between buyer and seller, can be maintained only on condition that the obligations on either side are fulfilled. Where they are not fulfilled the relation lapses, and leaves outstanding those relations in which they are fulfilled. Commercial success and growth have thus, as their inevitable concomitants, the maintenance of the respective rights of those concerned, and a strengthening consciousness of them.

In brief, then, dissolving in various ways the old relation of status, and substituting the new relation of contract (to use Sir Henry Maine’s antithesis), progressing industrialism brings together masses of people who by their circumstances are enabled, and by their discipline prompted, to modify the political organization which militancy has bequeathed.

§ 498. It is common to speak of free forms of government as having been initiated by happy accidents. Antagonisms between different powers in the State, or different factions, have caused one or other of them to bid for popular support, with the result of increasing popular power. The king’s jealousy of the aristocracy has induced him to enlist the sympathies of the people (sometimes serfs but more frequently citizens) and therefore to favour them; or, otherwise, the people have profited by alliance with the aristocracy in resisting royal tyrannies and exactions. Doubtless, the facts admit of being thus presented. With conflict there habitually goes the desire for allies; and throughout mediæval Europe while the struggles between monarchs and barons were chronic, the support of the towns was important. Germany, France, Spain, Hungary, furnish illustrations.

But it is an error to regard occurrences of these kinds as causes of popular power. They are to be regarded rather as the conditions under which the causes take effect. These incidental weakenings of pre-existing institutions, do but furnish opportunities for the action of the pent-up force which is ready to work political changes. Three factors in this force may be distinguished:—the relative mass of those composing the industrial communities as distinguished from those embodied in the older forms of organization; the permanent sentiments and ideas produced in them by their mode of life; and the temporary emotions roused by special acts of oppression or by distress. Let us observe the cooperation of these.

Two instances, occurring first in order of time, are furnished by the Athenian democracy. The condition which preceded the Solonian legislation, was one of violent dissension among political factions; and there was also “a general mutiny of the poorer population against the rich, resulting from misery combined with oppression.” The more extensive diffusion of power effected by the revolution which Kleisthenes brought about, occurred under kindred circumstances. The relatively-detached population of immigrant traders, had so greatly increased between the time of Solon and that of Kleisthenes, that the four original tribes forming the population of Attica had to be replaced by ten. And then this augmented mass, largely composed of men not under clan-discipline, and therefore less easily restrained by the ruling classes, forced itself into predominance at a time when the ruling classes were divided. Though it is said that Kleisthenes “being vanquished in a party contest with his rival, took the people into partnership”—though the change is represented as being one thus personally initiated; yet in the absence of that voluminous popular will which had long been growing, the political re-organization could not have been made, or, if made, could not have been maintained. The remark which Grote quotes from Aristotle, “that seditions are generated by great causes but out of small incidents,” if altered slightly by writing “political changes” instead of “seditions,” fully applies. For clearly, once having been enabled to assert itself, this popular power could not be forthwith excluded. Kleisthenes could not under such circumstances have imposed on so large a mass of men arrangements at variance with their wishes. Practically, therefore, it was the growing industrial power which then produced, and thereafter preserved, the democratic organization. Turning to Italy, we first note that the establishment of the small republics, referred to in a preceding chapter as having been simultaneous with the decay of imperial power, may here be again referred to more specifically as having been simultaneous with that conflict of authorities which caused this decay. Says Sismondi, “the war of investitures gave wing to this universal spirit of liberty and patriotism in all the municipalities of Lombardy, of Piedmont, Venetia, Romagna, and Tuscany.” In other words, while the struggle between Emperor and Pope absorbed the strength of both, it became possible for the people to assert themselves. And at a later time, Florence furnished an instance similar in nature if somewhat different in form.

“At the moment when ‘Florence expelled the Medici, that republic was bandied between three different parties.’ Savonarola took advantage of this state of affairs to urge that the people should reserve their power to themselves, and exercise it by a council. His proposition was agreed to, and this ‘council was declared sovereign.’”

In the case of Spain, again, popular power increased during the troubles accompanying the minority of Fernando IV.; and of the periodic assemblies subsequently formed by deputies from certain towns (which met without authority of the Government) we read that—

“The desire of the Government to frustrate the aspiring schemes of the Infantes de la Cerda, and their numerous adherents, made the attachment of these assemblies indispensable. The disputes during the minority of Alfonso XI. more than ever favoured the pretensions of the third estate. Each of the candidates for the regency paid assiduous court to the municipal authorities, in the hope of obtaining the necessary suffrages.”

And how all this was consequent on industrial development, appears in the facts that many, if not most, of these associated towns, had arisen during a preceding age by the re-colonization of regions desolated during the prolonged contests of Moors and Christians; and that these “poblaciones,” or communities of colonists, which, scattered over these vast tracts grew into prosperous towns, had been formed of serfs and artizans to whom various privileges, including those of self-government, were given by royal charter. With which examples must be joined the example familiar to all. For in England it was during the struggle between king and barons, when the factions were nearly balanced, and when the town-populations had been by trade so far increased that their aid was important, that they came to play a noticeable part, first as allies in war and afterwards as sharers in government. It cannot be doubted that when summoning to the parliament of 1265, not only knights of the shire but also deputies from cities and boroughs, Simon of Montfort was prompted by the desire to strengthen himself against the royal party supported by the Pope. And whether he sought thus to increase his adherents, or to obtain larger pecuniary means, or both, the implication equally is that the urban populations had become a relatively-important part of the nation. This interpretation harmonizes with subsequent events. For though the representation of towns afterwards lapsed, yet it shortly revived, and in 1295 became established. As Hume remarks, such an institution could not “have attained to so vigorous a growth and have flourished in the midst of such tempests and convulsions,” unless it had been one, “for which the general state of things had already prepared the nation:” the truth here to be added being that this “general state of things” was the augmented mass, and hence augmented influence, of the free industrial communities.

Confirmation is supplied by cases showing that power gained by the people during times when the regal and aristocratic powers are diminished by dissension, is lost again if, while the old organization recovers its stability and activity, industrial growth does not make proportionate progress. Spain, or more strictly Castile, yields an example. Such share in government as was acquired by those industrial communities which grew up during the colonization of the waste lands, became, in the space of a few reigns characterized by successful wars and resulting consolidations, scarcely more than nominal.

§ 499. It is instructive to note how that primary incentive to cooperation which initiates social union at large, continues afterwards to initiate special unions within the general union. For just as external militancy sets up and carries on the organization of the whole, so does internal militancy sets up and carry on the organization of the parts; even when those parts, industrial in their activities, are intrinsically non-militant. On looking into their histories we find that the increasing clusters of people who, forming towns, lead lives essentially distinguished by continuous exchange of services under agreement, develop their governmental structures during their chronic antagonisms with the surrounding militant clusters.

We see, first, that these settlements of traders, growing important and obtaining royal charters, were by doing this placed in quasi-militant positions—became in modified ways holders of fiefs from their king, and had the associated responsibilities. Habitually they paid dues of sundry kinds equivalent in general nature to those paid by feudal tenants; and, like them, they were liable to military service. In Spanish chartered towns “this was absolutely due from every inhabitant;” and “every man of a certain property was bound to serve on horseback or pay a fixed sum.” In France “in the charters of incorporation which towns received, the number of troops required was usually expressed.” And in the chartered royal burghs of Scotland “every burgess was a direct vassal of the crown.”

Next observe that industrial towns (usually formed by coalescence of pre-existing rural divisions rendered populous because local circumstances favoured some form of trade, and presently becoming places of hiding for fugitives, and of security for escaped serfs) began to stand toward the small feudally-governed groups around them, in relations like those in which these stood to one another: competing with them for adherents, and often fortifying themselves. Sometimes, too, as in France in the 13th century, towns became suzerains, while communes had the right of war in numerous cases; and in England in early days the maritime towns carried on wars with one another.

Again there is the fact that these cities and boroughs, which by royal charter or otherwise had acquired powers of administering their own affairs, habitually formed within themselves combinations for protective purposes. In England, in Spain, in France, in Germany (sometimes with assent of the king, sometimes notwithstanding his reluctance as in England, sometimes in defiance of him, as in ancient Holland) there rose up gilds, which, having their roots in the natural unions among related persons, presently gave origin to frith-gilds and merchant-gilds; and these, defensive in their relations to one another, formed the bases of that municipal organization which carried on the general defence against aggressing nobles.

Once more, in countries where the antagonisms between these industrial communities and the surrounding militant communities were violent and chronic, the industrial communities combined to defend themselves. In Spain the “poblaciones,” which when they flourished and grew into large places were invaded and robbed by adjacent feudal lords, formed leagues for mutual protection; and at a later date there arose, under like needs, more extensive confederations of cities and towns, which, under severe penalties for non-fulfilment of the obligations, bound themselves to aid one another in resisting aggressions, whether by king or nobles. In Germany, too, we have the perpetual alliance entered into by sixty towns on the Rhine in 1255, when, during the troubles that followed the deposition of the Emperor Frederic II., the tyranny of the nobles had become insupportable. And we have the kindred unions formed under like incentives in Holland and in France. So that, both in small and in large ways, the industrial groups here and there growing up within a nation, are, in many cases, forced by local antagonisms partially to assume activities and structures like those which the nation as a whole is forced to assume in its antagonisms with nations around.

Here the implication chiefly concerning us is that if industrialism is thus checked by a return to militancy, the growth of popular power is arrested. Especially where, as happened in the Italian republics, defensive war passes into offensive war, and there grows up an ambition to conquer other territories and towns, the free form of government proper to industrial life, becomes qualified by, if it does not revert to, the coercive form accompanying militant life. Or where, as happened in Spain, the feuds between towns and nobles continue through long periods, the rise of free institutions is arrested; since, under such conditions, there can be neither that commercial prosperity which produces large urban populations, nor a cultivation of the associated mental nature. Whence it may be inferred that the growth of popular power accompanying industrial growth in England, was largely due to the comparatively small amount of this warfare between the industrial groups and the feudal groups around them. The effects of the trading life were less interfered with; and the local governing centres, urban and rural, were not prevented from uniting to restrain the general centre.

§ 500. And now let us consider more specifically how the governmental influence of the people is acquired. By the histories of organizations of whatever kind, we are shown that the purpose originally subserved by some arrangement is not always the purpose eventually subserved. It is so here. Assent to obligations rather than assertion of rights has ordinarily initiated the increase of popular power. Even the transformation effected by the revolution of Kleisthenes at Athens, took the form of a re-distribution of tribes and demes for purposes of taxation and military service. In Rome, too, that enlargement of the oligarchy which occurred under Servius Tullius, had for its ostensible motive the imposing on plebeians of obligations which up to that time had been borne exclusively by patricians. But we shall best understand this primitive relation between duty and power, in which the duty is original and the power derived, by going back once more to the beginning.

For when we remember that the primitive political assembly is essentially a war-council, formed of leaders who debate in presence of their followers; and when we remember that in early stages all free adult males, being warriors, are called on to join in defensive or offensive actions; we see that, originally, the attendance of the armed freemen is in pursuance of the military service to which they are bound, and that such power as, when thus assembled, they exercise, is incidental. Later stages yield clear proofs that this is the normal order; for it recurs where, after a political dissolution, political organization begins de novo. Instance the Italian cities, in which, as we have seen, the original “parliaments,” summoned for defence by the tocsin, included all the men capable of bearing arms: the obligation to fight coming first, and the right to vote coming second. And, naturally, this duty of attendance survives when the primitive assemblage assumes other functions than those of a militant kind; as witness the before named fact that among the Scandinavians it was “disreputable for freemen not to attend” the annual assembly; and the further facts that in France the obligation to be present at the hundred-court in the Merovingian period, rested upon all full freemen; that in the Carolingian period “non-attendance is punished by fines”; that in England the lower freemen, as well as others, were “bound to attend the shire-moot and hundred-moot” under penalty of “large fines for neglect of duty;” and that in the thirteenth century in Holland, when the burghers were assembled for public purposes, “anyone ringing the town bell, except by general consent, and anyone not appearing when it tolls, are liable to a fine.”

After recognizing this primitive relation between popular duty and popular power, we shall more clearly understand the relation as it re-appears when popular power begins to revive along with the growth of industrialism. For here, again, the fact meets us that the obligation is primary and the power secondary. It is mainly as furnishing aid to the ruler, generally for war purposes, that the deputies from towns begin to share in public affairs. There recurs under a complex form, that which at an early stage we see in a simple form. Let us pause a moment to observe the transition.

As was shown when treating of Ceremonial Institutions, the revenues of rulers are derived, at first wholly and afterwards partially, from presents. The occasions on which assemblies are called together to discuss public affairs (mainly military operations for which supplies are needed) naturally become the occasions on which the expected gifts are offered and received. When by successful wars the militant king consolidates small societies into a large one—when there comes an “increase of royal power in intension as the kingdom increases in extension” (to quote the luminous expression of Prof. Stubbs); and when, as a consequence, the quasivoluntary gifts become more and more compulsory, though still retaining such names as donum and auxilium; it generally happens that these exactions, passing a bearable limit, lead to resistance: at first passive and in extreme cases active. If by consequent disturbances the royal power is much weakened, the restoration of order, if it takes place; is likely to take place on the understanding that, with such modifications as may be needful, the primitive system of voluntary gifts shall be re-established. Thus, when in Spain the death of Sancho I. was followed by political dissensions, the deputies from thirty-two places, who assembled at Valladolid, decided that demands made by the king beyond the customary dues should be answered by death of the messenger; and the need for gaining the adhesion of the towns during the conflict with a pretender, led to an apparent toleration of this attitude. Similarly in the next century, during disputes as to the regency while Alphonso XI. was a minor, the cortes at Burgos demanded that the towns should “contribute nothing beyond what was prescribed in” their charters. Kindred causes wrought kindred results in France; as when, by an insurrectionary league, Louis Hutin was obliged to grant charters to the nobles and burgesses of Picardy and of Normandy, renouncing the right of imposing undue exactions; and as when, on sundry occasions, the States-general were assembled for the purpose of reconciling the nation to imposts levied to carry on wars. Nor must its familiarity cause us to omit the instance furnished by our own history, when, after preliminary steps towards that end at St. Alban’s and St. Edmund’s, nobles and people at Runnymede effectually restrained the king from various tyrannies, and, among others, from that of imposing taxes, without the consent of his subjects.

And now what followed from arrangements which, with modifications due to local conditions, were arrived at in several countries under similar circumstances? Evidently when the king, hindered from enforcing unauthorized demands, had to obtain supplies by asking his subjects, or the more powerful of them, his motive for summoning them, or their representatives, became primarily that of getting these supplies. The predominance of this motive for calling together national assemblies, may be inferred from its predominance previously shown in connexion with local assemblies; as instance a writ of Henry I. concerning shire-moots, in which, professing to restore ancient custom, he says—“I will cause those courts to be summoned when I will for my own sovereign necessity, at my pleasure.” To vote money is therefore the primary purpose for which chief men and representatives are assembled.

§ 501. From the ability to prescribe conditions under which money will be voted, grows the ability, and finally the right, to join in legislation. This connexion is vaguely typified in early stages of social evolution. Making gifts and getting redress go together from the beginning. As was said of Gulab Singh, when treating of presents—“even in a crowd one could catch his eye by holding up a rupee and crying out, ‘Maharajah, a petition.’ He would pounce down like a hawk on the money, and, having appropriated it, would patiently hear out the petitioner.”∗ I have in the same place given further examples of this relation between yielding support to the governing agency, and demanding protection from it; and the examples there given may be enforced by such others as that, among ourselves in early days, “the king’s court itself, though the supreme judicature of the kingdom, was open to none that brought not presents to the king,” and that, as shown by the exchequer rolls, every remedy for a grievance or security against aggression had to be paid for by a bribe: a state of things which, as Hume remarks, was paralleled on the Continent.

Such being the original connexion between support of the political head and protection by the political head, the interpretation of the actions of parliamentary bodies, when they arise, becomes clear. Just as in rude assemblies of king, military chiefs, and armed freemen, preserving in large measure the primitive form, as those in France during the Merovingian period, the presentation of gifts went along with the transaction of public business, judicial as well as military—just as in our own ancient shire-moot, local government, including the administration of justice, was accompanied by the furnishing of ships and the payment of “a composition for the feorm-fultum, or sustentation of the king;” so when, after successful resistance to excess of royal power, there came assemblies of nobles and representatives summoned by the king, there re-appeared, on a higher platform, these simultaneous demands for money on the one side and for justice on the other. We may assume it as certain that with an average humanity, the conflicting egoisms of those concerned will be the main factors; and that on each side the aim will be to give as little, and get as much, as circumstances allow. France, Spain, and England, yield examples which unite in showing this.

When Charles V. of France, in 1357, dismissing the States-general for alleged encroachments on his rights, raised money by further debasing the coinage, and caused a sedition in Paris which endangered his life, there was, three months later, a re-convocation of the States, in which the petitions of the former assembly were acceded to, while a subsidy for war purposes was voted. And of an assembled States-general in 1366, Hallam writes:—“The necessity of restoring the coinage is strongly represented as the grand condition upon which they consented to tax the people, who had been long defrauded by the base money of Philip the Fair and his successors.” Again, in Spain, the incorporated towns, made liable by their charters only for certain payments and services, had continually to resist unauthorized demands; while the king, continually promising not to take more than their legal and customary dues, were continually breaking their promises. In 1328 Alfonso XI. “bound himself not to exact from his people, or cause them to pay, any tax, either partial or general, not hitherto established by law, without the previous grant of all the deputies convened by the Cortes.” And how little such pledges were kept is shown by the fact that, in 1393, the Cortes who made a grant to Henry III., joined the condition that—

“He should swear before one of the arch bishops not to take or demand any money, service, or loan, or anything else of the cities and towns, nor of individuals belonging to them, on any pretence of necessity, until the three estates of the kingdom should first be duly summoned and assembled in Cortes according to ancient usage.”

Similarly in England during the time when parliamentary power was being established. While, with national consolidation, the royal authority had been approaching to absoluteness, there had been, by reaction, arising that resistance which, resulting in the Great Charter, subsequently initiated the prolonged struggle between the king, trying to break through its restraints, and his subjects trying to maintain and to strengthen them. The twelfth article of the Charter having promised that no scutage or aid save those which were established should be imposed without consent of the national council, there perpetually recurred, both before and after the expansion of Parliament, endeavours on the king’s part to get supplies without redressing grievances, and endeavours on the part of Parliament to make the voting of supplies contingent on fulfilment of promises to redress grievances.

On the issue of this struggle depended the establishment of popular power; as we are shown by comparing the histories of the French and Spanish Parliaments with that of the English Parliament. Quotations above given prove that the Cortes originally established, and for a time maintained, the right to comply with or to refuse the king’s requests for money, and to impose their conditions; but they eventually failed to get their conditions fulfilled.

“In the struggling condition of Spanish liberty under Charles I., the crown began to neglect answering the petitions of Cortes, or to use unsatisfactory generalities of expression. This gave rise to many remonstrances. The deputies insisted, in 1523, on having answers before they granted money. They repeated the same contention in 1525, and obtained a general law, inserted in the Recopilacion, enacting that the king should answer all their petitions before he dissolved the assembly. This, however, was disregarded as before.”

And thereafter rapidly went on the decay of parliamentary power. Different in form but the same in nature, was the change which occurred in France. Having at one time, as shown above, made the granting of money conditional on the obtainment of justice, the States-general was induced to surrender its restraining powers. Charles VII.—

“obtained from the States of the royal domains which met in 1439 that they [the tailles] should be declared permanent, and from 1444 he levied them as such, i.e. uninterruptedly and without previous vote.… The permanence of the tailles was extended to the provinces annexed to the crown, but these preserved the right of voting them by their provincial estates.… In the hands of Charles VII., and Louis XI., the royal impost tended to be freed from all control.… Its amount increased more and more.”

Whence, as related by Dareste, it resulted that “when the tailles and aides…had been made permanent, the convocation of the States-general ceased to be necessary. They were little more than show assemblies.” But in our own case, during the century succeeding the final establishment of Parliament, frequent struggles necessitated by royal evasions, trickeries, and falsehoods, brought increasing power to withhold supplies until petitions had been attended to.

Admitting that this issue was furthered by the conflicts of political factions, which diminished the coercive power of the king, the truth to be emphasized is that the increase of a free industrial population was its fundamental cause. The calling together knights of the shire, representing the class of small landowners, which preceded on several occasions the calling together deputies from towns, implied the growing importance of this class as one from which money was to be raised; and when deputies from towns were summoned to the Parliament of 1295, the form of summons shows that the motive was to get pecuniary aid from portions of the population which had become relatively considerable and rich. Already the king had on more than one occasion sent special agents to shires and boroughs to raise subsidies from them for his wars. Already he had assembled provincial councils formed of representatives from cities, boroughs, and market-towns, that he might ask them for votes of money. And when the great Parliament was called together, the reason set forth in the writs was that wars with Wales, Scotland, and France, were endangering the realm: the implication being that the necessity for obtaining supplies led to this recognition of the towns as well as the counties.

So too was it in Scotland. The first known occasion on which representatives from burghs entered into political action, was when there was urgent need for pecuniary help from all sources; namely, “at Cambuskenneth on the 15th day of July, 1326, when Bruce claimed from his people a revenue to meet the expenses of his glorious war and the necessities of the States, which was granted to the monarch by the earls, barons, burgesses, and free tenants, in full parliament assembled.”

In which cases, while we are again shown that the obligation is original and the power derived, we are also shown that it is the increasing mass of those who carry on life by voluntary cooperation instead of compulsory cooperation—partly the rural class of small freeholders and still more the urban class of traders—which initiates popular representation.

§ 502. Still there remains the question—How does the representative body become separate from the consultative body? Retaining the primitive character of councils of war, national assemblies were in the beginning mixed. The different “arms,” as the estates were called in Spain, originally formed a single body. Knights of the shire when first summoned, acting on behalf of numerous smaller tenants of the king owing military service, sat and voted with the greater tenants. Standing, as towns did at the outset, very much in the position of fiefs, those who represented them were not unallied in legal status to feudal chiefs; and, at first assembling with these, in some cases remained united with them, as appears to have been habitually the case in France and Spain. Under what circumstances, then, do the consultative and representative bodies differentiate? The question is one to which there seems no very satisfactory answer.

Quite early we may see foreshadowed a tendency to part, determined by unlikeness of functions. During the Carolingian period in France, there were two annual gatherings: a larger which all the armed freemen had a right to attend, and a smaller formed of the greater personages deliberating on more special affairs.

“If the weather was fine, all this passed in the open air; if not, in distinct buildings.… When the lay and ecclesiastical lords were…separated from the multitude, it remained in their option to sit together, or separately, according to the affairs of which they had to treat.”

And that unlikeness of functions is a cause of separation we find evidence in other places and times. Describing the armed national assemblies of the Hungarians, originally mixed, Lévy writes:—“La dernière réunion de ce genre eut lieu quelque temps avant la bataille de Mohacs; mais bientôt après, la diète se divisa en deux chambres: la table des magnats et la table des députés.” In Scotland, again, in 1367—8, the three estates having met, and wishing, for reasons of economy and convenience, to be excused from their functions as soon as possible, “elected certain persons to hold Parliament, who were divided into two bodies, one for the general affairs of the king and kingdom, and another, a smaller division, for acting as judges upon appeals.” In the case of England we find that though, in the writs calling together Simon of Montfort’s Parliament, no distinction was made between magnates and deputies, yet when, a generation after, Parliament became established, the writs made a distinction: “counsel is deliberately mentioned in the invitation to the magnates, action and consent in the invitation to representatives.” Indeed it is clear that since the earlier-formed body of magnates was habitually summoned for consultative purposes, especially military, while the representatives afterwards added were summoned only to grant money, there existed from the outset a cause for separation. Sundry influences conspired to produce it. Difference of language, still to a considerable extent persisting and impeding joint debate, furnished a reason. Then there was the effect of class-feeling, of which we have definite proof. Though they were in the same assembly, the deputies from boroughs “sat apart both from the barons and knights, who disdained to mix with such mean personages;” and probably the deputies themselves, little at ease in presence of imposing superiors, preferred sitting separately. Moreover, it was customary for the several estates to submit to taxes in different proportions; and this tended to entail consultation among the members of each by themselves. Finally, we read that “after they [the deputies] had given their consent to the taxes required of them, their business being then finished, they separated, even though the Parliament still continued to sit, and to canvass the national business.” In which last fact we are clearly shown that though aided by other causes, unlikeness of duties was the essential cause which at length produced a permanent separation between the representative body and the consultative body.

Thus at first of little account, and growing in power only because the free portion of the community occupied in production and distribution grew in mass and importance, so that its petitions, treated with increasing respect and more frequently yielded to, began to originate legislation, the representative body came to be that part of the governing agency which more and more expresses the sentiments and ideas of industrialism. While the monarch and upper house are the products of that ancients régime of compulsory cooperation the spirit of which they still manifest, though in decreasing degrees, the lower house is the product of that modern régime of voluntary cooperation which is replacing it; and in an increasing degree, this lower house carries out the wishes of people habituated to a daily life regulated by contract instead of by status.

§ 503. To prevent misconception it must be remarked, before summing up, that an account of representative bodies which have been in modern days all at once created, is not here called for. Colonial legislatures, consciously framed in conformity with traditions brought from the mother-country, illustrate the genesis of senatorial and representative bodies in but a restricted sense: showing, as they do, how the structures of parent societies reproduce themselves in derived societies, so far as materials and circumstances allow; but not showing how these structures were originated. Still less need we notice those cases in which, after revolutions, peoples who have lived under despotisms are led by imitation suddenly to establish representative bodies. Here we are concerned only with the gradual evolution of such bodies.

Originally supreme, though passive, the third element in the tri-une political structure, subjected more and more as militant activity develops an appropriate organization, begins to re-acquire power when war ceases to be chronic. Subordination relaxes as fast as it becomes less imperative. Awe of the ruler, local or general, and accompanying manifestations of fealty, decrease; and especially so where the prestige of supernatural origin dies out. Where the life is rural the old relations long survive in qualified forms; but clans or feudal groups clustered together in towns, mingled with numbers of unattached immigrants, become in various ways less controllable; while by their habits their members are educated to increasing independence. The small industrial groups thus growing up within a nation consolidated and organized by militancy, can but gradually diverge in nature from the rest. For a long time they remain partially militant in their structures and in their relations to other parts of the community. At first chartered towns stand substantially on the footing of fiefs, paying feudal dues and owing military service. They develop, within themselves, unions, more or less coercive in character, for mutual protection. They often carry on wars with adjacent nobles and with one another. They not uncommonly form leagues for joint defence. And where the semi-militancy of towns is maintained, industrial development and accompanying increase of popular power are arrested.

But where circumstances have favoured manufacturing and commercial activities, and growth of the population devoted to them, this, as it becomes a large component of the society, makes its influence felt. The primary obligation to render money and service to the head of the State, often reluctantly complied with, is resisted when the exactions are great; and resistance causes conciliatory measures. There comes asking assent rather than resort to compulsion. If absence of violent local antagonisms permits, then on occasions when the political head, rousing anger by injustice, is also weakened by defections, there comes cooperation with other classes of oppressed subjects. Men originally delegated simply that they may authorize imposed burdens, are enabled as the power behind them increases, more and more firmly to insist on conditions; and the growing practice of yielding to their petitions as a means to obtaining their aid, initiates the practice of letting them share in legislation.

Finally, in virtue of the general law of organization that difference of functions entails differentiation and division of the parts performing them, there comes a separation. At first summoned to the national assembly for purposes partially like and partially unlike those of its other members, the elected members show a segregating tendency, which, where the industrial portion of the community continues to gain power, ends in the formation of a representative body distinct from the original consultative body.

CHAPTER X.

Ministries.

§ 504. Men chosen by the ruler to help him, we meet with in early stages of social evolution—men whose positions and duties are then vague and variable. At the outset there is nothing to determine the selection of helpers save considerations of safety, or convenience, or liking. Hence we find ministers of quite different origins.

Relationship leads to the choice in some places and times; as with the Bachassins, among whom the chief’s brother conveys his orders and sees them executed; as of old in Japan, where the Emperor’s son was prime minister and the daimios had cadets of their families as counsellors; as in ancient Egypt where “the principal officers of the Court or administration appear to have been at the earliest period the relatives” of the king. Though in some cases family-jealousy excludes kinsmen from these places of authority, in other cases family-feeling and trust, and the belief that the desire for family-predominance will ensure loyalty, lead to the employment of brothers, cousins, nephews, &c.

More general appears to be the unobtrusive growth of personal attendants, or household servants, into servants of State. Those who are constantly in contact with the ruler have opportunities of aiding or hindering intercourse with him, of biassing him by their statements, and of helping or impeding the execution of his commands; and they thus gain power, and tend to become advising and executive agents. From the earliest times onwards we meet with illustrations. In ancient Egypt—

“The office of fan-bearer to the king was a highly honourable post, which none but the royal princes, or the sons of the first nobility, were permitted to hold. These constituted a principal part of his staff; and in the field they either attended on the monarch to receive his orders, or were despatched to have the command of a division.”

In Assyria the attendants who thus rose to power were not relatives, but were habitually eunuchs; and the like happened in Persia. “In the later times, the eunuchs acquired a vast political authority, and appear to have then filled all the chief offices of state. They were the king’s advisers in the palace, and his generals in the field.” Kindred illustrations are furnished by the West. Shown among the primitive Germans, the tendency for officers of the king’s household to become political officers, was conspicuous in the Merovingian period: the seneschal, the marshal, the chamberlain, grew into public functionaries. Down to the later feudal period in France, the public and household administrations of the king were still undistinguished. So was it in old English times. According to Kemble, the four great officers of the Court and Household were the Hræge Thegn (servant of the wardrobe); the Steallere and Horsthegn (first, Master of the Horse, then General of the Household Troops, then Constable or Grand Marshal); the Discthegn (or thane of the table— afterwards Seneschal); the Butler (perhaps Byrele or Scenca). The like held under the conquering Normans; and it holds in a measure down to the present time.

Besides relatives and servants, friends are naturally in some cases fixed on by the ruler to get him information, give him advice, and carry out his orders Among ancient examples the Hebrews furnish one. Remarking that in the small kingdoms around Israel in earlier times, it was customary for the ruler to have a single friend to aid him, Ewald points out that under David, with a larger State and a more complex administration, “the different departments are necessarily more subdivided, and new offices of ‘friends’ or ministers of the king assume a sort of independent importance.” Like needs produced kindred effects in the first days of the Roman empire. Duruy writes:—

“Augustus, who called himself a plain Roman citizen, could not, like a king, have ministers, but only friends who aided him with their experience. … The multitude of questions…induced him afterwards to distribute the chief affairs regularly among his friends. … This council was gradually organized.”

And then in later days and other regions, we see that out of the group known as “friends of the king” there are often some, or there is one, in whom confidence is reposed and to whom power is deputed. In Russia the relation of Lefort to Peter the Great, in Spain that of Albuquerque to Don Pedro, and among ourselves that of Gaveston to Edward II., sufficiently illustrate the genesis of ministerial power out of the power gained by personal friendship and consequent trust. And then with instances of this kind are to be joined instances showing how attachment between the sexes comes into play. Such facts as that after Albuquerque fell, all offices about the court were filled by relations of the king’s mistress; that in France under Louis XV. “the only visible government was that by women” from Mme. de Prie to Mme. du Barry; and that in Russia during the reign of Catherine II., her successive lovers acquired political power, and became some of them prime ministers and practically autocrats; will serve adequately to recall a tendency habitually displayed.

Regarded as able to help the ruler supernaturally as well as naturally, the priest is apt to become his chosen ally and agent. The Tahitians may be named as having a prime minister who is also chief priest. In Africa, among the Eggarahs (Inland Negroes), a priest “officiates as minister of war.” How political power of priests results from their supposed influence with the gods, is well shown by the case of Mizteca (part of Mexico).

“The high-priests were highly respected by the caziques, who did nothing without their advice; they commanded armies, and ruled the state, reproved vice, and when there was no amendment, threatened famine, plague, war, and the anger of the gods.”

Other places in ancient America—Guatemala, Vera Paz, &c., furnish kindred facts; as do historic peoples from the earliest times downwards. In ancient Egypt the king’s advisers mostly belonged to the priestly caste. Under the Roman emperors ecclesiastics became ministers and secret counsellors. In mediæval days Dominican and Franciscan monks held the highest political offices. And in later times the connexion was shown by the ministerial power of cardinals, or, as in Russia, of patriarchs. This acquisition of leading political functions by functionaries of the church, has in some cases special causes in addition to the general cause. A royal chaplain (uniting the character of personal attendant with that of priest) stands in a relation to the king which almost necessitates acquisition of great influence. Moreover, being fitted by culture for secretarial work, he falls naturally into certain State-duties; as he did into those of chancellor among ourselves in early days.

Recognizing the fact that at the outset, these administrative agents, whatever further characters they have, are usually also soldiers, and are included in the primitive consultative body, of which they become specialized parts, we may say of them generally, that they are relatives, friends, attendants, priests, brought into close relations with the ruler, out of whom he is obliged by stress of business to choose assistants; and that at first vague and irregular, their appointments and functions gradually acquire definiteness.

§ 505. Amid much that is too indefinite for generalization, a few tolerably constant traits of ministers, and traits of ministries, may be briefly indicated.

That a trusted agent commonly acquires power over his principal, is a fact everywhere observable. Even in a gentleman’s household a head servant of long standing not unfrequently gains such influence, that his master is in various matters guided by him—almost controlled by him. With chief officers of State it has often been the same; and especially where hereditary succession is well established. A ruler who, young, or idle, or pleasure-seeking, performs his duties by proxy, or who, through personal liking or entire trust, is led to transfer his authority, presently becomes so ill informed concerning affairs, or so unused to modes of procedure, as to be almost powerless in the hands of his agent.

Where hereditary succession pervades the society and fixes its organization, there is sometimes shown a tendency to inheritance, not of the rulership only, but also of these offices which grow into deputy-rulerships. Under the Norman dukes before the Conquest, the places of seneschal, cup-bearer, constable, and chamberlain, were “hereditary grand serjeanties.” In England in Henry II.’s time, succession to the posts of high-steward, constable, chamberlain, and butler, followed from father to son in the houses of Leicester, Miles, Vere, and Albini. So was it with the Scotch in King David’s reign: “the offices of great steward and high constable had become hereditary in the families of Stewart and De Morevil.” And then in Japan the principle of inheritance of ministerial position had so established itself as to insure ministerial supremacy. In these cases there come into play influences and methods like those which conduce to hereditary kingship. When, as during the later feudal period in France, we see efforts made to fix in certain lines of descent, the chief offices of State (efforts which, in that case, sometimes succeeded and sometimes failed), we are shown that ministers use the facilities which their places give them, to establish succession to these places in their own families, in the same way that early kings do. Just as, during the stage of elective kingship, the king is apt to use the advantages derived from his position to secure the throne for his son, by getting him chosen during his own life, and thus to initiate hereditary succession; so the minister who has been allowed to acquire great power, is prompted to employ it for the purpose of establishing a monopoly of his office among his own descendants. Generally his desire is effectually antagonized by that of the ruler; but where, as in Japan, seclusion of the ruler impedes his hold on affairs, this desire of the minister takes effect.

Since there ever tend to arise these struggles between a king and one or more of those who serve him—since his efforts to maintain his authority are sometimes so far defeated that he is obliged to accept assistants who are hereditary; there results a jealousy of those whose interests are at variance with his own, and an endeavour to protect himself by excluding them from office. There comes a motive for choosing as ministers men who, having no children, cannot found houses which, growing powerful, may compete for supremacy; and hence in certain times the preference for celibate priests. Or, from allied motives, men neither clerical nor military are selected; as in France, where in the 15th and 17th centuries, members of the bourgeois class came to be preferred. A policy like that shown in the befriending of towns as a set-off against feudal chiefs, prompted the official employment of citizens instead of nobles. Under other conditions, again, there is a jealousy of ecclesiastics and an exclusion of them from power. For generations before the time of Peter the Great, the head of the church in Russia was “considered the second person in the empire; he was consulted on all State-affairs, until at length, their [his] spiritual pride outrunning all decorum, venturing upon, and even attempting to control the sovereign power, it was resolved by Peter the Great to abolish the patriarchate altogether.” Between Louis XIV. and the Pope, there was a conflict for supremacy over the French church; and on more occasions than one, certain of the clergy encouraged “the absolutist pretensions of the Roman Pontiffs:” the result being that such prelates as held office were those who subordinated clerical to political aims, and that by Louis XIV., after 1661, “no churchman was allowed to touch the great engine of State-government.” Among ourselves may be traced, if less clearly, the working of kindred tendencies. During the 15th century, “clergymen were secretaries of government, the privy seals, cabinet councillors, treasurers of the crown, ambassadors, commissioners to open parliament, and to Scotland; presidents of the king’s council, supervisors of the royal works, chancellors, keepers of the records, the masters of the rolls, &c.;” but with antagonism to the Church came partial, and in later days complete, disappearance of the clerical element from the administration. Under Henry VIII. the King’s secretary, and afterwards the chancellor, ceased to be ecclesiastics; while of the council of sixteen executors appointed to govern during the minority of his son, three only were in holy orders. And though, during a subsequent temporary revival of papal influence, there was a re-acquirement of ministerial position by priests, they afterwards again ceased to be chosen.

Whether a ruler is able to prevent high offices of State from being held by men whose ambitions and interests he fears, depends, however, upon his acquirement of adequate predominance. A class which, being powerful, is excluded as therefore dangerous, being still more powerful, cannot be excluded; and is apt either to monopolize administrative functions or practically to dictate the choice of ministers. In ancient Egypt, where the priesthood was pre-eminent in influence, the administration was chiefly officered by its members, with the result that at one time there was usurpation of the kingship by priests; and the days during which the Catholic church was most powerful throughout Europe, were the days during which high political posts were very generally held by prelates. In other cases supremacy of the military class is shown; as in Japan, where soldiers have habitually been the ministers and practically usurpers; as in feudal England, when Henry III. was obliged by the barons to accept Hugh Le Despenser as chief justiciary, and other nominees as officers of his household; or as when, in the East, down to our own time, changes of ministry are insisted. on by the soldiery. Naturally in respect of these administrative offices, as in respect of all other places of power, there arises a conflict between the chiefs of the warrior class, who are the agents of the terrestrial ruler, and the chiefs of the clerical class, who profess to be agents of the celestial ruler; and the predominance of the one of the other class, is in many cases implied by the extent to which it fills the chief offices of State.

Such facts show us that where there has not yet been established any regular process for making the chief advisers and agents of the ruler into authorized exponents of public opinion, there nevertheless occurs an irregular process by which some congruity is maintained between the actions of these deputy rulers and the will of the community; or, at any rate, the will of that part which can express its will.

§ 506. Were elaboration desirable, and collection of the needful data less difficult, a good deal might here be added respecting the development of ministries.

Of course it could, in multitudinous cases, be shown how, beginning as simple, they become compound—the solitary assistant to the chief, helping him in all ways, developing into the numerous great officers of the king, dividing among them duties which have become extensive and involved. Along with this differentiation of a ministry might also be traced the integration of it that takes place under certain conditions: the observable change being from a state in which the departmental officers separately take from the ruler their instructions, to a state in which they form an incorporated body. There might be pursued an inquiry respecting the conditions under which this incorporated body gains power and accompanying responsibility; with the probable result of showing that development of an active executive council, and accompanying reduction of the original executive head to an automatic state, characterizes that representative form of government proper to the industrial type. But while results neither definite nor important are likely to be reached, the reaching of such as are promised would necessitate investigation at once tedious and unsatisfactory.

For such ends as are here in view, it suffices to recognize the general facts above set forth. As the political head is at first but a slightly-distinguished member of the group—now a chief whose private life and resources are like those of any other warrior, now a patriarch or a feudal lord who, becoming predominant over other patriarchs or other feudal lords, at first lives like them on revenues derived from private possessions—so the assistants of the political head take their rise from the personal connexions, friends, servants, around him: they are those who stand to him in private relations of blood, or liking, or service. With the extension of territory, the increase of affairs, and the growth of classes having special interests, there come into play influences which differentiate some of those who surround the ruler into public functionaries, distinguished from members of his family and his household. And these influences, joined with special circumstances, determine the kinds of public men who come into power. Where the absoluteness of the political head is little or not at all restrained, he makes arbitrary choice irrespective of rank, occupation, or origin. If, being predominant, there are nevertheless classes of whom he is jealous, exclusion of these becomes his policy; while if his predominance is inadequate, representatives of such classes are