THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MONTHLY. 



SEPTEMBER. 1881. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



By HEEBEET SPENCEE. 

 IX. REPRESENTATIVE BODIES. 



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 con- 

 sultative 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 clew. 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 travelers are silent : ^^robably 

 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 amid the clash of arms and the shouts of the 

 multitude " ; and among the ancient Germans he was carried on a 

 shield. Recalling, as this ceremony does, the chairing of a newly 

 elected member of Parliament up to recent times, and reminding us 

 that originally among ourselves 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 selec- 

 voL. XIX. 3Y 



