578 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tion by lot. The Samoans, for instance, by sj^inning a cocoanut, 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 out- 

 set, 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 pre- 

 dominant. 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 negotiations, or who make their submission, or who 

 send tribute, habitually appoint certain of their number to act on 

 their behalf. The method is, indeed, in such cases necessitated ; ^ 

 since a tribe can not well perform such actions bodily. Whence, too, 

 it appears that the appointing of representatives is, at the first 

 stage, originated by causes like those which reoriginate it at a later 

 stage. For, as the will of the tribe, readily displayed in its assemblies 

 to its own members, can not be thus displayed to other tribes, but 

 must, in respect of inter-tribal matters, be communicated by deputy, 

 so, in a large nation, the peoj^le of each locality, able to govern them- 

 selves locally, but unable to join the peoples of remote localities in 

 deliberations which concern them all, have to send one or more per- 

 sons 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 appointed duties comes to be used 

 in the formation of a rei^resentative body, we must exclude classes of 

 cases not relevant to our present inquiry. Though representation 

 as ordinarily conceived, and as here to be dealt with, is associated 

 with a popular form of government, yet the connection between them 

 is not a necessary one. In some places and times representation has 

 coexisted 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 com- 

 posed 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 



