REPRESENTATIVE BODIES. 579 



formed the basis of representation. " A Hungarian county before 

 the reforms of 1848 might be called a direct aristocrat! cal republic, *' 

 all members of the noble class having a right to join the local assem- 

 bly and vote in appointing a representative noble to the general Diet, 

 but the inferior classes having no share in the government. 



Other representative bodies than those of an exclusively aristo- 

 cratic 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 leg- 

 islative body formed by the deputies of their twenty-three towns. 

 . . . This assembly had even executive functions." And Pavia, Gaul, 

 Spain, all the eastern provinces, and Greece, had like assemblies. But, 

 little as is known of them, the inference is tolerablv safe that these 

 were but distantly allied in genesis and position to the bodies we now^ 

 distinguish as representative. Nor are we concerned with governing 

 senates and councils elected by different divisions of a town-popu- 

 lation, such as those which were variously formed in the Italian repub- 

 lics bodies 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 representation 

 which arises in communities occupying areas so large that their mem- 

 bers are obliged to exercise by deputies such powers as they possess ; 

 and, further, we have to deal exclusively with cases in which the 

 assembled deputies do not replace preexisting 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. 



Broadly, this question is tacitly answered by the contents of the 

 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 the compounding and recompounding 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 mili- 

 tary leaders it follows that any third coordinate 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 re- 

 straint as fast as war establishes submission, and conquests produce 



