REPRESENTATIVE BODIES. 583 



popular support, with the result of increasing popular power. The 

 king's jealousy of the aristocracy has induced him to enlist the sympa- 

 thies of the people sometimes serfs, but more frequently citizens 

 and therefore to favor them ; or, otherwise, the people have profited 

 by alliance with the aristocracy in resisting royal tyrannies and ex- 

 actions. Doubtless, the facts admit of being thus presented. With 

 conflict there habitually goes the desire for allies ; and throughout 

 mediaeval 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 com- 

 posing the industrial communities as distinguished from those embod- 

 ied in the older forms of organization ; the permanent sentiments and 

 ideas produced in them by their mode of life ; and the temporary 

 emotions excited 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 Kleis- 

 thenes 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 van- 

 quished in a party contest with his rival, took the people into partner- 

 ship " 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 reorganization 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 circum- 

 stances have imposed on so large a mass of men arrangements at vari- 



