JUDICIAL AND EXECUTIVE SYSTEMS. 501 



as judges in their respective localities. Perhaps the clearest 

 .illustration is that furnished by Japan, where a long-con 

 tinued and highly-developed military regime, has been 

 throughout associated with the monopoly of judicial func 

 tions by the military class : the apparent reason being that 

 in presence of the god-descended Mikado, supreme in heaven 

 as on earth, the indigenous Shinto religion never developed 

 a divine ruler whose priests acquired, as his agents, an autho 

 rity competing with terrestrial authority. 



But mostly there is extensive delegation of judicial powers 

 to the sacerdotal class, in early stages. We find it among 

 existing uncivilized peoples, as the Kalmucks, whose priests, 

 besides playing a predominant part in the greatest judicial 

 council, exercise local jurisdiction : in the court of each sub 

 ordinate chief, one of the high priests is head judge. Of 

 extinct uncivilized or semi-civilized peoples, may be named 

 the Indians of Yucatan, by whom priests were appointed as 

 judges in certain cases judges who took part in the execu 

 tion of their own sentences. Originally, if not afterwards, the 

 giving of legal decisions was a priestly function in ancient 

 Egypt ; and that the priests were supreme judges among 

 the Hebrews is a familiar fact : the Deuteronoinic law con 

 demning to death any one who disregarded their verdicts. 

 In that general assembly of the ancient Germans which, as 

 we have seen, exercised judicial powers, the priests were 

 prominent ; and, according to Tacitus, in war &quot; none but the 

 priests are permitted to judge offenders, to inflict bonds or 

 stripes; so that chastisement appears not as an act of military 

 discipline, but as the instigation of the god whom they sup 

 pose present with warriors.&quot; In ancient Britain, too, accord 

 ing to Csesar, the druids alone had authority to decide in both 

 civil and criminal cases, and executed their own sentences : 

 the penalty for disobedience to them being excommunication. 

 Grimm tells us that the like held among the Scandinavians. 

 &quot; In their judicial character the priests seem to have exercised 

 u good deal of control over the people ... In Iceland, even 



