510 POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



at Herald s College), the court of the constable (no longer 

 extant), the court of the admiral, &c. 



In brief, then, we find proofs that, little trace as its struc 

 ture now shows of such an origin, our complex judicial 

 system, alike in its supreme central parts and in its various 

 small local parts, has evolved by successive changes out of 

 the primitive gathering of people, head men, and chief, 



528. Were further detail desirable, there might here be 

 given an account of police-systems ; showing their evolution 

 from the same primitive triune body whence originate the 

 several organizations delineated in this and preceding chapters. 

 As using force to subdue internal aggressors, police are like 

 soldiers, who use force to subdue external aggressors ; and the 

 two functions, originally one, are not even now quite sepa 

 rated either in their natures or their agents. For besides 

 being so armed that they are in some countries scarcely dis 

 tinguishable from soldiers, and besides being subject to mili 

 tary discipline, the police are, in case of need, seconded by 

 soldiers in the discharging of their duties. To indicate the 

 primitive identity it will suffice to name two facts. During 

 the Merovingian period in France, armed bands of serfs, 

 attached to the king s household and to the households 

 of dukes, were employed both as police and for garrison pur 

 poses ; and in feudal England, the posse comitatus, consisting 

 of all freemen between fifteen and sixty, under command 

 of the sheriff, was the agent for preserving internal peace at 

 the same time that it was available for repelling invasions, 

 though not for foreign service an incipient differentiation 

 between the internal and external defenders which became 

 in course of time more marked. Letting this brief indication 

 suffice, it remains only to sum up the conclusions above 

 reached. 



Evidences of sundry kinds unite in showing that judicial 

 action arid military action, ordinarily having for their common 

 end the rectification of real or alleged wrongs, are closely 



