74 SATURDAY LECTURES. 



progress, legislative functions are assumed by the executive 

 department, and a conflict is waged for supremacy. At 

 last, by various processes, the court is organized. 



Three of these processes must here be mentioned. As 

 states increase in size the business of adjudication becomes 

 so great that proper attention cannot be given to the mul- 

 tiplicity of cases arising. Under these circumstances com- 

 mittees of the assembly are appointed with judicial powers, 

 at first extremely limited but gradually enlarged, until 

 courts are developed. On the other hand, where judicial 

 power has to a greater or less extent been assumed by the 

 executive department, the rulers find themselves over- 

 whelmed with business and appoint subordinates in the first 

 instance to adjudicate specific cases, but gradually the powers 

 of these subordinates are enlarged, until courts are thus 

 established. 



Again, ecclesiastical bodies claiming superior virtue and 

 wisdom sometimes assume to adjudicate, but such adjudica- 

 tion is gradually relegated to specified officers of the body, 

 • and thus ecclesiastical courts are developed. 



The courts originating from the assembly from the ruler 

 and from the ecclesiastical body alike, may be more or less 

 multifarious. When they spring up in the same state their 

 jurisdiction is at first imperfectly defined. Each strives 

 for supremacy, and thus jurisdiction overlaps jurisdiction. 

 This conflict ultimately results in the organization of a S3's- 

 tem of courts integrated in a superior court, and differen- 

 tiated by the establishment of a variety of inferior courts 

 with jurisdiction more carefully defined — the function of tlie 

 inferior courts being controlled and restricted within proper 

 bounds by appeal to the superior. 



Thus, at last, the functions of the primitive assembly, 

 originally legislative, executive, and judicial, are differen- 

 tiated, and the legislature, the ruler, and the court are 

 established. 



THE COURSE OF EVOLUTION OF LAW. 



In the development of the tribe into the nation, conduct 

 develops from extreme simplicity to extreme complexity, 



