284 CAUSES OF DEGENERATIVE EVOLUTION 



with regard to the Forest of Dean and the New 

 Forest. The office of Forest Judge has disappeared, 

 and but few vestiges remain of the courts of attach- 

 ment and Swainmote. Those persons who are con- 

 nected with either the Forest of Dean or the New 

 Forest, meet together still to transact business in 

 connection with them, but these meetings are of no 

 great importance. 



II. TRANSFERENCE OF FUNCTION. 



Instances abound of the transference of a function 

 from one institution to another ; but as a rule, when 

 this change is effected, it is attended by the sup- 

 pression of the old institution. Sometimes, how- 

 ever, this is not the case, and the institution merely 

 atrophies without having been suppressed. 



(1) Republican institutions under the Roman 

 Empire. As instances of this form of degenera- 

 tion take the institutions of the Eoman Eepublic, 

 after the establishment of the Empire or the 

 decadence of the functions formerly discharged 

 by the Privy Council in England, the political 

 functions of which have been transferred to Parlia- 

 ment, and the judicial functions to the Court of 

 Common Pleas and the Court of Exchequer. 1 



(2) Special jurisdiction in England. It is the 



1 De Franqueville, Le Gouvernement et le Parlement brittanique, 

 i., p. 431. 



