22 HOUSES AND HOUSE-LIFE OF THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 
ra 
to the Upper Status of barbarism; such, for example, as the Homeric 
Greeks and the Italian tribes of the period of Romulus. A large increase 
in the number of people united in a nation, their establishment in walled 
cities, and the creation of wealth in lands and in flocks and herds, brought 
in the assembly of the people as an instrument of government. The coun- 
cil of chiefs, which still remained, found it necessary, no doubt, through 
popular constraint, to submit the most important public measures to an 
assembly of the people for acceptance or rejection; whence the popular 
assembly. This assembly did not originate measures. It was its function 
to adopt or reject, and its action was final. From its first appearance it 
became a permanent power in the government. The council no longer 
passed important public measures, but became a preconsidering council, 
with power to originate and mature public acts to which the assembly 
alone could give validity. It may be called a government of three powers, 
namely, the preconsidering council, the assembly of the people, and the general. 
This remained until the institution of political society, when, for example, 
among the Athenians, the council of chiefs became the senate, and the 
assembly of the people the ecclesia or popular assembly. The same 
organizations have come down to modern times in the two houses of Par- 
liament, of Congress, and of legislatures. In like manner the office of gen- 
eral military commander, as before stated, was the germ of the office of the 
modern chief executive magistrate. 
Recurring to the tribe, it was limited in the numbers of the people, 
feeble in strength, and poor in resources; but yet a completely organized 
society. It illustrates the condition of mankind in the Lower Status of bar- 
barism. In the Middle Status there was a sensible increase of numbers in 
a tribe, and an improved condition; but with a continuance of gentile 
society without essential change. Political society was still impossible from 
want of advancement. The gentes organized into tribes remained as before, 
but confederacies must have been more frequent. In some areas, as in 
the Valley of Mexico, large numbers were developed under a common gov- 
ernment, with improvements in the arts of life; but no evidence exists of 
the overthrow among them of gentile society and the substitution of politi- 
cal. It is impossible to found a political society or a state upon gentes. 
