384 POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



were absolutely equal entitled to vote in every assembly, 

 and qualified for every public function.&quot; &quot; Each hamlet had 

 its own laws, jurisdiction, and privileges ; &quot; while the hamlets 

 were federated into communes, the communes into districts, 

 and the districts into a league. 



Lastly, with the case of Switzerland may be associated that 

 of San Marino a little republic which, seated in the Apen 

 nines, and having its centre on a cliff a thousand feet high, 

 has retained its independence for fifteen centuries. Here 

 8,000 people are governed by a senate of 60 and by captains 

 elected every half-year : assemblies of the whole people being 

 called on important occasions. There is a standing army of 

 18 ; &quot;taxation is reduced to a mere nothing;&quot; and officials are 

 paid by the honour of serving. 



One noteworthy difference between the compound heads 

 arising under physical conditions of the kinds exemplified, 

 must not be overlooked the difference between the oligarchic 

 form and the popular form. As shown at the outset of this 

 section, if each of the groups united by militant cooperation 

 is despotically ruled if the groups are severally framed on 

 the patriarchal type, or are severally governed by men of 

 supposed divine descent ; then the compound head becomes 

 one in which the people at large have no share. But if, as in 

 these modern cases, patriarchal authority has decayed ; or if 

 belief in divine descent of rulers has been undermined by a 

 creed at variance with it ; or if peaceful habits have weakened 

 that coercive authority which war ever strengthens ; then the 

 compound head is no longer an assembly of petty despots. 

 With the progress of these changes it becomes more and more 

 a head formed of those who exercise power not by right of 

 position but by right of appointment. 



487. There are other conditions which favour the rise of 

 compound heads, temporary if not permanent those, namely, 

 which occur at the dissolutions of preceding organizations. 

 Among peoples habituated for ages to personal rule, having 



