416 POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



choice of a chief. Our House of Commons had its roots in 

 local gatherings like those in which uncivilized tribes select 

 head warriors. 



Besides conscious selection there occurs among rude peoples 

 selection by lot. The Samoans, for instance, by spinning a 

 cocoa-nut, which, on coining to rest, points to one of the sur 

 rounding persons, thereby single him out. Early historic 

 races supply illustrations ; as the Hebrews in the affair of 

 Saul and Jonathan, and as the Homeric Greeks when fixing 

 on a champion to fight with Hector. In both these last cases 

 there was belief in supernatural interference : the lot was 

 supposed to be divinely determined. And probably at the 

 outset, choice by lot for political purposes among the Athe 

 nians, and for military purposes among the Romans, as also 

 in later times the use of the lot for choosing deputies in some 

 of the Italian republics, and in Spain (as in Leon during the 

 twelfth century) was influenced by a kindred belief ; though 

 doubtless the desire to give equal chances to rich and poor, or 

 else to assign without dispute a mission which was onerous or 

 dangerous, entered into the motive or was even predominant. 

 Here, however, the fact to be noted is that this mode of 

 choice which plays a part in representation, may also be 

 traced back to the usages of primitive peoples. 



So, too, we find foreshadowed the process of delegation. 

 Groups of men who open negociations, or who make their 

 submission, or who send tribute, habitually appoint certain 

 of their number to act for them. The method is, indeed, 

 necessitated ; since a tribe cannot well perform such actions 

 bodily. Whence, too, it appears that the sending of repre 

 sentatives is, at the first stage, originated by causes like those 

 which re-originate it at a later stage. For as the will of the 

 tribe, readily displayed in its assemblies to its own members, 

 cannot be thus displayed to other tribes, but must, in respect 

 of inter-tribal matters be communicated by deputy ; so in a 

 large nation, the people of each locality, able to govern them 

 selves locally, but unable to join the peoples of remote 



