440 POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



in but a restricted sense: showing, as they do, how the 

 structures of parent societies reproduce themselves in derived 

 societies, so far as materials and circumstances allow; but 

 not showing how these structures were originated. Still less 

 need we notice those cases in which, after revolutions, peoples 

 who have lived under despotisms are led by imitation sud 

 denly to establish representative bodies. Here we are con 

 cerned only with the gradual evolution of such bodies. 



Originally supreme, though passive, the third element in 

 the tri-une political structure, subjected more and more as 

 militant activity develops an appropriate organization, begins 

 to re-acquire power when war ceases to be chronic. Subordi 

 nation relaxes as fast as it becomes less imperative. Awe of 

 the ruler, local or general, and accompanying manifestations 

 of fealty, decrease ; and especially so where the prestige of 

 supernatural origin dies out. Where the life is rural the old 

 relations long survive in qualified forms ; but clans or feudal 

 groups clustered together in towns, mingled with numbers of 

 unattached immigrants, become in various ways less con 

 trollable ; while by their habits their members are educated 

 to increasing independence. The small industrial groups 

 thus growing up within a nation consolidated arid organized 

 by militancy, can but gradually diverge in nature from the 

 rest. For a long time they remain partially militant in their 

 structures and in their relations to other parts of the com 

 munity. At first chartered towns stand substantially on the 

 footing of fiefs, paying feudal dues and owing military 

 service. They develop, within themselves, unions, more or less 

 coercive in character, for mutual protection. They often 

 carry on wars with adjacent nobles and with one another. 

 They not uncommonly form leagues for joint defence. And 

 where the semi-militancy of towns is maintained, industrial 

 development and accompanying increase of popular power 

 are arrested. 



But where circumstances have favoured manufacturing and 

 commercial activities, and growth of the population devoted 



