III., a custom of immemorial antiquity.[12] It was one of the greatest
steps ever taken in the political history of mankind. In these four
discreet men we have the forerunners of the two burghers from each town
who were summoned by Earl Simon to the famous parliament of 1265, as
well as of the two knights from each shire whom the king had summoned
eleven years before. In these four discreet men sent to speak for their
township in the old county assembly, we have the germ of institutions
that have ripened into the House of Commons and into the legislatures of
modern kingdoms and republics. In the system of representation thus
inaugurated lay the future possibility of such gigantic political
aggregates as the United States of America.

In the ancient city, on the other hand, the extreme compactness of the
political structure made representation unnecessary and prevented it
from being thought of in circumstances where it might have proved of
immense value. In an aristocratic Greek city, like Sparta, all the
members of the ruling class met together and voted in the assembly; in a
democratic city, like Athens, all the free citizens met and voted; in
each case the assembly was primary and not representative. The only
exception, in all Greek antiquity, is one which emphatically proves the
rule. The Amphiktyonic Council, an institution of prehistoric origin,
concerned mainly with religious affairs pertaining to the worship of the
Delphic Apollo, furnished a precedent for a representative, and indeed
for a federal, assembly. Delegates from various Greek tribes and cities
attended it. The fact that with such a suggestive precedent before their
eyes the Greeks never once hit upon the device of representation, even
in their attempts at framing federal unions, shows how thoroughly their
whole political training had operated to exclude such a conception from
their minds.