Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 1.djvu/127

 power in the state, our popular representation, and the spirit of our laws—to the Wittenagemoths of the Saxons, and to trace these again up to principles of freedom in social arrangement derived from the Germanic tribes in the days of Tacitus. But it is not refining too much to conclude that, in every age and country, there are but two ways in which the governing class of a community can issue their laws, commands, or will, to the governed. One is through writing, and by the arts of writing and reading being so generally diffused that in every locality one individual at least, the civil functionary or the parish priest, is able to communicate the law, command, or will of the governing, to that small group of the governed over which he is placed. The other way, and the only way where, from the nature of the soil and climate, the governed are widely scattered, and writing and reading are rarely attained, and such civil or clerical arrangement not efficient, was to convene Things or general assemblies of the people, at which the law, command, or will of the governing could be made known to the governed. There could be no other way, in poor thinly-inhabited countries especially, by which the governing, however despotic, could get their law, command, or will done; for these must be made known to be executed or obeyed, whether they were for a levy of men or of money, for war or for peace, for rewarding and honouring, or for punishing and disgracing—the law, command, or will must be promulgated. Nor is it refining too much to conclude, that wheresoever men are assembled together in numbers for public business, be it merely to hear the law, command, or will of a despotic ruler, the spirit of deliberating upon, considering, and judging of the decree given out, and of the public interests involved in it, is there in the midst of them. The democratic element of society is there,—the spirit