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JUDICIAL INSTITUTIONS. 147specting the organization of the Attic courts. All that wehave to say uponthis subject, will find a place in our inquiries concerning that state.The want of accounts is the chief but not the only sourceof the difficulty,which attends this investigation with respectto every state but Athens. From the want of uniformity,as well as the foreign character of many of the regulations,it would be arduous to take a general survey of the subject,even if the historical documents were abundant.To gain acorrect view of it, some attention must be paid to its history.The judicial institutions of the Greeks were the creationof time and circumstances. The form, therefore, whichthey eventually assumed, could not well correspond to therequisitions of a theory. We are forced to content ourselveson many points with saying that it was so ;without beingwas so.able to give any satisfactory reasons why itThe judicial institutions of a nation proceed from verysimple beginnings. Where they are left to be developed bycircumstances and the necessities of the times, they cannotbut become more and more intricate ;since with the proboth at home laud withgress of culture, new relations arise,foreign countries. In the, heroic age, kings sat on the tribunals of justice, though even then arbitrators were notunusual. There existed at that time no written laws ; questions were decided by prescription, and good commonsense, directed by a love of justice.When nations begin to emerge from the rude conditionof savages, the first necessity which is felt, is that of personalsecurity, and next, the security of property. National legislation has always commenced with the criminal code and thepolice laws ;the rights of citizens were defined more slowly,and at a later period because it;was not sooner necessary.The oldest courts of justice were established very early,probably in the times of the kings. Their immediate objectwas to pass judgment on the crime of murder, and otherheinous offences. This was the case with the Areopagus,the most ancient court with which the Greeks were acquainted and others were of almost as ;great an age.The royal governments passed away; and the popular assemblies took their place. The existing courts of justice werethen by no means abolished ; although in the progress of