Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/413

CHANGES AT ATHENS UNDER PERIKLES. Sgg it, except in so far as such analogy might really influence the convictions of the members. They were free, self-judging per- sons, unassisted by the schooling, but at the same time untram- melled by the awe-striking ascendency, of a professional judge, obeying the spontaneous inspirations of their own consciences, and recognizing no authority except the laws of the city, with which they were familiar. Trial by jury, as practised in England since 1688, has been politically most valuable, as a security against the encroachments of an anti-popular executive : partly for this reason, partly for others, not necessary to state here, it has had greater credit as an instrument of judicature generally, and has been supposed to produce much more of what is good in English administration of justice, than really belongs to it. Amidst the unqualified enco- miums so frequently bestowed upon the honesty, the unprejudiced rectitude of appreciation, the practical instinct for detecting false- hood and resisting sophistry, in twelve citizens taken by hazard and put into a jury-box, — comparatively little account is taken either of the aids, or of the restrictions, or of the corrections in the shape of new trials, under which they act, or of the artificial forensic medium into which they are plunged for the time of their service : so that the theory of the case presumes them to be more of spontaneous agents, and more analogous to the Athenian dikasts than the practice confirms. Accordingly, when we read these encomiums in modern authors, w^e shall find that both the direct benefits ascribed to jury-trial in insuring pure and even- handed justice, and stiU more its indirect benefits in improving and educating the citizens generally, might have been set forth yet more emphatically in a laudatory harangue of Perikles about the Athenian dikasteries. If it be true that an Englishman or an American counts more certainly on an impartial and uncorrupt verdict from a jury of his country, than from a permanent pro- fessional judge, much more would this be the feeling of an ordi nary Athenian, when he compared the dikasteries with the ar- chon. The juror hears and judges under full persuasion that he himself, individually, stands in need of the same protection or redress invoked by others : so also did the dikast. As to the effects of jury-trial, in dift'using respect to the laws and constitu- tion, in giving to every citizen a personal interest in enforcing the