This view grew directly out of the mediaeval conception of the Teutonic state. While the ancient state appears at the beginning of its history as [Greek: polis] or _civitas_, as an undivided community of citizens, the monarchical Teutonic state is from the beginning dualistic in form,--prince and people form no integral unity, but stand opposed to each other as independent factors. And so the state in the conception of the time is substantially a relation of contract between the two. The Roman and Canonical theory of law under the influence of ancient traditions even as early as the eleventh century attempts to unite the two elements in that, upon the basis of a contract, it either makes the people part with their rights to the prince, and accordingly makes the government the state, or it considers the prince simply as the authorized agent of the people and so makes the latter and the state identical. The prevailing opinion in public law, however, especially since the rise of the state of estates, sees in the state a double condition of contract between prince and people. The laws form the content of this compact. They established, therefore, for the prince a right of demanding lawful obedience, and for the people of demanding adherence to the limitations placed by the laws. The people accordingly have a right to the fulfilment of the law by the prince. Thus all laws create personal rights of the people, and the term people is thought of in a confused way as referring to the individuals as well as to the whole--_singuli et universi_.[54] From this point of view it is a right of the people that Parliament should be frequently summoned, that the judge should inflict no cruel punishments, and however else the declarations of the English charters may read. This conception of law as two-sided, establishing rights for both elements of the state, runs through all the earlier English history. The right which is conferred by law passes from generation to generation, it becomes hereditary and therefore acquirable by birth as one of the people. Under Henry VI. it is declared of the law: "La ley est le plus haute inheritance que le roy ad; car par la ley il meme et toutes ses sujets sont rules, et si la ley ne fuit, nul roy et nul inheritance sera."[55] And in the Petition of Right Parliament makes the appeal that the subjects have inherited their freedom through the laws.[56] The laws, as the Act of Settlement expresses it, are the "birthright of the people".[57]