solute form could
never be altered or changed; but there was besides another law which had
no such compelling power, but which rested simply on the experience of
the human race. This was reversible, for it depended on specific
conditions and stages of development. Thus nature dictated no division
of property, though it implied the necessity of some property; the need
of the division was only discovered when men set to work to live in
social intercourse. Then it was found that unless divisions were made,
existence was intolerable; and so by human convention, as St. Thomas
sometimes says, or by the law of nature, as he elsewhere expresses it,
the division into private property was agreed upon and took place.

This elaborate statement of St. Thomas was widely accepted through all
the Middle Ages. Wycliff alone, and a few like him, ventured to oppose
it; but otherwise this extremely logical and moderate defence of
existing institutions received general adhesion. Even Scotus, like
Ockham, a brilliant Oxford scholar whose hidden tomb at Cologne finds
such few pilgrims kneeling in its shade, so hardy in his thought and so
eager to find a flaw in the arguments of Aquinas, has no alternative to
offer. Franciscan though he was, and therefore, perhaps, more likely to
favour communistic teaching, his own theory is but a repetition of what
his rival had already propounded. Thus, for example, he writes in a
typical passage: "Even supposing it as a principle of positive law that
'life must be lived peaceably in a state of polity,' it does not
straightway follow 'Therefore everyone must have separate possessions.'
For peace could be observed even if all things were in common. Nor even
if we presuppose the wickedness of those who live together is it a
necessary consequence. Still a distinction of property is decidedly in
accord with a peaceful social life. For the wicked rather take care of
their private possessions, and rather seek to appropriate to themselves
than to the community common goods. Whence come strife and contention.
Hence we find it (division of property) admitted in almost every
positive law. And although there is a fundamental principle from which
all other laws and rights spring, still from that fundamental principle
positive human laws do not follow absolutely or immediately. Rather it
is as declarations or explanations in detail of that general principle
that they come into being, and must be considered as evidently i