odern than
in ancient times. The world has grown older, and is therefore more
conservative. Primitive society offered many examples of land held in
common, either by a tribe or by a township, and such may probably
have been the original form of landed tenure. Ancient legislators had
invented various modes of dividing and preserving the divisions of land
among the citizens; according to Aristotle there were nations who held
the land in common and divided the produce, and there were others who
divided the land and stored the produce in common. The evils of debt and
the inequality of property were far greater in ancient than in modern
times, and the accidents to which property was subject from war, or
revolution, or taxation, or other legislative interference, were also
greater. All these circumstances gave property a less fixed and sacred
character. The early Christians are believed to have held their property
in common, and the principle is sanctioned by the words of Christ
himself, and has been maintained as a counsel of perfection in almost
all ages of the Church. Nor have there been wanting instances of modern
enthusiasts who have made a religion of communism; in every age of
religious excitement notions like Wycliffe's 'inheritance of grace'
have tended to prevail. A like spirit, but fiercer and more violent,
has appeared in politics. 'The preparation of the Gospel of peace' soon
becomes the red flag of Republicanism.

We can hardly judge what effect Plato's views would have upon his
own contemporaries; they would perhaps have seemed to them only an
exaggeration of the Spartan commonwealth. Even modern writers would
acknowledge that the right of private property is based on expediency,
and may be interfered with in a variety of ways for the public good. Any
other mode of vesting property which was found to be more advantageous,
would in time acquire the same basis of right; 'the most useful,' in
Plato's words, 'would be the most sacred.' The lawyers and ecclesiastics
of former ages would have spoken of property as a sacred institution.
But they only meant by such language to oppose the greatest amount
of resistance to any invasion of the rights of individuals and of the
Church.

When we consider the question, without any fear of immediate application
to practice, in the spirit of Plato's Republic, are we quite sure that
the received notions of property are the best? Is the distribution of
wealth which is customary