_On community of land amongst the Gauls._
It would be indeed surprising had the supporters of this theory not
applied it to the ancient Gauls. So little is known about them, that it
is very tempting and not very difficult to introduce community in land
into their history.
One single fact, however, ought to stand in the way; it is that
Cæsar, whose book is the only authority which has historical value,
nowhere tells us that land was common amongst the Gauls. His silence
on this point is not a thing which can be passed over. It is, indeed,
in the eyes of every one accustomed to historical research, a very
significant fact. It is true that Cæsar does not expressly state that
private property was the custom amongst the Gauls. For a writer who
is only speaking in passing of Gallic institutions, to omit to call
attention to a law of property which was in conformity with what he was
accustomed to, is not the same thing as to omit to mention a communism
which would be the opposite of what he was accustomed to, and which
would strike him by its very strangeness. It must be noticed that
Cæsar is not describing the entire social condition of the Gauls; he
contents himself with mentioning those customs which have struck him
as being very different from those he saw in Italy. We have only to
read the ten paragraphs which he devotes to this subject, to recognise
this. After describing in three paragraphs what was peculiar in their
political organisation, and in three more what was peculiar in their
religion, he passes on to what was peculiar in their private life,
and he begins as follows--“As to the institutions of private life,
the following are those wherein they differ from other nations.” By
“other nations” Cæsar clearly means the nations that he knew that is,
primarily, the Italians and Greeks. This opening sentence makes it
plain that Cæsar intended only to tell us of characteristics which
were peculiar to the Gauls. He is going to mention differences, not
resemblances. If private property is the custom there as it is in Rome,
it will not be necessary to say so; but if it is not the custom, he
will say so. His absolute silence on this point is a proof that the
Gauls did not sensibly differ from the Italians in the matter; his
silence implies that they were not ignorant of private property. We
must remember that the entire absence of private property would have
appeared so strange to a Roman that it could not have escaped Cæsar’s
notice. He observed it in Germany where he passed only eighteen days;
he would certainly have discovered it in Gaul where he passed eight
summers. If he does not mention community in land, it is obviously
because it did not exist.
But we have evidence even more convincing. Going on to speak of the
Germans, he remarks that he will explain “in what they differ from
the Gauls, _quo differant hae nationes inter sese_” (vi., 11); and
further on: “The Germans differ much from this manner of life of the
Gauls, _Germani multum ab hac consuetudine differunt_.” He then draws
the following contrast between the two nations: 1, the Germans have
no Druids; 2, the Germans have not the same gods as the Gauls; 3, and
lastly, the Germans have not private property. Is not this remark as
to the difference between the two nations almost the same thing as if
Cæsar had said that the Gauls recognised private property and held
their land in individual ownership?
This is not all. Cæsar uses an expression in which he indirectly and
almost unconsciously bears witness to the existence of property in land
amongst the Gauls. In Book VI., Chapter 13, he says that the Druids act
as judges in almost all suits, criminal as well as civil.[243] He then
gives a list of the disputes brought before them, and amongst criminal
offences he instances murder; amongst civil suits he mentions “those
concerning inheritance or boundaries,” _si de hereditate, si de finibus
controversia est_. If there were in Gaul suits concerning inheritance
or boundaries, it must have meant that the Gauls had a system of
inheritance and made use of boundaries; _i.e._, that land was private
and hereditary property. Cæsar says elsewhere that the Germans have no
_fines_; he says here that the Gauls have them.
We cannot say whether the institution of private property in Gaul was
exactly similar to that of private property in Rome; whether it had the
same legal guarantees; whether its boundaries had the same inviolable
character. We do not even know if property still belonged to the
family or was already in the hands of individual owners. Cæsar only
tells us one thing, and that is, that it existed; for “inheritance and
boundaries” are unmistakable signs of private ownership, and as clearly
disprove a system of corporate land-holding.[244]
This is the conclusion to which we are brought by a simple and unbiased
perusal of Cæsar’s account. But preconceptions have great force; and
if a writer starts with the idea that community in land was once
universal, the result will be that, in the face of all evidence, and
yet in perfect good faith, he will think he finds it amongst the Gauls.
One of the first scholars of the day, M. d’Arbois de Jubainville, whose
works on the Middle Ages and on Irish literature have been so highly
appreciated, thinks that the Gauls of the time of Cæsar were not far
enough advanced in civilisation to hold private property; and setting
out with this idea, the offspring of imagination, he supposes that
he can see evidence of undivided tenure. The fact that Cæsar never
mentions this troubles him very little. That Cæsar does mention, as
a point of difference between the Germans and Gauls, that the former
do not hold private property, he omits to notice. And lastly, when
Cæsar refers in so many words to inheritance and boundaries amongst
the Gauls, he disposes of this somewhat embarrassing statement by
interpreting it in a most unexpected fashion.
In his opinion, when Cæsar mentions suits concerning inheritance, _de
hereditate_, it is impossible that the inheritances of private persons
should be in question, as the custom of inheritance did not exist.
Then what was the inheritance referred to by Cæsar? According to M. de
Jubainville, he was speaking of succession to the crown. Sovereignty
existed; the sons of kings wished to succeed their fathers; and if
a dispute arose, the Druids acted as judges. M. de Jubainville has
omitted to notice that Cæsar gives at least ten instances of sons
who wished to be kings like their fathers; and that in not one of
these instances was the dispute carried before the Druids. It is a
grave error to suppose that the Druids were accustomed to meddle in
affairs of State; we have not a single example of their doing so. And
yet M. de Jubainville maintains that in Cæsar _de hereditate_ means
the succession to the throne; and for this he gives the following
reason,--that in another book, speaking of the Egyptians, Cæsar uses
the expression _hereditas regni_.[245] The argument is a strange one. I
reply that if Cæsar elsewhere wrote _hereditas regni_, it was because
the word _hereditas_ could not, when used alone, bear the meaning of
the inheritance of sovereignty. It is quite certain that if Cæsar had
meant to say that the Gauls brought before the Druids their disputes
as to succession to the crown, he would have said _de hereditate
regnum_.
With regard to the expression, _de finibus_, M. de Jubainville will
have it mean “frontiers between nations.” In this he is doubly wrong,
both historically and philologically. To begin with the historical
error, Cæsar tells us of numerous quarrels amongst Gallic tribes; and
these quarrels are never carried before the Druids. Are we to think
that Cæsar said that the Druids settled disputes about frontiers,
when he knew perfectly well that Druids did not decide them? It
is absolutely incorrect to say that the Druids had the right of
judging between tribes.[246] Moreover, when Cæsar enumerates the
principal matters which had to be tried, he mentions murder as well as
inheritance and boundaries; and it is impossible to doubt that he is
thinking of the murder of a single person, the inheritance of a single
owner, the boundaries of a single estate.
Philologically, M. de Jubainville maintains that the word _fines_ may
be used for the boundaries of a nation as well as for those of an
estate. No doubt. The word is even used in a philosophical sense, and
Cicero wrote a treatise, _De finibus bonorum et malorum_. In every
language there are words of wide application; but the student is not
misled by this. In philosophy he understands _fines_ in a philosophical
sense. If a general at the head of an army is crossing the territory
of several nations, he understands _fines_ in the sense of frontiers.
If it is a question of private law, he will not doubt that _fines_ is
connected with individual rights; that it means the boundaries of an
estate or a field. Now the passage in which Cæsar speaks of “suits
concerning inheritance and boundaries” is one which deals entirely with
law and justice.
M. de Jubainville has taken the trouble to count the number of times
that _fines_ occurs in the _De Bello Gallico_ as applied to national
or tribal frontiers, and finds they are seventy-seven. This is one
of those arguments based on statistics which impress most people by
an appearance of matter-of-fact appropriateness. But look at it more
closely. Is the _De Bello Gallico_ a book of private law? It is a
history of military campaigns, and of negotiations between nations;
and it is very natural that the author should frequently speak of the
frontiers or the territory of these nations. If he had written a work
on law, of which he was quite capable, he would have spoken throughout
of the boundaries of private estates. Ought one to be surprised at
this? Read Thiers’ thirty volumes; make the same calculation that M. de
Jubainville did for the _De Bello Gallico_; and, if you follow the same
method of reasoning, you will come to the conclusion that the French
are unacquainted with boundaries to private property.
What is more important to remark is, that in the whole work, in the
midst of the history of wars, there occur only seven paragraphs on the
customs of the Gauls and their institutions in times of peace (VI., 11,
13, 15, 18, 19, 21, 22). Now, in these seven chapters you will find the
word _fines_ used three times in the unmistakable sense of boundaries
of fields.[247] And so we see that, when Cæsar is speaking of wars,
he uses _fines_ in the sense of the frontiers of a country, and, when
he is speaking of law, he uses it in the sense of the boundaries of
private property. And, if we are partial to figures, we may notice that
while M. de Jubainville has counted up seventy-seven _fines_ in three
hundred and forty chapters, I have counted three in seven chapters. The
proportion is well kept.
But instead of making this calculation it would have been better
to have noticed something which is of far more importance; in
every instance where the word signifies a frontier, its meaning is
unmistakably indicated by the addition of the name of the people in
question. Thus Cæsar says, _fines Helvetiorum_, _fines Sequanorum_,
_fines Santonum_, _fines Æduorum_, _fines Lingonum_, _fines
Ambianorum_, and so on without exception.[248] Take the seventy-seven
examples collected by M. de Jubainville, and you will see that the
word _fines_, when it means frontiers, is always followed by the word
“people,” or by the name of a people. If Cæsar had wished to speak of
trials about national boundaries, he would have said _controversiæ de
finibus populorum_. If he did not so express himself, it was because he
was speaking of boundaries in the most restricted sense of the word.
M. de Jubainville might have found this very same phrase, which he has
twisted so strangely, _si de finibus controversia est_, in Cicero.
We have it there word for word; _si de finibus controversia est_ in
Chapter X. of the _Topics_. Let us see whether in this case it can
apply to the frontiers of a people. Cicero, giving an example of a
definition, writes: “When you say _si de finibus controversia est_, the
boundaries of private estates are clearly meant.”[249]
And so the passage from Cæsar cannot be explained away as M. de
Jubainville would wish. He cannot get rid of the fact that Cæsar
records in so many words that inheritance and boundaries were to be
found amongst the Gauls; the very opposite, that is, of community in
land. He gets together from other sources a variety of arguments which
appear to him to show that the Gauls held their land in common. They
are as follows: 1, Polybius says (II. 17) that the Gauls of Italy did
not cultivate the land; 2, in Cæsar’s time the Helvetii wished to leave
their country in order to settle in a more fruitful one; 3, the Ædui
admitted into their country ten thousand Boii and gave them land; 4,
there was in Gallic law a custom according to which a husband and wife
threw into a common stock an equal portion of the possessions of each,
and allowed the income arising from this property to accumulate, so
that the whole, principal and interest, might belong to the survivor.
These four circumstances are supposed to prove that private property in
land did not exist.[250]
Not one of the four appears to me to bear with it this consequence.
Examine them one by one. I. The passage from Polybius refers, not to
the Gauls of his own time, but to the Gauls who invaded Italy five
centuries before, and who drove out the Etruscans from the district
of the Po. The historian says that these invaders, being inclined to
pursue their conquests, did not at first settle down and cultivate the
soil, but lived on the produce of their herds. His information bears
upon the Gauls at one particular moment in their history, at the time
when they were planning an attack upon central Italy. It proves nothing
at all about the Gauls in general, and certainly nothing about the
Gauls of the time of Cæsar.
II. That the Helvetii wished to emigrate does not imply that they
lived under a system of community in land. It merely implies that they
preferred the soft climate and fertile plains of the south-west of Gaul
to their own rugged and mountainous country. Is it an unknown thing
for peasant proprietors to emigrate for the sake of seeking a more
productive soil elsewhere?
III. Because the Ædui invited ten thousand Boii to settle in their
country, does that prove that private property was unknown to them? Not
at all. The _civitas Æduorum_, which covered a considerable area and
included five of our departments, might very probably have had so large
an extent of public domain, or been able to find enough unoccupied
land, to admit ten thousand new cultivators. Such a circumstance,
following, as it does, immediately after the ravages of Ariovistus, can
easily be explained, and is not the slightest evidence of communism in
land.
IV. As to the custom by which a husband and wife contributed equal
shares to a common stock and allowed the income arising from it to
accumulate, I cannot understand in what way this proves that there was
no landed property. M. de Jubainville ingeniously explains that what
was contributed could not have consisted of land “because its produce
cannot be hoarded,” and that it must have consisted of herds of cattle,
because cattle can much more easily be set aside for a particular
object. In his long argument there is only one thing that he overlooks,
and this is that it is possible to sell the crops and set aside the
produce of the sale. Moreover, he gives an incorrect rendering of
Cæsar, VI. 19: _hujus omnia pecuniæ fructus servantur_. _Pecunia_, in
legal phraseology, is used not only of money, of not only personal
property, but also of property of every kind, including land;[251] and
_fructus_ does not simply mean produce in the literal sense of the
word, but revenues of every description. Cæsar, then, is speaking of
possessions of every sort, of which the income may be set aside. These
possessions may be an estate under cultivation, or a herd of cattle,
or a stock in trade, or a sum of money placed out at interest (for
this was not unknown to the Gauls); the income might be the produce of
the sale of the crops, or the increase of the herd, or the profits of
trade, or the interest on the loan. Whichever it may have been, Cæsar
did not intend to imply that the Gauls were unacquainted with landed
property.
I am anxious not to pass over a single argument brought forward by this
learned and able writer. He observes that the names of private domains,
such as we find them in the Roman and Merovingian periods, are all
derived from Roman proper names. This is quite true, and I had myself
made the same observation in an earlier essay; but what I had carefully
abstained from saying, and what is maintained by M. de Jubainville,
is that these Latin names of the Roman period prove the non-existence
of domains in the Gallic period. The most they could prove is that,
after the conquest, the names of domains were latinised as well as the
names of individuals. Just as Gallic landowners adopted Roman names
for themselves, they bestowed the same names on their estates; and
consequently domains were called Pauliacus, Floriacus, Latiniacus,
Avitacus, Victoriacus, etc. To conclude from this that there were no
private estates before the conquest would indeed be a rash argument.
M. de Jubainville also alleges that Cæsar does not make use of the
terms _villæ_ and _fundus_ in speaking of the Gauls; and he concludes
from this that neither country estates, _fundi_, nor farms, _villæ_,
were to be found in Gaul. “Before the conquest there were neither
_fundi_ nor _villæ_, and the land was in common.”[252] This is another
surprising statement. M. de Jubainville should not have overlooked the
fact that even if these two words do not occur in Cæsar, we find terms
which are precisely synonymous. The Romans had more than one word to
designate a country estate, _fundus_, or a farm, _villa_. Instead of
_fundus_ they sometimes said _ager_; and _ager_ always bears this sense
in Cato, Varro, and Columella, and frequently in Cicero and Pliny.
Instead of _villa_ they said _ædificium_. When Varro or Columella are
speaking of the buildings standing in the midst of an estate, they use
_ædificium_ as often as _villa_. Turn to the _Digest_ (Bk. L. Section
XVI.) and compare the three fragments 27, 60, and 211; and you will
recognise that the Romans were in the habit of calling a domain _ager_
and the buildings on it _ædificium_. Now Cæsar, in speaking of the
Gauls, often uses the word _agri_ and still more often _ædificia_. Here
are the domains and the _villæ_ which M. de Jubainville was looking
for. These _ædificia_ were farms, not huts. They contained as a rule
a somewhat numerous rural population; for Cæsar notes in one instance
as something exceptional “that he found in the _ædificia_ of the
Bellovaci only a small number of men, as almost all had set out for the
war” (viii. 7). They also included barns for the storing of crops; for
the historian mentions “that the Tencteri, having invaded the country
of the Menapii, supported themselves for several months on the corn
that they found in the _ædificia_” (iv. 4). The Roman general was well
aware that if he wished to find forage for his cavalry he must look for
it in these farms, _pabulum ex ædificiis petere_ (vii. 4, and viii.
10). What Cæsar says about the _ædificium_ of Ambiorix shows that it
was a large enough building to lodge a numerous body of followers. And
so the words _ager_ and _ædificium_ take the place in Cæsar of the
words _fundus_ and _villa_, and disprove the assertion that “the Gauls
had neither domains nor farms before the conquest.”
M. de Jubainville compares the whole Gallic territory with the _ager
publicus_ of Rome. I do not know whether the learned medievalist has
a very clear conception of what the _ager publicus_ really was. The
subject is a very difficult one, and requires for its study a good deal
of time, much minute research and great familiarity with Roman habits
and customs. I do not wish to dwell on this point; and will content
myself with saying that the _ager publicus_ was not common land, but
property of the State existing side by side with private property. To
suppose that in Gaul the State was the master of all the soil and
distributed it annually amongst the citizens, is to suppose something
absolutely opposed to Roman habits and to the usages of the _ager
publicus_. Moreover, it is impossible to find a single line in Cæsar
which authorises such a supposition.[253]
To sum up: the attempt made by this ingenious scholar to discover
community in land amongst the Gauls is supported by no original
authorities. When we come to verify his quotations and test his
arguments, we see that not one of his quotations bears the sense he
attributes to it, and that not one of his facts fits in with a theory
of common ownership in land. It is wisest to keep strictly to what
Cæsar tells us.
[243] “Fere de omnibus controversiis publicis privatisque constituunt.”
It is well known that in legal language, the _judicia publica_ are
criminal cases; as the term implies, cases which concern crimes
punished by a public authority; the _judicia privata_ are those
which concern private interests alone, and in which the State is not
involved. See on this distinction Paul, _Sententiæ_, I., 5, 2; Ulpian
XIII., 2; _Fragmenta Vaticana_, 197 and 326; _Digest_, XLVII., tit.
1 and 2; XLVIII., I.; I., l, l § 6; XXIII., 2, 43, § 11 and 12. To
translate _controversiæ publicæ_ in the passage from Cæsar as disputes
between two peoples would run counter to the meaning of words.
_Publicus_ never means _inter duos populos_.
[244] It may be added that the social condition described by Cæsar
is irreconcilable with agrarian communism, vi., 13: _in omni Gallia
plebs pæne serrorum habetur loco_, etc. Notice the numerous clients
of Orgetorix, i., 4; those of Vercingetorix, vii., 4; the many poor,
not in the towns, but in the country, _in agris agentes_, vii., 4;
the burden of the _tributa_, vi., 13. These traits are not those of
a society where the land is common. They point rather to a system of
great estates, with the soil in the hands of the magnates.
[245] This appears in the _Comptes rendus de l’Académie des
inscriptions et belles-lettres_, 1887, pp. 65, _et seq._
[246] M. de Jubainville has translated _controversiæ publicæ_, as if it
were _controversiæ inter duos populos_. I know of no example in Latin
literature where the word _publicus_ has this sense. In Suetonius,
_Augustus_, 29, the _judicia publica_ are certainly not suits between
peoples: they are criminal suits. When Cicero, defending Roscius of
Ameria, says he is conducting his first _causa publica_, it is clear
that he is not arguing for one people against another. He is defending
Roscius, who is accused of parricide: it is a criminal proceeding.
[247] Cæsar, vi. 22: _Nec quisquam (apud Germanos)_ FINES habet
proprios. _Ibidem: ne latos_ FINES _parare studeant, potentioresque
humiliores possessionibus expellant_.
[248] Or else the same thing is implied by the turn of the sentence, i.
5: _Helvetii a finibus suis exeunt_; iv. 3: _quum Suevi Ubios finibus
expellere non possent_; vi. 23: _extra fines cujusque civitatis_; v.
16: _fines regni sui_; v. 27: _Ambiorix tutum iter per fines suos
pollicetur_. By a natural transition, _fines_ comes to mean sometimes,
not only the boundaries, but also the territory itself, vi. 42: _ut
Ambiorigis fines depopularentur_.
[249] Cicero, _Topica_, 10: _Si de finibus controversia est, fines
agrorum esse videntur_.
[250] D’Arbois de Jubainville, in the _Comptes rendus de l’Académie des
inscriptions_, 1887, reprint, pp. 4-22.
[251] Gaius iii. 124: _Appellatione pecuniæ omnes res in lege
significantur ... fundum vel hominem._... _Digest_, L. 16, 222:
_pecuniæ nomine non solum numerata pecunia, sed omnes res tam soli
quam mobiles continentur_. Cf. S. Augustine, _De Discipl. Christ._,
i.: _omnia quorum domini sumus pecunia vocantur; servus, ager, arbor,
pecus, pecunia dicitur_.
[252] _Comptes rendus de l’Académie des inscriptions_, session of June
8, 1886, reprint, p. 6.
[253] M. de Jubainville does not translate latin texts very exactly.
For example, if he sees in Cæsar that no German possesses “agri modum
certum,” he immediately says that “this _ager_ must be the _ager
publicus_; because in Rome _modus agri_ was the technical expression
for the _ager publicus_.” But where has he seen that? He may read
in Varro, _de re rustica_, i. 14, the words _de modo agri_, which
incontestably mean “concerning the extent of a private property.” He
will find the same expression in Varro, i. 18, where the writer says
that the number of rural slaves ought to be proportionate to the extent
of the domain. And again he will find the jurisconsult Paul, in the
_Digest_, xviii., 1. 40, using _modum agri_ for the area of an estate
which an individual has just bought. To prove that _ager_ by itself
means _ager publicus_ he cites the _lex Thoria_; without noticing that
in that law the _ager publicus_ is mentioned eleven times, and that
_ager_ does not once stand for the public land unless accompanied by
_publicus_ or _populi_.
_Conclusion._
Are we to conclude from all that has gone before that nowhere and at no
time was land held in common? By no means. To commit ourselves to so
absolute a negative would be to go beyond the purpose of this work. The
only conclusion to which we are brought by this prolonged examination
of authorities is that community in land has not yet been historically
proved. Here are scholars who have maintained that they could prove
from original authorities that nations originally cultivated the soil
in common; but on examining these authorities we find that they are all
either incorrect, or misinterpreted, or beside the subject. M. Viollet
has not brought forward a single piece of evidence which proves that
the Greek cities ever practised agrarian communism. M. de Jubainville
has not brought forward one which proves communism in Gaul. Maurer
and Lamprecht have not produced one which shows that the mark was
common land. As to the comparative method, which has been somewhat
ostentatiously called into service, we are presented under its name
with a strangely assorted mass of isolated facts, gathered from every
quarter, and often not understood; every fact not in harmony with the
theory has been left on one side. In the prosecution of what professed
to be an inquiry into the domestic life of whole nations, the one thing
essential has been omitted, that is, their law. In short, an imposing
structure has been erected out of a series of misunderstandings.
National communism has been confused with the common ownership of the
family; tenure in common has been confused with ownership in common;
agrarian communism with village commons.
We do not maintain that it is inadmissible to believe in primitive
communism. What we do maintain is that the attempt to base this theory
on an historical foundation has been an unfortunate one; and we refuse
to accept its garb of false learning.
The theory itself will always be believed in by a certain class
of minds. Among the current ideas which take possession of the
imaginations of men is one they have learnt from Rousseau. It is that
property is contrary to nature and that communism is natural; and this
idea has power even over writers who yield to it without being aware
that they do so.
Minds which are under the influence of this idea will never allow that
property may be a primordial fact, contemporaneous with the earliest
cultivation of the soil, natural to man, produced by an instinctive
recognition of his interests, and closely bound up with the primitive
constitution of the family. They will always prefer to assume that
there must first have been a period of communism. This will be with
them an article of faith which nothing can shake; and they will always
be able to find authorities which can be made to support it. There
will, however, always be a few, endowed with a keener critical and
historical sense, who will continue to doubt what has yet to be proved.
However that may be, the question, in spite of so many attempts, still
remains unanswered. If any one wishes to give a scientific proof of
primitive communism, these are the conditions on which he may perhaps
succeed:
1. He must find definite and exact authorities; which he must
translate, not approximately, but with absolute correctness, according
to the literal signification of the words.
2. He must abstain from adducing facts which are comparatively modern
in support of an institution which he ascribes to the beginning of
things, as has been done in the case of the German mark, the island of
Java and the Russian _mir_.
3. He must not content himself with collecting a few isolated facts
which may be exceptional; but he must study phenomena which are
general, normal, and far-spreading; of these he will find the evidence
principally in legal records, and to a small extent in early religious
customs.
4. He will be careful not to confuse agrarian communism with family
ownership, which may in time become village ownership without ceasing
to be a real proprietorship.
5. He will not mistake undivided tenancies on a domain belonging to a
proprietor for community in land. The fact that _villani_, who were not
the owners of any land at all, often cultivated the soil in common for
a lord, or annually divided it amongst themselves, has no connection
with agrarian communism, and is in fact directly opposed to it.
6. He will be careful not to confuse the question by introducing
village commons, unless he has first of all succeeded in proving that
such commons are derived from a primitive communism. This has never yet
been proved, and all that has hitherto been ascertained about commons
is that they are an appendage of private property.
On these conditions alone can the work be done scientifically; short of
this the only result will be a confused picture of the fancy. If any
one, after taking all these precautions against gross error, discovers
a body of facts and evidence in support of a theory of communism, he
will have settled the question historically. Till then, do not invoke
history in its favour. Present your theory as an abstract idea which
may be valuable, but with which history has nothing to do. Let us not
have sham learning. In saying this I have at heart the interests of
historical science. There is danger lest, from love of a theory, a
whole series of errors should be forcibly thrust into history. What
I fear is not the theory itself; it will not affect the progress of
human events; but it is the method employed to secure its acceptance.
I distrust this pretended application of learning, this practice of
forcing documents to say the very opposite of what they really say,
this superficial habit of talking about all the nations of the world
without having studied a single one. Never have “original authorities”
been so much lauded as to-day; never have they been used with so much
levity.