But it must be remembered that the sacredness of property is a notion far more fixed in modern 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.