[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.