AGRICULTURE AND THE SINGLE TAX. 489 



weaker man's wife or property, and kills or enslaves him, as the 

 ease may be.* It is safe to say that this has been the state of man 

 in all countries " ere human statute purged the gentle weal." 



The village community, in which the land was held in common 

 for the villagers (not for everybody), was the outgrowth of law, 

 of art, of convention; but even this was subject to the law of the 

 strongest, in the sense that every village community was liable to 

 be dispossessed by any wandering tribe better armed, or more 

 numerous or braver, that might suddenly emerge from the neigh- 

 boring forest or mountain. The feudal system displaced the 

 village community because the village could not protect itself 

 against armed robbers, f 



The recent searching examination of " natural rights " by Prof. 

 Sumner \ renders it unnecessary for me to go more deeply into 

 this branch of the subject. What are commonly and loosely 

 called natural rights are the outcome of centuries of hard knocks, 

 the results of training, education, and experience, the very flower 

 and last refinement of art as applied to society and government. 

 Mr. Clarke cites certain decisions of the Supreme Court to show 

 that natural rights have " their seat in the bosom of God and their 

 voice in the harmony of the world," to quote from Hooker's defi- 

 nition of law. But all such opinions are obiter to this discussion. 

 That our ideas of natural rights, civilized though we be, change 

 greatly in the progress of time, is proved by our own recent his- 

 tory, the right to liberty having been denied by a majority of 

 Americans within our time. 



Conjoined to the doctrine of natural rights, though not a neces- 

 sary part of it, is the doctrine of equal rights, which I share as 

 fully as anybody. But, if I attempt to draw generalizations from 

 it, I am confronted by the fact that it is not universally held, but 

 is really confined to a small portion of the human family. The 



* The movement now in progress for the suppression of the African slave trade has shed 

 an abundance of light (if any more were needed) on the subject of " rights " as they actu- 

 ally exist in the state of nature. The prime difficulty there is not Arab slave-dealing, but 

 the practice prevailing among the native tribesmen of enslaving each other for the pur- 

 poses of human sacrifice in their religious ceremonial. Arab slave-dealing is not the cause 

 of African slavery, but merely an adjunct to it. 



f " Not to be killed," says Stendhal, " and to have a good sheepskin coat in winter, was, 

 for many people in the tenth century, the height of felicity " ; let us add, for a woman, that 

 of not being violated by a whole band. When we clearly represent to ourselves the con- 

 dition of humanity in those days, we can comprehend how men readily accepted the most 

 obnoxious of feudal rights, even that of the droit du seigneur. The risks to which they 

 were daily subject were even worse. The proof of it is that the people flocked to the 

 feudal structure as soon as it was completed. In Normandy, for instance, when Rollo had 

 divided off the lands with a line, and hung the robbers, the inhabitants of the neighbor- 

 ing provinces rushed in to establish themselves. The slightest security sufficed to repopu- 

 late a country. (Taine's "Ancient Regime.") 



X " Popular Science Monthly," July, 1889. 



