140 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and death ; which implies that though he possesses the greater right 

 of owning subordinate individuals absolutely, he does not possess the 

 smaller right of owning absolutely the property used by them and 

 himself. I may add that besides being difficult to frame, this concep- 

 tion is not easily reconcilable with Sir Henry Maine's description of 

 the patria potestas of the Romans, which he says is " our type of the 

 primeval paternal authority," and of which he remarks that while, 

 during its decline, the father's power over the son's person became 

 nominal, his "rights over the son's property yv ere always exercised 

 without scrujjle," And I may also name its seeming incongruity with 

 the fact that political rulers who have absolute powers of life and 

 death over their subjects, are usually also regarded as in theory 

 owners of their property : instance at the present time the kings of 

 Dahomey, Ashantee, Congo, Cayor on the Gold Coast. Passing to 

 the essential question, however, I find myself here at issue not with 

 Sir Henry Maine only, but also with those writers on primitive social 

 states who hold that all ownership is originally tribal, that family 

 ownership comes afterward, and individual ownership last. As al- 

 ready implied, the evidence appears to me to show that from the be- 

 ginning there has been individual ownership of all such things as 

 could without difficulty be appropriated. True though it is that in 

 early stages rights of property have not acquired deiiniteness; certain 

 though it may be that among primitive men the moral sanction which 

 property equitably obtained has among ourselves is lacking ; obvious 

 as we find it that possession is often established by right of the 

 strongest the evidence implies that in the rudest communities there 

 is a private holding of useful movables maintained by each man to 

 the best of his ability. A personal monopoly extends itself to such 

 things as can readily be monopolized a proprietorship not yet made 

 definite by the growth of social regulations. The Tinne, Avho, "re- 

 garding all property, including wives, as belonging to the strongest," 

 show us in a typical way the primitive form of appropriation, also 

 show us that this appropriation is completely personal, since they 

 "burn with the deceased all his effiicts." Indeed, even apart from 

 evidence, it seems to me an inadmissible supposition that in " the in- 

 fancy of society" the egoistic savage, utterly without idea of justice 

 or sense of responsibility, consciously held his belongings on behalf 

 of those depending upon him. 



One more element, indirectly if not directly involved in the doc- 

 trine of Sir Henry Maine, is that " the infancy of society " is charac- 

 terized by the perpetual tutelage of women. While each male de- 

 scendant has a capacity " to become himself the hend of a new family 

 and the root of a new set of parental powers," " a woman of course 

 has no capacity of the kind, and no title accordingly to the liberation 

 which it confers. There is therefore a peculiar contrivance of archaic 

 jurisprudence for retaining her in the bondage of the family for life." 



