The Birth of the English Land System. 23 



Before we have done this it would be rash to decide whether 

 those curious similarities described in this chapter are, so to 

 speak, a state of equilibrium to which all territorial policy 

 tended wherever the supply of land exceeded the powers of the 

 cultivators ; or whether they are due to the common tribal 

 instincts of the Aryan, from which some theorists have sought 

 to derive the three nationalities of Celt, Roman, and Teuton ; 

 or whether there be a chain of links which connects in un- 

 broken continuity the polity of each in the proper chronological 

 order of its appearance on the stage of English History. 



