so Histoj'-y of the English Landed Interest. 



lie ever became a landlord, is as different from the chieftain of 

 Csesar as the latter is from the aristocrat of Tacitus. "We have 

 found nothing yet but the rude beginnings of a manorial 

 system, and even these have been confined to the more 

 civilised regions into which our examination has penetrated. 



We have also been at pains to show that the stages of civili- 

 sation varied considerably in the same country at the same 

 period of history. 



In the east of Britain the rural economy was far in advance 

 of that in her western and northern highlands. 



A comparison between the tribes of the accessible and in- 

 accessible parts of Germany shows the same difference. Even 

 the advanced civilisation of the Imperial Roman had to adapt 

 itself to circumstances, and retrograde towards an earlier stage, 

 when brought in contact with uncivilised nationalities. 



If it were possible to gauge the degree of civilisation to 

 which any race had attained by the progress it had made 

 towards the manorial system, we should have one striking 

 and common test, which we could apply to each nationality 

 in whose condition of civilisation we are at this period of 

 history so interested. We should first have to discover that 

 particular stage of its growth when a people is ripe for the 

 change, also what are the usual processes which lead up to and 

 result from that change. 



If, then, we could trace back the economical history of all 

 nations to the family, if we could build up process on process 

 the same progressive civiHsation which finally culminates in a 

 State constitution, we should, at any rate, have a fair clue to 

 that particular period in national advancement when the tribal, 

 the village, or the Mark economies would be most likely to fit 

 in. 



Out of nature's unit, the individual, we should be able to form 

 the family with its patria potestas and ties of kinship, making 

 place in process of time for the gens, where the blood relationship 

 is less distinguishable ; and eventually spreading out into the 

 tribe with its communal ideas of social and territorial equality. 

 Then would come the period when the community has become 

 of unwieldy proportions. Blood relationship has ceased to be a 



