no EVOLUTION, SOCIAL AND ORGANIC 



all. Nothing was owned privately until it 

 reached the very point of consumption and 

 not always then, as food was largely eaten at 

 communal meals. This social form still sur- 

 vives especially in Russia, and Kropotkin 

 says : 'The sight of a Russian commune mow- 

 ing a meadow — the men rivalling each other 

 in their advance with the scythe, while the 

 women turn the grass over and throw it up 

 into heaps — is one of the most inspiring 

 sights; it shows what human work might be 

 and ought to be. The hay, in such case, is 

 divided among the separate households, and 

 it is evident that no one has the right of tak- 

 ing hay from a neighbor's stack without his 

 permission ; but the limitation of this last rule 

 among the Caucasian Ossetes is most note- 

 worthy. When the cuckoo cries and announ- 

 ces that spring is coming, and that the mead- 

 ows will soon be clothed again with grass, 

 every one in need has the right of taking from 

 a neighbor's stack the hay he wants for his 

 cattle. The old communal rights are thus re- 

 asserted, as if to prove how contrary un- 

 bridled individualism is to human nature." 



When the early Christians "had all things 

 in common," they were not reaching forward 

 to modern Socialism ; they were harking back 

 to this primitive communism which shed itn 



