62 PROCEEDINGS OF THK CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



the most original forms. But as this method cannot advantageously 

 be applied within the limits of a single paper, I must begin at the 

 other end of the series — that is, define the ancient* village com- 

 munity, and briefly point out some modern institutions that are 

 clearly traceable to it. 



A few words on the bibliography of this question. From a com- 

 paratively early period in the British occupation of India the village 

 community was noticed by the East India Company's officers, but its 

 essential features were not well understood, and this want of percep- 

 tion led to many disastrous blunders in their administration. Sir 

 Henry Maine, one of the most eminent of English publicists and 

 jurists, was the first to discern the real character of the organization 

 of native Indian society. Prior to his Indian experience he had, 

 through the investigations of Nasse and others, become acquainted 

 with the traces left by the village community on the political and 

 social institutions of the Teutonic countries of Europe, including 

 England. With the eye of genius he soon discerned that the- Indian 

 " village " and the British and Teutonic " village" were in their essen- 

 tial features identical, and this at once suggested to him that they 

 must have had a common origin. In a series of lectures on " Village 

 Communities East and West," delivered at Oxford in the year 1871, 

 he enunciated his theory and thus gave an entirely new and most 

 fruitful impulse and direction to historical investigation and the 

 science of comparative politics. Since that time the " Aryan village 

 in India and Ceylon " — that is, the modern Aryan village as seen in 

 those countries to-day — has been elaborately described by Sir John 

 Phear. Soebohm, Gomme, Heai-n, Coulanges, and others have fol- 

 lowed the subject up comparatively and systematically, while various 

 descriptive writers have incidentallj' thrown much light on the com- 

 munal institutions of the countries described. The information con- 

 tributed in the latter way by Mr. Wallace in his account of Russia 

 was peculiarly valuable and timely, for the Russian ■' mir " delineated 

 In his pages is beyond all question substantially identical with the 

 English " township " and the German " village." 



It is not easy to define, or even briefly describe, the " village com- 



* The term "ancient" must not be understood absolutely in this connection, for to this 

 day the village community exists in India, and even in some parts of Europe, in exceedingly 

 primitive forms. Indeed the term "primitive" expresses more accurately than "ancient" the 

 dea intended to be conveyed. 



