This is not the place for research into the origin and the primitive phases of ownership, nor even for inquiry into the views of property current in the early days of the Western culture. But the views current on this head at present — the principles which guide men's thinking and roughly define the right limits of discretion in pecuniary matters — this common-sense apprehension of what are the proper limits, rights, and responsibilities of ownership, is an outgrowth of the traditions, experiences, and speculations of past generations.
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Therefore some notice of the character of these traditional views and the circumstances out of which they have arisen in the recent past is necessary to an understanding of the part which they play in modern life.' The theory of property professed at a given time and in a given cultural region shows what is the habitual attitude of men, for the time being, on questions of ownership ; for any theory that gains widespread and uncritical acceptance must carry a competent formulation of the deliverances of common sense on the matter with which it deals. Otherwise it will not be generally accepted. And such a commonplace view is in its turn an outcome of protracted experience on the part of the community.
The modern theories of property run back to Locke,* or to some source which for the present purpose is equivalent to Locke ; who, on this as on other Institutional questions, has been proved by the test of time to be a competent spokesman for modern culture in these premises. A detailed examination of how the matter stood in the theoretical respect before Locke, and whence, and by what process of selection and digestion, Locke de-
1 •■ It hu been said that the science of one age is the cominon sense of the next. It migbt with equal truth be said that the equity ol one ago