barred his progress or interfered with his methods of life. In
the hunter-fisher stage of existence, human contacts became frequent,
and led to contention and warfare over customary hunting grounds. Even
in the pastoral period the land was occupied by moving upon it, and
held as long as the tribe could maintain itself against other tribes
that wished the land for pasture. Gradually, however, even in
temporary locations, a more permanent attachment to the soil came
through clusters of dwellings and villages, and the habit of using
territory from year to year for pastorage led to a claim of the tribe
for that territory. So the idea of possession grew into the idea of
permanent ownership and the idea of rights to certain parts of the
territory became continually stronger. This method of settlement had
much to do with not only the economic life of people, but in
determining the nature of their {96} social organizations and
consequently the efficiency of their social activity. Evidently, the
occupation of a certain territory as a dwelling-place was the source of
the idea of ownership in land.

Nearly all of Europe, at least, came into permanent cultivation through
the village community.[2] A tribe settled in a given valley and held
the soil in common. There was at a central place an irregular
collection of rude huts, called the village. Each head of the family
owned and permanently occupied one of these. The fertile or tillable
land was laid out in lots, each family being allowed the use of a lot
for one or more years, but the whole land was the common property of
the tribe, and was under the direction of the village elders. The
regulation of the affairs of the agricultural community developed
government, law, and social cohesion. The social advancement after the
introduction of permanent agriculture was great in every way. The
increased food supply was an untold blessing; the closer association
necessary for the new kind of life, the building of distinct homes, and
the necessity of a more general citizenship and a code of public law
brought forth the social or community idea of progress. Side by side
with the village community system there was a separate development of
individual ownership and tillage, which developed into the manorial
system. It is not necessary to discuss this method here except to say
that this, together with the permanent occupation of the house-lot in
the village, gave rise to the priva