f will, feebleness of
mind, ignorance, all swarmed into the soul of man, and disturbed not
merely the internal economy of his being, but his relations also to his
fellows. The sin of Cain is the social result of this personal upheaval.

Society then felt the evils which attended this new condition of things,
and it was driven, according to this patristic idea, to search about for
remedies in order to restrain the anarchy which threatened to overwhelm
the very existence of the race. Hence was introduced first of all the
notion of a civil authority. It was found that without it, to use a
phrase which Hobbes indeed has immortalised, but which can be easily
paralleled from the writings of St. Ambrose or St. Augustine, "life was
nasty, brutish, and short." To this idea of authority, there was quickly
added the kindred ideas of private property and slavery. These two were
found equally necessary for the well-being of human society. For the
family became a determined group in which the patriarch wielded absolute
power; his authority could be effective only when it could be employed
not only over his own household, but also against other households, and
thus in defence of his own. Hence the family must have the exclusive
right to certain things. If others objected, the sole arbitrament was an
appeal to force, and then the vanquished not only relinquished their
claims to the objects in dispute, but became the slaves of those to whom
they had previously stood in the position of equality and rivalry.

Thus do the Fathers of the Church justify these three institutions. They
are all the result of the Fall, and result from sin. Incidentally it may
be added that much of the language in which Hildebrand and others spoke
of the civil power as "from the devil" is traceable to this theological
concept of the history of its origin, and much of their hard language
means no more than this. Private property, therefore, is due to the
Fall, and becomes a necessity because of the presence of sin in the
world.

But it is not only from the Fathers of the Church that the mediaeval
tradition drew its force. For parallel with this patristic explanation
came another, which was inherited from the imperial legalists. It was
based upon a curious fact in the evolution of Roman law, which must now
be shortly described.

For the administration of justice in Rome two officials were chosen, who
between them disposed of all the cases in dispute. One, the _P