possession is to be
maintained, are very widely debated, and need not here be determined; it
is sufficient for the matter of this book to have it granted that in
this lies the germ of the socialistic theory of the State.

Once more it must be admitted that the meaning of "private ownership"
and "social possession" will vary exceedingly in each age. When private
dominion has become exceedingly individual and practically absolute, the
opposition between the two terms will necessarily be very sharp. But in
those earlier stages of national and social evolution, when the
community was still regarded as composed, not of persons, but of groups,
the antagonism might be, in point of theory, extremely limited; and in
concrete cases it might possibly be difficult to determine where one
ended and the other began. Yet it is undeniable that socialism in itself
need mean no more than the central principle of State-ownership of
capital and land. Such a conception is consistent with much private
property in other forms than land and capital, and will be worked out in
detail differently by different minds. But it is the principle, the
essence of it, which justifies any claims made to the use of the name.
We may therefore fairly call those theories socialistic which are
covered by this central doctrine, and disregard, as irrelevant to the
nature of the term, all added peculiarities contributed by individuals
who have joined their forces to the movement.

By socialistic theories of the Middle Ages, therefore, we mean no more
than those theories which from time to time came to the surface of
political and social speculation in the form of communism, or of some
other way of bringing about the transference which we have just
indicated. But before plunging into the tanglement of these rather
complicated problems, it will make for clearness if we consider quite
briefly the philosophic heritage of social teaching to which the Middle
Ages succeeded.

The Fathers of the Church had found themselves confronted with
difficulties of no mean subtlety. On the one hand, the teaching of the
Scriptures forced upon them the religious truth of the essential
equality of all human nature. Christianity was a standing protest
against the exclusiveness of the Jewish faith, and demanded through the
attendance at one altar the recognition of an absolute oneness of all
its members. The Epistles of St. Paul, which were the most scientific
defence of Christian doct