With these changes in social life came new theories of rights and obligations. A new lesson was learnt with regard to property. It is difficult to discern whether, in the older, the patriarchal society, the property was regarded as exclusively that of the chief, or as belonging to the family collectively. The truth seems to be that the two ideas were blended, and neither was conceived with any clearness or completeness. In the village community for the first time the two forms of property, personal and communal, became fully distinguished; each kind, by defining and limiting, producing a clearer idea of the other. The land, the bond of union, and the limit of the extent of the community, remained the common property of all; in part, no doubt, because the idea of possessing land was still so new that it had not been thoroughly grasped. The produce of the land, whether corn or pasture, was, on the other hand, rather regarded as a proper subject of private possession. At first, perhaps, in obedience to the habits of an earlier life, even this may have been looked upon as common property. But it did not long continue so, as the separation of the households remained too complete to permit of any community with regard to the possessions of the individual homestead, or of the produce required for the support of each household; and this enforced separation of household goods soon extended to the live stock, and to the produce of the harvest.[54] [Sidenote: Law.] The effects produced by their new relation to each other upon the individual members of this group were very important. Hitherto such idea of law as existed was confined to the mandates or traditional regulations of the patriarchs. Law was at first inseparably connected with religion. It was looked upon as a series of regulations handed down by some ancestor who had received the regulations by Divine inspiration. This notion of the origin of law is so general, that it is to be met with in the traditions of almost every nation. Thus we find the Egyptians reputing their laws to the teachings of Hermes (Thoth); while the lawgivers of Greece, Minôs and Lycurgus, are inspired, the one by Zeus the other by Apollo. So too the Iranian lawgiver Zoroaster is taught by the Good Spirit; and Moses receives the commandments on Mount Sinai. Now, though this idea of law is favourable to the procuring obedience to it, it produces an injurious effect on the law itself, by rendering it too fixed and unalterable. Law, in order to satisfy the requirements and changes of life, should be elastic and capable of adaptation; otherwise, regulations which in their institution were beneficial will survive to be obnoxious under an altered condition of society. But so long as laws are regarded as Divine commands they necessarily retain a great degree of rigidity. The village community, in disconnecting the source of law from the patriarchal power, tended to destroy this association.