The study of economic history is altogether indispensable, if we are ever to have anything more than a superficial conception of the evolution of society. But it must be thorough; and we must not be over-hasty in proclaiming large results. And although a principal motive for such inquiry will be the hope of obtaining some light on the direction in which change is likely to take place in the future, it will be wise for some time to come for students resolutely to turn away their eyes from current controversies. There is a sufficient lesson in the topic we have been considering. The history of the mark has served Mr. George as a basis for the contention that the common ownership of land is the only natural condition of things; to Sir Henry Maine it has suggested the precisely opposite conclusion that the whole movement of civilisation has been from common ownership to private. Such arguments are alike worthless, if the mark never existed. NOTE A.--ON THE VILLAGE IN INDIA. It has been remarked above that the history of land-tenure in India calls for fresh examination, unbiased by any theory as to its development in Europe. It may, however, be added that, so far as may be judged from the material already accessible to us, India supports the mark-hypothesis as little as England. The negative argument may be thus drawn out:--1. The village-groups under the Mogul empire were bodies of cultivators with a customary right of occupation. The proprietor of the soil, in theory and in practice, was the Great Mogul. The dispute between the two schools of English officials early in the present century as to whether the _ryot_ could properly be regarded as an owner or not, arose from an attempt to make Indian facts harmonise with English conceptions. The _ryot_ had, indeed, a fixity of tenure greater than that of an ordinary English tenant; on the other hand, the share of the produce which he was bound to pay to the emperor or his delegate “amounted to a customary rent, raised to the highest point to which it could be raised without causing the people to emigrate or rebel” (Sir George Campbell, in _Systems of Land Tenure_). The French traveller, Bernier, who resided in India twelve years, and acted as physician to Aurungzebe, describes in 1670 the oppression to which the “peasantry” were subjected, and discusses the question “whether it would not be more advantageous for the king as well as for the people, if the former ceased to be sole possessor of the land, and the right of private property were recognised in India as it is with us” (_Travels_, tr. Brock, i., p. 255).