Such criticism might be valuable and apropos to a certain sort of newspapers, but not to serious investigators and critics. Throwing this kind of adjectives at an author, does not mean that he is really wrong. Indeed, Tolstoy’s doctrine of abolishing individual ownership constitutes no valid grounds for criticism of the historic right of private property in land. Most of his great expectations would not be realized. The problems of wealth distribution, land, and money, are much deeper and more complex than he presumed. They cannot be explained solely by a theory, nor solved by refusing to serve in military and state obligations. They are the inheritance of the present generation from a long past, the resultant of a complex of forces, material and spiritual, political, economic, moral, and social. They can only be unraveled by a most minute and careful study of historical records, interpreted by the aid of the best results of the thought of economists, sociologists, and politicians. And yet, in many ways, Tolstoy aided the solution of these problems. He helped to accelerate it by the example he set of earnestness, altruism, and intense devotion to ideals which he made the creed of future society. [Illustration: Line] FOOTNOTES: [50] See these quotations on Solon and Lycurgus in _Property_, by Ch. Letourneau, ch. XIV, sec. V, 6. [51] That property was created by law it is proved by Montesquieu and Bentham. In the _Spirit of Laws_, Montesquieu argues that civil law is Paladium of property, and as the people acquired by political laws liberty, so they acquired by the civil laws property. [_The Spirit of Laws_, book XXVI, ch. 15].--In _The Principles of Civil Code_, by J. Bentham, we find the same idea expressed in these words: “Property is entirely the creature of law.... Property and law are born and must die together. Before the laws, there was no property; take away the laws, all property ceases”. [_The Principles of the Civil Code_, pt. I, ch. VIII]. [52] _Cf._ Ch. Letourneau, _Property_, ch. XIV and XV. See also Aristotle’s _Politics_, bk. I, ch. VIII. [53] _Cf._ F. de Coulange, _Cité Antique_, English by W. Small, 1901, book II, ch. VIII, p. 120. [54] _What Shall We Do Then_, ch. XXI. p. 163. [55] _Cf._ _Qu’est ce que la Propriété_, 1840, English translation by B. Tucker, 1876, First Memoir, ch. I. [56] _What Shall We Do Then_, ch. 39. Wiener’s ed. p. 318. [57] Plato’s view on property is expressed in _The Republic_, bk. III, IV, V and VIII. Then in _The Laws_, bk. III, where he speaks of distribution of land and equalizing of property. In the same work, he further on says that property does not belong to the individual but to the whole family, and property and family alike belong to the State, _The Laws_, b. XI.