To begin with, even a complete knowledge of the sequence of events would not be sufficient since it would merely present a series of arrangements following upon each other in time and not a chain of causes and effects. We cannot exempt ourselves from the duty of following up the investigation by speculations as to the agencies and motives which produced the changes. But even apart from the necessity of taking up ultimately what one may call the dynamic thread of the inquiry, there is considerable difficulty in obtaining a tolerably settled sequence of general facts to start with. Any one who has had to do with such studies knows how scanty the information about the earlier phenomena is apt to be, how difficult it is to distinguish between the main forms and the variations which mediate and lead from one to another. The task of settling a definite theory of development would not have been so arduous, and the conflicting views of scholars would not have suggested such directly opposite results, if the early data had not been so scattered and so ambiguous. The state of the existing material requires a method of treatment which may to some extent supplement the defects in the evidence. The later and well-recorded period ought to be made to supply additional information as to the earlier and imperfectly described ones. It is from this point of view that we must once more survey the ground that we have been exploring in the foregoing pages. The first general feature that meets our eye is the cultivation of arable on the open-field system: the land tilled is not parcelled up by enclosures, but lies open through the whole or the greater part of the year; the plot held and tilled by a single cultivator is not a compact piece, but is composed of strips strewn about in all parts of the village fields and intermixed with patches or strips possessed by fellow villagers. Now, both facts are remarkable. They do not square at all with the rules and tendencies of private ownership and individualistic husbandry. The individual proprietor will naturally try to fence in his plot against strangers, to set up hedges and walls that would render trespassing over his ground difficult, if not impossible. And he could not but consider intermixture as a downright nuisance, and strive by all means in his power to get rid of it. Why should he put up with the inconvenience of holding a bundle of strips lying far apart from each other, more or less dependent because of their narrowness on the dealings of neighbours, who may be untidy and unthrifty? Instead of having one block of soil to look to and a comparatively short boundary to maintain, every occupier has a number of scattered pieces to care for, and neighbours, who not only surround, but actually cut up, dismember, invade his tenement. The open-field system stands in glaring contradiction with the present state of private rights in Western Europe, and no wonder that it has been abolished everywhere, except on