Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/249

 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY 237

ideal. I have already set forth elsewhere that the communistic and socialistic theorists are generally far from being absolute Utopians. They are most often attached, consciously or not, to the real pre-existing, or even contemporaneous, states. For instance, in my opinion, the City of the Sun of Campanella was closely associated with the descriptions of the empire of the Incas, or Sun empire, which was conquered by the Spanish.

What is interesting and important to note in rudimentary societies is the real identification of property with the territory of the state, and of the boundaries of the former with the boundaries of the latter. This identification has had within very advanced periods in the Middle Ages, and even in modern times, lasting consequences even after the individual property of the soil was in fact already firmly established. For instance, in case of con- quest, the conqueror seized not only the government of the con- quered state and the state domains, but also the private domains. The invasion of the barbarians into the Roman empire, and the conquest of England by the Normans, were accompanied by forcible seizure of private estates. Private property was a long time in coming to be respected, and this was so in maritime as well as in continental wars. The differentiation between the state and property was very slow in being effected from the economic point of view as well as from that of the moral, juridic, and political, and where it began to be affirmed in our military and inequality societies it was through a violent divorce between pri- vate property and public property, between the individual and the state, and even between society and the state. Perhaps in this respect as in many others the future reserves to us at least some apparent returns toward the communal and equality forms, in which society will reduce the state, in so far as it is governmental, to its special and subaltern function. However, the differentiation between the state, the individual, and society ought to be con- sidered as one organic development, though partly deformed through the unfavorable conditions in which it is realized. The whole effort of our contemporaries consists precisely in amelior- ating these conditions. Herein is the social question, the raison d'etre of sociology.