and tillage of land as it existed among the peasants of Europe. That
system was shown by experience to be wasteful. Competition tended to
bring the economic agents into more efficient hands, and the movement
was furthered by many acts of injustice and violence on the part of
those in power.

Inquiries into the origin and development of any social institution
are interesting and helpful in forming an estimate of its present
significance, but the problems of the past are not those of to-day.
Whether or not the ancient beginning of property in Europe was in
violence and evil has but a remote bearing on the question as to the
present working of it. Social conditions and needs have not changed
more than have the forms and limits of property itself. Each
generation has its own problems to solve, and ignoring for the most
part the evils of the distant past, each generation must test existing
institutions by their present results.

§ 6. #Limitations of private property#. It is well, in discussing
private property, to rid the mind at once of the idea that it is an
absolute and unchanging thing. Few realize the manifold ways in which
property rights are limited. Unmodified private control of property is
unknown; the public makes many reservations in its own interest. There
is, first, a whole set of limitations to prevent nuisances. An owner
in many situations is not free to build a slaughter-house or to start
a glue-factory on his land. Property is governed by general public
utility, and anything that threatens to become a nuisance or a danger
may be excluded. Under the right of "eminent domain," the state or the
railroad takes the old homestead from the owner who would live and die
there.