Excerpt from Studies in the Early History of Institutions, Vol. 3: The Theory of Village Communities I shall undertake, in the following essay, a critical examina tion of the Theory of Village Communities, as presented and recommended by its most eminent advocates, G. L. Von Mau rer, Friedrich Thudichum, Prof. Nasse, M. De Laveleye, and Sir Henry Maine. The works of Von Maurer and Thudichum are now antiquated, superseded in a great measure, and little read, even by students but. In view of the fact that these writers have contributed funda mental premises for the arguments of their successors in the field of Economic History I shall have to bring them into notice once more; and I think I cannot urge a plea for independent study and independent writing more effectively than by showing how the researches of Prof. Nasse, M. De Laveleye, and Sir Henry Maine have been afl'ected by the unscientific arguments and the erroneous conclusions of their predecessors. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.