Civilisation is nothing more than a name for the old order of the Aryan world, dissolved but perpetually re-constituting itself under a vast variety of solvent influences, of which infinitely the most powerful have been those which have, slowly, and in some parts of the world much less perfectly than others, substituted several property for collective ownership." - Meaning and context.">
Village-Communities in the East and West (1876 ed.), p. 230
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Nobody is at liberty to attack several property and to say at the same time that he values civilisation. The history of the two cannot be disentangled. Civilisation is nothing more than a name for the old order of the Aryan world, dissolved but perpetually re-constituting itself under a vast variety of solvent influences, of which infinitely the most powerful have been those which have, slowly, and in some parts of the world much less perfectly than others, substituted several property for collective ownership.

— Henry James Sumner Maine

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Nobody is at liberty to attack several property and to say at the same time that he values civilisation. The history of the two cannot be disentangled. Civilisation is nothing more than a name for the old order of the Aryan world, dissolved but perpetually re-constituting itself under a vast variety of solvent influences, of which infinitely the most powerful have been those which have, slowly, and in some parts of the world much less perfectly than others, substituted several property for collective ownership." in the context of "Village-Communities in the East and West (1876 ed.), p. 230" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "Henry James Sumner Maine" (Quotes) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Henry James Sumner Maine

About Henry James Sumner Maine

Sir Henry James Sumner Maine (15 August 1822 – 3 February 1888) was a British comparative jurist, historian and political proto-progressive nonetheless famous for his varied objections to Whig history.