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 •7 'P 
 
 
PROPERTY 
 
 [TS DUTIES AND RIGHTS 
 
 HISTORICALLY, PHILOSOPHICALLY 
 AND EELiaiOUSLY REGARDED 
 
 ESSAYS BY^ VARIOUS WRITERS 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
 BY 
 
 THE BISHOP OF OXFORD 
 
 NEW EDITION 
 WITH AN ADDED ESSAY 
 
 J^etD gotk 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 1922 
 
 All Bights Reserved 
 

 \^^ 
 
 Set up and printed. 
 Published, March, 1922. 
 
 FEINTED IN U. S. A. 
 
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION 
 
 k NEW edition of this volume of essays offers oppor- 
 ;uiiity for some words of preface, suggested by experi- 
 mce connected with the former one. 
 
 Appreciative as was the reception generally accorded 
 our undertaking, there were certain criticisms of its 
 !Cope which showed that the idea governing its plan 
 n the writers ' minds was not always equally present to 
 hose of its readers. Complaint was made that it dealt 
 lither with too many aspects of Property or with too 
 lew. In particular, separate treatment of the legal and 
 jhe economic sides of the subject was desired. As 
 bgards the legal aspect, its omission was due simply to 
 jircumstances ; and now what was always part of the 
 ichem.e is happily supplied in the new essay by Profes- 
 5or W. M, Geldart. This falls naturally into the argu- 
 nent and strengthens the proof of our general thesis, 
 )y showing the essentially relative character of the 
 ight of property even on its legal side. It has no 
 privilege in our law to protect it against the control of 
 he community, which, acting through the sovereign 
 egislature, has power to re-fashion, to abridge, and to 
 jinnu].. It is not one and immutable, but finds its place 
 n a world of rights, public and private, to each of 
 ^hich varying boundaries are assigned from time to 
 ime in accordance with changing views of public policy. 
 Sven at any one time it will exist under diverse forms, 
 
vi PEOPERTY 
 
 designed to further the ends, now of the individnai 
 now of groups which have a narrower or wider socia^ 
 significance. To add such an essay is strictly germani 
 to the whole scope of the volume. 
 
 On the other hand, to include a discussion of th'i 
 application of our root idea to the actual economic 
 situation, with all its complexities and disputable dataf 
 is quite another matter. *^One thing at a time" is jf 
 sound maxim in such a connection. The primary tasl'^ 
 is to discover the true idea of property by a wide sunf 
 vey of the facts of past experience and theory, in ordei* 
 that it may guide our thinking as a regulative principle' 
 when we come to analyse the existing social and eco: 
 nomic order and consider how it may be made more 
 just for all. It makes a vast difference in the long rui 
 whether a man has at the back of his mind in all hij 
 judgments the principle, ' ^ One has a right to do as oni 
 likes with one's own," in the crude sense of what is h 
 one 's power, and may so remain, without breach of tht| 
 law of the land ; or, on the other hand, the idea of prop^ 
 erty as a social trust or stewardship. Change of atti) 
 tude here is the most ** practical" thing that can happeif 
 to men. It will set each to think out for himself his o^vii 
 obligations under existing conditions; and this effort 
 in turn will create the atmosphere in which publi( 
 measures of reform can be devised and carried out to 
 the best effect. Accordingly it seemed sound in theory 
 and practice not to include in the present volume an 
 essay, however tentative, containing any particulai 
 plan of economic reconstruction. 
 
 Since the Essays were written a European "War ha^i' 
 burst upon us : but it has only enhanced the relevancei 
 
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION vii 
 
 md urgency of their main idea. Indeed, it has afforded 
 % most impressive object-lesson of its truth, in that we 
 lave seen both public legislation and the spontaneous 
 vorking of the individual's conscience acting instinct- 
 vely upon it. Thus in furnishing a reasoned justifica- 
 ion of the principle of the relativity of private property 
 
 i"o the common weal, this volume can claim attention as 
 I tract for these grave times. In so saying one has not 
 phieiiy in mind the demands made upon each by the 
 jeeds of his fellows-countrymen during the war. Com- 
 paratively few, one hopes, will overlook or shirk these, 
 jven under the influence of an inadequate theory as 
 ;o the social nature and obligations of property. One 
 |hinks rather of the days yet to come after the war, 
 hen the long and more prosaic task of repairing 
 he fabric of society and meeting the awful wastage 
 )f resources in material and vital wealth will make 
 pt severer because more sustained demands upon 
 patriotism. 
 
 J There is around us at this hour a new sense of the 
 lormal place of sacrifice in life, and of the enhanced 
 jneaning and dignity which it gives to manhood and 
 ^omanhood, especially when it becomes the pervasive 
 jitmosphere of a whole nation 's being. The recognition 
 hat our daily life is a campaign for a high common 
 3ause, mth its constant call for loyalty and discipline 
 jind self-sacrifice, and its lesson that individual rights in 
 property are all relative to dutiful use in that cause, is 
 3eing burnt into us by experiences which must leave 
 pach and all either more sensitive or more callous 
 the solidarity of human life in a nation. It is in 
 
 such a day as this that we reissue the reasoned plea 
 
viii PKOPEETY 
 
 which these essays in their unity amid diversity vir-- 
 tually constitute, to reconsider the social basis and char- 
 acter of property and its consequent obligations. One 
 immediate and appropriate result of a discerning peru- 
 sal of this volume should be a fresh readiness in the! 
 economically strong to shoulder the burdens of thej 
 weak — the phenomenon of the cheerful tax-payer. That' 
 would be a good beginning. But many further applica-j 
 tions of its principle of social and economic justice will 
 be necessary, if we are to reap to the full the abiding; 
 fruits of that new vision of unity and mutual depend-' 
 ence which flashed on us early in August 1914. 
 
 J. V. B. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 INTEODUCTION 
 
 FACE 
 
 By Charles Gore, D.D., D.C.L., LL.D., Bishop of 
 
 Oxford xi 
 
 L THE HISTOEICAL EVOLUTION OF 
 PROPEETY, IN FACT AND IN IDEA 
 
 By L. T. HoBHOusE^ MA., Professor of Sociology, 
 
 London University 1 
 
 II. THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEORY OF 
 
 PROPERTY 
 
 By the Rev. Hastings Rashdall, D.Litt., F.B.A., 
 Fellow and Lecturer in Philosophy, New College, 
 Oxford; Canon of Hereford .... 35 
 
 IIL THE PRINCIPLE OF PRIVATE 
 PROPERTY 
 
 By A. D. Lindsay, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Balliol 
 
 College, Oxford . . . • . . . . 69 
 
 ix 
 
PEOPERTY 
 
 IV. THE BIBLICAL AND EAELY 
 CHEISTIAN IDEA OF PEOPEETY 
 
 PAGE 
 
 By the Rev. Vernon Baetlet, D.D. (St. Andrews), 
 Professor of Church History in Mansfield College, 
 Oxford 87 
 
 V. THE THEOEY OF PEOPEETY IN 
 MEDIAEVAL THEOLOGY 
 
 By the Rev. A. J. Carlyle, D.Litt, Chaplain and 
 Lecturer in Political Science and Economics, Uni- 
 versity College, Oxford . 123 
 
 VL THE INFLUENCE OF THE EEF- 
 
 OEMATION ON IDEAS CONCEENING 
 
 WEALTH AND PEOPEETY 
 
 By H. G. Wood, M.A., Late Fellow of Jesus College, 
 Carabridge; Lecturer at WoodbrooJce Settlement, 
 Birmingham 141 
 
 VIL PEOPEETY AND PEESONALITY 
 
 By the Rev. Henry Scott Holland, D.D., Begius 
 Professor of Divinity, Oxford, and Canon of Christ 
 Church . . . . . . . . .179 
 
 VIIL SOME ASPECTS OF THE LAW 
 OF PEOPEETY IN ENGLAND 
 
 By W. M. Geldart, M.A., B.CL., Vinerian Professor 
 of English Law, and Fellow of All Souls College, 
 Oxford 205 
 
 INDEX . *. 237 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 By the Bishop of Oxford 
 
 I THINK that I shall best justify my appearance as 
 introducing this volume of Essays if I explain the 
 circumstances of their origin. Dr. Bartlet, of Mans- 
 field College, Oxford, had written a letter to the 
 British WeeMy strongly urging upon Christians the 
 duty of reconsidering their ideas about property in the 
 light of the Bible doctrine of stewardship — the doc- 
 trine that Grod the Creator is the only absolute owner of 
 all things or persons—that **all things come of Him" 
 and are ^^His own," and that we men hold what we hold 
 as stewards for the purposes of His Kingdom, with only 
 a relative and dependent ownership limited at every 
 point by the purpose for which it was entrusted to us. 
 He was good enough to send me his letter and to sug- 
 gest that we might combine to issue some literature 
 of a popular kind about the duties and rights of prop- 
 erty based on this Biblical doctrine. 
 
 Naturally I felt a cordial sympathy with the idea, but 
 I said that before anything of a popular kind was is- 
 sued, I thought that we needed some more thorough or 
 philosophical treatment of property in idea and his- 
 tory. The Bible doctrine by itself makes an appeal of 
 tremendous force to the individual conscience. But the 
 individual, however deeply stirred in his conscience, ^^ 
 however fully convinced that he must not conform him- 
 self to the ideas of property which happen to be cur- 
 
 xi 
 
xii PEOPEETY 
 
 rent in society but mnst assert the Christian principle, 
 finds himself in fact in the bonds of an organized sys- 
 tem of property. By himself he can do very little. As 
 a consumer, as a shareholder, as a tradesman, as an 
 owner of land, as a shop assistant, as a clerk, as a work- 
 man, he finds himself paralysed by the system of which 
 inevitably he forms a part. The system is not unalter- 
 able. It has altered profoundly in more directions than 
 one within recent history, and is altering. But at every 
 stage it holds the individual in its grasp. Not even by 
 *' going out of the world,'' not even were he to do so 
 strange a thing as to become a monk, can he get out of 
 it. The clothes he wears, the food he eats, the railways 
 he travels by, the books he buys, the State he belongs to, 
 hold him in the grip of the system. What he cries out 
 for, when his conscience is awakened, is not merely 
 personal guidance, but also ideas which can be applied 
 to society; not merely again schemes for law-making, 
 but ideas such as must lie behind law-making and 
 without which law-making is in vain. He wants an 
 ideal of property, a principle of property, such as will 
 tend to form a corporate conscience, at first among those 
 who are consciously dissatisfied with things as they are 
 and consciously in want of a theory, and then more 
 widely in society as a whole. 
 
 The Lord Chancellor, Lord Haldane, has just^ been 
 speaking noble and suggestive words to the lawyers of 
 the American Bar Association on the power of a com- 
 mon mind, or common feeling as to what is legitimate 
 and illegitimate, when it has become instinctive and 
 dominant in a society. But this common mind about 
 property is conspicuously lacking amongst us. We are 
 groping in the dark. We are familiar with the tradi- 
 tional cry of *Hhe rights of property," and we are pain- 
 
 1 September 1, 1913. 
 
INTEODUCTION xiii 
 
 fully familiar also with the disastrous wrongs which the 
 law and custom of property as it exists among us has 
 inflicted and is inflicting. But we want a theory, a 
 principle to guide us. We cannot act with any power as ^ 
 mere individuals without a corporate mind and con- 
 science on the subject; and we can form no corporate 
 mind and conscience without a clear principle. It was 
 this principle, tiiis philosophy of property, in which, 
 when I listened to Dr. Bartlet's appeal, I felt myself 
 lacking. Without it I cannot play my part effectively 
 as a citizen and still less as a moral teacher. Any 
 moral teaching which is to grip men's minds requires 
 it as a background. Therefore, before engaging in a 
 popular propaganda, I needed to clear up the principle 
 of property. 
 
 So I felt : so I knew others were feeling. And, Dr. 
 Bartlet agreeing, we set to work to get written a volume 
 of essays on property in which the subject should be 
 treated both from the standpoint of philosophy and of 
 religion. Divisions of the subjects were easily sug- 
 gested, and names of willing writers were finally forth- 
 coming; and the present volume is the result of our 
 efforts. Mr. Leonard Hobhouse begins with a state- 
 ment of the early history of property and its later 
 developments. Dr. Rashdall and Mr. Lindsay deal with 
 the principle of property from the side of philosophy, 
 historically and critically. Dr. Bartlet, Dr. Carlyle, 
 and Mr. Wood give us the history of the treatment of 
 property in Christendom from the side of religion. Dr. 
 Holland concludes with an essay on the aspect of the 
 .natter which the previous essays have shown to be of 
 the first importance — ^the relation of property to per- 
 sonality. Some differences, of emphasis at least, will 
 be felt between different writers, but not such as to in- 
 terfere with a marked unity of tendency and result. 
 
xiv PEOPERTY 
 
 After reading these essays, I ask myself, How far have 
 I and those who share my need for guidance towards a 
 working principle of property got what we sought? I 
 answer the question for myself by saying that the 
 writers give me the impression of having got to the root 
 of the matter ; they write with thorough and adequate 
 knowledge and genuine impartiality; and as a result 
 they help me most effectively to a standing-ground on 
 certain dominant ideas or constructive principles by 
 which I can guide myself and feel assurance in seeking 
 to guide others, ideas and principles such as ought to 
 have power to form a corporate conscience or common 
 mind about property in the men of to-day — to act both 
 as a secure basis of policy in promoting reform and 
 as a ground of appeal to the Christian conscience. 
 
 Mr. Hobhouse shows the way in his distinction be- 
 tween property *^for use" and property **for power.'' 
 This is a most fruitful distinction. Aristotle was the 
 first to make the familiar appeal on behalf of private 
 property that it is necessary for the free development 
 of the higher life in the individual, and is the most 
 effective stimulus to character and personal exertion. 
 We are all familiar with the argument, and we feel its 
 force to the full. The average man wants the sphere 
 which he can call **his own" to stimulate him to develop 
 himself, to get room to move freely and realize what he 
 is capable of. Now Aristotle is able calmly to contem- 
 plate this self-realization as the privilege of the few — 
 the freemen or citizens — ^while the larger mass of the 
 inhabitants of his city are to be slaves, men conceived 
 to exist not for themselves but for their masters. To 
 us this distinction is intolerable. We are bound to be- 
 lieve that, whatever inequalities must subsist among 
 men, every man has the divine and equal right to realize 
 himself. The success of a civilization for us must be 
 
INTEODUCTION xv 
 
 measured not by the amount and character of its prod- 
 ucts or material wealth, nor by the degree of well-being 
 which it renders possible for a privileged class, but by 
 the degree in which it enables all its members to feel ^ 
 that they have the chance of making the best of them- 
 selves, to feel that an adequate measure of free self- 
 realization is granted them. On this ground then our 
 civilization is open to the most serious indictment. 
 Property **for use'' — what a man needs for true free- 
 dom, what even at the utmost he is able to use — is a very 
 limited quantity on the whole. Very speedily, as it ex- 
 pands, it becomes ^^ property for power": it becomes 
 at last the almost unmeasured control by the few rich, 
 not of any amount of unconscious material, but of other ^ 
 men whose opportunity to live and work and eat be- 
 comes subject to their will. That is where property 
 has so manifestly gone wrong. In our own civilization 
 we find vast masses of men and women who cannot be 
 reasonably described as having any adequate measure 
 of property for use. They cannot go out into life with 
 the security of free men. They cannot, within reason- 
 able limits, control their own destiny. They cannot 
 realize themselves. They are ** hands" for other men 
 to use. The conviction rises in our mind as we con- 
 template the facts that something has gone very wrong 
 with our tenure of property : that we need by peaceful ^ 
 means, and, if it may be, by general consent, to accom- 
 plish such a redistribution of property as shall reduce 
 the inordinate amount of *^ property for power" in the 
 hands of the few and give to all men, as far as may be, 
 in reasonable measure ^^ property for use." Then we 
 ask ourselves. Are we in entertaining such an ambition 
 violating any sacred right of property? We interrogate 
 the philosophers, and we find under Dr. Eashdall's 
 guidance that we can discern no absolute right of prop- 
 
xvi PEOPEETY 
 
 erty. "Ifs justification must depend upon no a prion 
 
 \ principle but upon its social effects." We may say that 
 
 a man has a divine right to realize his being : and this 
 
 involves a certain right of property. But this goes but 
 
 a very little way. Moreover, from the first man is a 
 
 social animal. He realizes himself in connnunities. 
 
 Property is made possible and seciired^by the commu 
 
 nity, which becomes in developed society the State.' The 
 
 State exists to enable its members to develop a worthy 
 
 , human life. A State must be judged, and should judge 
 
 itself, by its tendency to generate in all its citizens s 
 
 worthy type of life — to make them happy and progres 
 
 sive beings who feel that life is worth living. If at an^ 
 
 stage it finds that the institution of property, as i1 
 
 exists, is fostering luxury and exaggerated power in i 
 
 few, and enslaving or hindermg the many, there h 
 
 nothing to prevent it rectifying what is amiss. Prop 
 
 ^ erty is relative to character : it is a means towards i 
 
 good life, and a good life for all men. The State is 
 
 free to alter its laws or its methods so as to secure it; 
 
 better distribution. As it is only the State whicl 
 
 enables a man to become rich, so, if wealth prove; 
 
 inimical to the general development, the possessors o 
 
 wealth have no legitimate claim to urge against th^ 
 
 State taking measures to redress the balance, provide( 
 
 that the end which the State has in view is the true enc 
 
 — the real welfare of all its citizens. No doubt, as Mi 
 
 Lindsay shows, it is a difficult process to guard thi 
 
 sacred right of personal freedom against State tyranni 
 
 on the one hand, and on the other to prevent the exces 
 
 of individualism which means in practice the enslave 
 
 ment of the many to the few. But because it is difficul 
 
 to direct human life aright individually or socially, w 
 
 must not, therefore, abandon what alone makes huma: 
 
 life worth living — the effort to realize a worthy idea"| 
 
INTEODUCTION xvii 
 
 And what has religion — the Christian religion which 
 exists to teach men that the end of their being is to 
 serve the glory of God and the real good equally of 
 themselves and of their fellows — to say to the institu- 
 tion of property! The Old Testament, on which Chris- 
 tianity is based, describes the theocratic community; 
 and its moral principles have, as the Christian is taught 
 to believe, a permanent validity — to be developed and 
 not to be superseded. Well then, a man cannot read the 
 law and the prophets from the point of view of one who 
 would think rightly about private property, without 
 seeing how, alike in the institutions of the law and in the 
 teaching of the prophets, the intention is to recognize 
 it, indeed, as having God's sanction, but to restrain it 
 by a peremptory insistence on the right of God, the 
 only absolute owner, and the rights of our fellow men, 
 especially the weaker and poorer members of the State. 
 Much that we are accustomed to hear called legitimate 
 insistence upon the rights of property, the Old Testa- 
 ment would seem to call the robbery of God, and the 
 grinding of the faces of the poor. 
 
 Later the teaching of Jesus Christ about the worth 
 of each individual, the poorest /and the weakest, ex- 
 pressed itself in the Christian idisa of brotherhood, and 
 the institution of the Church as a body in which ''ii 
 I one member suffer, all the members suffer with if 
 ' This idea and institution carried with it a doctrine of 
 1 property, which echoed our Lord's strong disparage- 
 jment of wealth, and was in theory and practice highly 
 ^communal. The Christians were a persecuted body, 
 who had no power of controlling the law or practice of 
 [the society of the Empire ; but within their own **volun- 
 ^tary'' society the claim of the brethren was paramount. 
 :The scoffer, Lucian, notes this as their characteristic: 
 '** Their leader, whom they yet adore, had persuaded 
 
xviii PEOPERTY 
 
 them that they were all brethren : in compliance with his 
 laws they looked with contempt on all worldly treasures 
 and held everything in common," or (as this is morei 
 accurately expressed), '*It is incredible with what alac- 
 rity those people defend and support their conunon 
 interests — the interest of any of their number — and! 
 spare nothing, in short, to promote it." Thus thei 
 Christian church became a corporation for mutual sup- 
 port, refusing the idler who would not work, but for the 
 rest accepting the maxim that they ''must provide one! 
 another with support, with all joy : furnishing those who: 
 lack occupation with employment, and thus with the 
 necessary livelihood. To the workman, work; to him 
 who cannot work, mercy (or alms)."^ There is no 
 doubt that this profound sense of the communal claim 
 on private property and this practically effective sense 
 of brotherhood produced an economic condition in thej 
 Christian community which was one main cause of its; 
 progress. The Fathers use the strongest languagej 
 against any ''right of property," which resists the 
 claim of the needs of the brethren. Dr. Bartlet writes 
 with a studied moderation about all this, and shows no 
 little insight in accounting for the disappointing fact 
 that when Christianity became the established religion, 
 it did so little to impress its ideal of property upon the! 
 law and custom of the later Empire. But certainly 
 the church bore the strongest witness to the idea of 
 property as a trust for the common good. And in no 
 way is this more strikingly shown than in its identifican 
 tion of "charity" — that is, charity in the narrower 
 sense of almsgiving — ^with justice.^ The needy can 
 claim our alms as a matter of justice : to retain morei 
 
 2 Pseudo-Clement, Ep. 8; see Harnack, Expansion of Christianity 
 (Williams & Norgate), i. p. 218. i 
 
 3 This is especially but not exclusively characteristic of the Weaternsi 
 —Cyprian, Lactantius, Ambrose, etc. 
 
INTEODUCTION xix 
 
 property than we strictly need is a violation of justice, 
 and not merely a failure to perform a work of superero- 
 gation. Lord Hugh Cecil has recently drawn a strong 
 distinction between charity and justice. He says ** orig- 
 inally the relief of the poor was based on the duty 
 of Christian charity, and not on any supposed right of 
 justice,''* As far as Early Christianity is concerned 
 the distinction here drawn would be repudiated. To 
 withhold charity is to refuse justice. And when we 
 pass from the Early Christian period to the Middle 
 AgeSp when the whole fabric of society was in Christian 
 hands we find the old principle asserted. Charity in 
 the form of tithe, and more generally distribution of 
 wealth to need, is still asserted to be justice and the 
 withholding of it injustice. *^No man has really the 
 right to hold for himself more than he needs." And 
 the Stoic principle of a law of nature behind and con- 
 trolling the law of the State, is adopted in dealing with 
 property. Private property, and laws maintaining the 
 rights of private property, are necessary as a protec- 
 tion against the lawlessness of fallen human nature; 
 but behind the laws is the original principle by which all 
 things are common, which gives to every man his right 
 to what he needs, so that even stealing, St. Thomas 
 maintains, is no stealing if the need is sufficiently ur- 
 gent, and property has no claim which is valid against 
 the natural or fundamental right of every man to enjoy 
 the bounty of the Creator. It ought to be added that in 
 mediaeval society a very large share of property was 
 held by the religious houses, who at their best main- 
 tained in practical action the principle of voluntary 
 poverty, and at their lower level exhibited on the larg- 
 est scale the principle of communal ownership within 
 their own membership and for the sake of the poor. 
 
 ^ Cofisei'vatism (Williams & Norgate), p. 172. 
 
XX PEOPEETY 
 
 Amongst the Eeformers there were some who main- 
 tained the old Christian instinct unimpaired. No nobler 
 practical insistence on the trne conception of property 
 can be found than is to be found in the sermons of Hugh 
 Latimer; but, on the whole, the candid reader of Mr. 
 Wood's most interesting essay, with its valuable catena 
 of quotations, will feel that Protestantism in general, 
 and not least our English Protestantism, embodied an 
 excessive individualism,^ as in other respects so also 
 in regard to property. It abandoned much of the con- 
 tent which the Bible or earlier Christianity had given 
 to the commandment, ^^Thou shalt not steal.'' It 
 ushers in the epoch in which the doctrine of the right 
 of property is largely stripped of its old limitations.® 
 
 What are we to say, then, about the still dominant 
 individualism, the assertion of an almost unlimited 
 right of acquiring, retaining, and perpetuating prop- 
 erty, which breaks out against either any strongly 
 urged moral claim for voluntarily giving better condi- 
 tions to the poorer workers as an act of justice, or 
 
 5 It may be the case that the greater individualism in the conception 
 of property which characterizes Protestant literature would be found 
 to be more or less characteristic of the thought of Europe generally, 
 whether Protestant or Catholic, in the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
 turies, and to be due, not only to Protestant tendencies, but to a 
 widespread change in the economic structure of society. 
 
 6 But out of the heart of the eighteenth century we do well to recall 
 that Bishop Butler, in defending the right of the lay holder of what 
 had formerly been Church property to retain his property with a good 
 conscience, does so on grounds which involve the principle that there 
 is no absolute or perpetual right of property. "Property in general is, 
 and must be, regulated by the laws of the community. . . . Every 
 donation to the Christian church is a human donation and no more; 
 and therefore cannot give a divine right, but such a right only as must 
 be subject in common with all other property to human laws. . . . The 
 persons who gave these lands to the church had themselves no right 
 in perpetuity in them, consequently could convey no such right to the 
 church. But all scruples concerning the lawfulness of laymen possess- 
 ing these lands go upon the supposition that the church had such a 
 right in perpetuity in them; and therefore all those scruples must be 
 groundless as going upon a false supposition." See a letter of Bishop 
 Bmtler's in Fitzgerald's edition of the Analogy, Preface, p. xciii. 
 
INTRODUCTION xxi 
 
 against any action of the State wMcIl tends in the direc- 
 tion of a more equitable distribution of the proceeds of 
 industry? 
 
 We are bound to say that, looking at the matter 
 philosophically, it has no validity. The particular 
 laws which at any moment regulate the holding of 
 property, or determine the burden which it is to bear 
 for the public good^ are laws of the State ; it is the State 
 which alone enables property to be gathered and held ; 
 and there is no legitimate claim which property can 
 make against what appears to be the welfare of the 
 State. It is hardly possible to state the principle too 
 strongly. We are only saying the same thing in other 
 words if we say that the tenure of property in any com- 
 munity must be judged by its tendency to promote what 
 alone is the real end of civil society — that is, the best 
 possible life for man in general and all men in par- 
 ticular. If it appears that the conditions of property- 
 holding at any particular period sacrifice the many to 
 the few, and tend to starve the vitality or destroy the 
 hope or depress the efforts of masses of men and 
 women, there is no legitimate claim that property can 
 make against the alteration of conditions by gradual 
 and peaceable means. 
 
 Can such a charge be made out against the present 
 conditions under which in our country property is 
 acquired and held or handed on ? I fear that it can be 
 made out and pressed home. 
 
 The stimulus of unlimited acquisition, it is sometimes 
 pleaded, is necessary to bring out of men their great- 
 est capacity and energy. If you restrain a man's free- 
 dom to acquire, you damp his energy. But what about 
 the energy of the masses of men who can acquire no 
 property or no sufficient property to give them secure 
 status and hope ? If you go some way towards equaliz- 
 
xxii PEOPERTY 
 
 ing opportunity, as between one man and another, will 
 you not stimulate a thousand energies and interests to 
 one which you may cheek? 
 
 The most formidable form of this plea is that which 
 represents to us that in modern industry the most im- 
 portant factor is the brain of the great organizer ; that 
 this will only work under the stimulus of unlimited 
 acquisition of wealth and personal power; and that if 
 in our own country this power of unlimited acquisition 
 is restricted, the men of greatest initiative will go to 
 countries where no such restrictions exist, and our own 
 industrial life will suffer. This is a terrible argument 
 — the argument that what is most powerful in men 
 cannot be induced to act in the public interest but 
 only on the motive of unrestricted selfishness. There 
 are many experiences in modern industrial life to be 
 set against it. It may, however, be a motive for pro- 
 ceeding gradually in reforming industrial conditions, 
 and a ground for strengthening international fellowship 
 among reformers, so that similar tendencies may be 
 apparent in all countries. But it can never be a ground 
 for tying the hands of justice ; and it leaves altogether 
 out of account the stimulus to industry which is to be 
 anticipated in any country in which more and more men 
 in the industrial world can feel that it is worth while 
 to do their best. 
 
 Property in some sense is necessary for personality. 
 That is certainly true. Let us therefore be careful to 
 guard against any invasion of the real liberty of per- 
 sons, let us maintain the right of property **for use.'' 
 But how overwhelming is the indictment against pres- 
 ent conditions in their bearing on personality, the per- 
 sonality of the mass of our countrymen. On this line 
 Dr. Holland brings the series of essays to a conclusion 
 with an argument which seems to me to be of over- 
 
INTEODUCTION xxiii 
 
 whelming force. And he calls attention to the root 
 fact abont personality that it is in its fundamental v- 
 being a social thing — a relation of one individnal to 
 another ; and that a legitimate development of person- 
 ality involves a legitimate development of fellowship. 
 The Eoman poet contrasts the extravagance of indi- 
 vidual wealth in his own time with what he discerns 
 to have been the ancient Eoman ideal : 
 
 Privatus illis census erat brevis, 
 Commune magnumJ 
 
 Their private property was small: what was in common, *" 
 that was large. 
 
 These words echo in our mind. We cannot get rid 
 of the feeling that individualism in property has over- ^ 
 done itself : that it is working disastrous havoc : that the 
 cry for justice from masses of men and women is a cry 
 which is legitimate ; and if it is a legitimate cry, then 
 most certainly it behoves us not to wait till its claim 
 can be enforced, grudging every inch that is yielded un- 
 willingly to '^labour" imder the pressure of compul- 
 sion, but rather as free men to face the facts and gird 
 ourselves willingly for reform, even if it entail for us 
 personal sacrifice. 
 
 And here comes in the claim of our religion. We 
 have been unfaithful to its ancient instincts and to the 
 spirit of our Master. Speaking of the sixteenth and 
 again of the nineteenth century, and referring, I think, 
 to Europe at large, Harnock says: ''The church was 
 generally on the wrong side, a fact which still rankles / 
 in the memory of the nation, and is not without influence 
 on the economic struggle of the present day."® The 
 modern church has generally been on the wrong side. 
 
 7 Horace, Carm. ii. 15. 
 
 ^The Social Gospel (Williams & Norgate), p. 63. 
 
xxiv INTEODUCTION 
 
 Can we deny it? Can we deny that its conception of 
 property and of the obligations of property, and its 
 attitude towards the real needs of the masses of men 
 who have held no property, or received no adequate 
 supply of what life needs for its development, have 
 been wholly different from what the teaching of the 
 prophets and our Lord, and our Fathers in Christen- 
 dom, would have had them to be ? In this respect, as in 
 others, our religion to-day is on its trial. The place it is 
 to hold in the minds of men in general and the genuine- 
 ness which can be ascribed to our profession of brother- 
 hood, depend on our courageous readiness to think 
 again what our Christian principles mean. What do 
 we honestly believe in God's will — Christ's will — for 
 men? What do we mean when we say that we hold 
 our property as stewards for God's purposes? Do we 
 really believe that covetousness and the desire to ac- 
 cumulate wealth — ^yes, and wealth itself— deserve all 
 that our Lord and His apostles said of them? Do we 
 really acknowledge that if we are failing to redeem our 
 brothers and sisters from misery and want, we are 
 failing to redeem Christ? And if we genuinely mean 
 what we should mean, and believe what we say, are we, 
 as Christians, ready for a deep and courageous and 
 corporate act of penitence and reparation? 
 
THE HISTORICAL EVOLUTION 
 OF PEOPERTY, IN FACT AND IN IDEA 
 
 BY 
 
 L. T. HOBHOUSB, MA. 
 
 PSOFESSOB OF SOCIOLOGY, LONDON UNIVERSITY 
 
SUMMARY 
 
 1. The general notion of property. It is a right of control over 
 things which society recognizes. It may be absolute or partial, held 
 by one person or many, or by a community, but it must be exclusive 
 as against others, and it must have some permanence. 
 
 2. The connection of property with rational purpose, and with free- 
 dom. 
 
 3. The opposition, in this regard, between property held for use by 
 its owner, and property as a means of controlling the labour of others. 
 
 4. Property is a recognized institution in all known societies; but in 
 the simpler societies it is rarely, if ever, a source of "power." This side 
 develops with the advance of material civilization, and culminates in 
 the modern inequalities of wealth. 
 
 6. Of theories of property we may distinguish (a) the Communistic, 
 which really attacks the whole principle of property; (6) the Labour 
 theory; (c) the Individualistic theory, which finds it essential to char« 
 acter; and (d) the Socialistic theory. Need of discrimination between 
 property for "use" and for "power," and of the extension of certain 
 forms of State ownership in the interest of personal rights. 
 
THE HISTORICAL EVOLUTION 
 OF PEOPERTY, IN FACT AND IN IDEA ^ 
 
 A satisfactory account of the development of property 
 in general has not yet been written, and perhaps in the 
 present state of our knowledge cannot be written. In 
 no department of the study of comparative institutions 
 are the data more elusive and unsatisfactory. The di- 
 vergence between legal theory and economic fact, be- 
 tween written law and popular custom, between implied 
 rights and actual enjoyment, enables one and the same 
 institution to be painted and, within limits, quite honest- 
 ly and faithfully painted in very different colours. The 
 legally minded historian will lay stress on forms or 
 principles which have very little bearing on the actual 
 life of the people. The economic historian, impatient 
 ,of these subtleties, will ask us to look at the actual work- 
 ing of the institution, only to find that by some turn of 
 events the dormant legal principle is awakened, and 
 becomes a potent and perhaps deadly force in the work- 
 ing of a system. The theorist with a generalization to 
 defend can always, by judicious selection and omission, 
 , quote travellers, ethnologists, early codes, or points of 
 contemporary custom on his side ; for he is singularly 
 unfortunate if he cannot find something either in the 
 every day working of the institution or in its theoretical 
 
 1 In this paper the social functions of property are examined by the 
 standard of purely humanitarian ethics. 
 
4 PEOPEETY 
 
 implications, whicli, by ignoring other aspects, may be! 
 made to tell on his side. But any one who considersjt 
 the extraordinary difficulty which our own social his-|l 
 torians find in presenting a perfectly just picture of!" 
 landed property in England in any one century, to sayF 
 nothing of its development through the centuries, willf] 
 realize the kind of caution which science will demand |f 
 in reconstructing the true character of property amongji 
 a simple people who have no written documents from| 
 the statements of travellers, even if they are skilled ob-| 
 servers. |' 
 
 A single illustration may suffice. In a simple com-jj 
 munity practising extensive agriculture a man tellsl 
 a traveller that this is '*his" land, and that his neigh- 
 bour 's land. The statement is duly printed, and in the 
 end finds its way into a volume on the development of: 
 property as evidence of the individual ownership o| 
 land, without so much as a note to show the readerl 
 whether there has been any enquiry into the conditions; 
 of tenure. Another observer may state with equal truth 
 that the land ** belongs" to the tribe, and this remark 
 figures in a work of different tendency as equally good 
 evidence in favour of primitive communism, though' 
 there may be nothing to show in what form the land is] 
 actually used by the members of the tribe. In some ofl 
 the Australian tribes good observers tell us that there: 
 is no such thing as private property in land.^ Among: 
 others, other writers assure us that land neither be- 
 longs to a tribe nor to a group of families but to a single: 
 male.^ Does the difference really lie between the tribes' 
 or between the observers ? Some light may be throwU) 
 on the question and on the general difficulties of method! 
 
 2 Spencer and Gillen, The 'Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 
 27, etc. 
 
 ^E.g. Grey and Eyre, cited in Hildebrand's Recht und Sitte auf den' 
 verschiedenen Kulturstufen, p. 4. 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF PROPERTY 5 
 
 3y a passage in Mr. Howitt's classical work.* Among 
 he coast tribes of New South Wales it appears that the 
 [and wherein a child is born is ^^his" to hnnt in, and 
 3ven a father or mother may thns ^ * acquire ' ' land when 
 I child is born to them outside their own locality. ^*The 
 place where a man is born," said an old man, **is his 
 3wn locality and he has always the right to hunt over 
 it, and all others born there have also the right to do 
 30. ' ' It may safely be said that this is one of the very 
 last forms of title that would occur to a civilized en- 
 :][uirer. The effect of his examination of any single 
 iaative would be to persuade him that that native owned 
 the land where he was born. It would only be if he 
 happened to examine several born in the same district 
 that he would discover that many men called the same 
 land their own, and that their property in it could 
 neither be described as communal nor as individual. 
 
 Where data are so difficult to ascertain, generaliza- 
 tion must be unusually precarious. At best it may be 
 possible here to set out a few salient points which may 
 serve to throw light on the very diverse functions of 
 property in the social system, the variations which the 
 conception of property has undergone, and the manner 
 in which these are connected with the general develop- 
 ment of society. With this object we will briefly con- 
 sider (1) the general notion of property, (2) the psy- 
 chological conditions on which it rests, (3) certain as- 
 pects of its social functions, (4) some of the forms 
 which property has assumed at several stages of social 
 development, and (5) the light thro^m by these con- 
 siderations on certain typical theories of property 
 which will be briefly reviewed. 
 
 4 The Native Tribes of South East Aiistralia, p. 83. 
 
PROPEETY 
 
 I 
 
 ji 
 
 I. The Notion of Property ri 
 
 For purposes of social theory property is to be coni 
 ceived in terms of the control of man over things. Maril' 
 needs food to eat, implements to procure it, land to wortii 
 upon, and for that matter to stand and move upon. That' 
 he may supply his needs at all, he must at least tem-i 
 porarily control the implement that he is using, and the; 
 spot on which he is working. But that this temporaryl 
 control or possession may become property, certain| 
 further conditions are essential. His possession nmsti 
 
 ^' in the first place be recognized by others, i.e., it musti 
 be of the nature of a right. In the second place, with, 
 regard to things of a permanent nature, his right nrnsti 
 also have a certain permanence. He must be able to'| 
 count on the use of the thing. His right over it, though^ 
 it may limited in time, must not be confined to the 
 moment when he has it in his hands, but must be re- 
 spected in his absence. Thirdly, his control must be, 
 exclusive. If he shares the control of the thing with; 
 others, then it is not his private property. But if hej 
 and his partners control it to the exclusion of the rest 
 of the world, then it is their joint or their common prop- 
 erty. If on the other hand all the world alike can use it, ; 
 then it is not property at all. Property may be private, j 
 joint, or common, but it must vest in some person ori 
 persons, and it must be exclusive of other persons. 
 
 Exclusive control, however, it must be borne in mind, 
 does not necessarily mean complete control. A may 
 
 "^ control a thing for one purpose to the exclusion of all 
 the world, B among the rest; yet B may control that 
 same thing for another purpose to the exclusion of all 
 the world, A among the rest. When I take a room in an 
 inn for the night, it is **mine" for the night to the ex- 
 clusion of any one else. But th^ landlord has perma- 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF PEOPEKTY 7 
 
 nent rights in the room which are exclusive as against 
 me. It may be objected that we ought to say that the 
 landlord has the property, while he gives me only the 
 right of using it. This may seem to accord better 
 with usage, but in the final analysis of property it seems 
 desirable for several reasons to insist that all forms of 
 control are species of one genus. The control over a 
 thing may be complete or partial, and the partial con- 
 trol may ascend by so many gradations till it becomes 
 complete, that it is difficult to know where to draw a 
 line. The main distinction of principle seems to be that 
 between control of a thing for use and enjoyment, and 
 control for the purpose of disposal, sale, exchange, or 
 bequest. The latter kind of control may indeed be re- 
 garded as essential to property in the sense of owner- 
 ship, but to restrict property to this sense would be to 
 leave the manner of its use and enjoyment out of 
 account. A man may only be life-tenant of a landed* 
 estate, its disposal after his death being determined by 
 law or the decision of the community, or a previous 
 owner's will. Yet while he lives the man may have 
 complete control of its management, and from genera- 
 tion to generation the same conditions may recur. To 
 leave the life interest out of account would then be to 
 divorce the conception of property from the main con- 
 ditions of practical control. 
 
 It will be seen then that property lis a principle which 
 admits of variation in several distinct directions. It is 
 a control which may be more or less fully recognized 
 and guaranteed by society. It may be more or less 
 permanent, more or less dependent on present use and 
 possession or enjoyment. It may be concentrated in 
 one hand, or common to many. It may extend to more, 
 or to fewer, of the purposes to which a thing may be 
 put. But that the control may be property at all, it 
 
8 PEOPERTY 
 
 must in some sort be recognized, in some sort indepen- 
 dent of immediate physical enjoyment, and at some 
 point exclusive of control by other persons. "Within 
 these limits there is room for indefinite variation in 
 many directions, and the variations are not necessarily 
 dependent on one another. 
 
 2. The Psychology of Property j 
 
 1 
 These elementary considerations help ns in deter- j 
 
 mining the psychological basis of property, as to which j 
 a mere note must here suffice. Some writers speak of I 
 an instinct of property. But this is to simplify over- 1 
 much. No doubt the higher animals have a rudimentary 
 property. The bone which your dog has once seized is 
 *'his'' bone. He resents the attempt to take it from 
 him with an excitement which does not show in respect 
 to a bone which he has not yet taken. My tame jack- 
 daw steals my pencil and makes off hurriedly with it 
 with all the flutter of conscious theft, or he will play a ' 
 game with it, dropping it provocatively and picking, 
 it up smartly, or going straight at my fingers — the 
 wretch! — ^when I attempt to recapture it. What hap- 
 pens in these cases seems to be that the interest which 
 a class of objects excites — either through their use for 
 food or, in the exceptional case of the jackdaw, through 
 their inherent attractiveness as nice, bright, peckable 
 things, easily portable in one's bill — ^is focussed by the 
 first act of seizure or even of attention on a particular 
 object, and that thereupon all the train of feelings or 
 reactions attendant on, or subsidiary to, its use are 
 , called forth in response to that object rather than 
 others. This constitutes the mental appropriation of an ,> 
 object; and not only for man, but for the dog with its 
 buried bone, and the bird with its nest, and the jack- 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF PEOPEETY 9 
 
 daw with its ** cache," the appropriated object becomes 
 a permanent basis of action, something that it can count 
 upon and go back to at need. For man, at all events, his 
 property is above all something that he can rely upon as 
 a permanent home, permanent means of subsistence or 
 enjoyment. Property is thus an integral element in an 
 ordered life of purposeful activity. It is, at bottom for 
 the same reason, an integral element in a free life. This 
 distinguishes property from mere adequate provision 
 with the material goods. A man who has his meals set 
 down before him all nicely prepared and measured out 
 by expert authority may be well nourished ; but as he 
 has no property beyond his actual plateful, so he has 
 no freedom but to take it or give it to the cat. The man 
 who has a shilling in his pocket is free to eat or drink 
 what he likes up to the limit of the shilling. He may 
 not get so good or sustaining a meal, but he gets his 
 own choice. The man who has a w^eekly wage is, other 
 things being equal, more free than a man paid by truck, 
 and a man who works on his own land with his own 
 implements is more free, other things being equal, than 
 the wage-earner. At each point the more a man can 
 count on his own exertions applied to his own property, 
 the more he can direct his own activity on the lines 
 which suit his taste. Some measure of property ap- 
 pears, in short, to be the essential basis of liberty ; and 
 conversely the sense of freedom in enjoyment ranks 
 along with the sense of security and permanence among 
 the complex constituents of the pride and joy of owner- 
 ship. 
 
 3. Social Aspects of Pkoperty : Use and Power 
 
 Unfortunately what is liberty for one man is often 
 the negation of liberty for another. In a developed 
 
10 PEOPERTY 
 
 society a man's property is not merely something wMchl 
 he controls and enjoys, which he can make the basis of] 
 his labour and the scene of his ordered activities, but' 
 something whereby he can control another man and 
 make it the basis of that man's labour and the scene of 
 activities ordered by himself. The abstract right of 
 property is apt to ignore these trifling distinctions ; and 
 theories of property are founded, for example, on the; 
 right of the labourer to .his produce, which completely^ 
 ignore the fact that as industry develops, the most con- 
 spicuous function of property is to secure a part ofl 
 one man's labour-product for the benefit of another. 
 Both the history and the philosophy of property turn 
 on these two relations of the institution to social life as 
 a whole. On the one hand property is the material 
 \ basis of a permanent, ordered, purposeful, and self- 
 directed activity. Such upon the whole is the property 
 which a man directly uses or enjoys by himself or in 
 association with his nearest and dearest. On the other 
 hand property is a form of social organization, whereby 
 the labour of those who have it not is directed by and! 
 for the enjoyment of those that have. In this sense 
 the control of the owmer is essentially a control of la- 
 bour. It is that *^ alchemy" whereby the ** Seigneur 
 lounging in the CEil de Bceuf " extracts the third nettle 
 from the gatherer in the fields and calls it rent. It does 
 not essentially consist in the handling and use of the 
 material thing. It is consistent with as little knowledge 
 of the thing as the average shareholder of an Argen- 
 tine railway possesses of the whereabouts of **his" 
 track, who knows that the dividends come in with fair 
 regularity every six months, though he might have 
 difficulty in locating the terminus of the line within' 
 500 miles. 
 Now these two functions of property, the control of 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF PEOPEETY 11 
 
 things, which gives freedom and security, and the con- 
 trol of persons through things, which gives power to 
 the owner, are very different. In some respects they 
 are radically opposed, yet from the nature of the case 
 they are intertwined, and their relationship can be 
 traced through the history of the institution, some 
 phases of which may now be indicated. 
 
 4. Phases of the Development of Pkoperty 
 
 In the general sense here given property is found 
 in every known society. A man's clothing, weapons, 
 and tools, a woman's ornaments, the family hut or 
 cave, or at least a marked portion thereof,^ are from 
 the first recognized as belonging to the man, the woman, 
 or the family. The inventory of a Vedda's very 
 simple personal estate is given by Dr. and Mrs. 
 Seligmann: 
 
 One axe, bow and arrows, three pots, a deer skin, a flint 
 and steel, and supply of tinder, a gourd for carrying water, a 
 betel pouch containing betel covers, and some form of box for 
 holding lime, also a certain amount of cloth besides that on 
 the person. 
 
 To these personal belongings a man has a right in 
 the sense in which rights are recognized by simple 
 societies. Theft would at lowest be resented by the 
 individual, and there would be a customary form of 
 reparation which he would exact. As soon as any sort 
 of public court is formed it will deal with this right 
 and the wrongs arising out of it, on the same general 
 
 5 E.g. In the "Long House" of the Iroquois and other North American 
 Indians. Dargun, "Ursprung und Greschichte des Eigentums" {Z. f. 
 vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft, Bd. v, p. 37), insists on this point. 
 The Vedda families, according to Dr. Seligmann, have their proper place 
 in the joint caves. 
 
12 PEOPERTY 
 
 principles and by the same methods as with others.® 
 To discuss these questions further would be to examine 
 the social basis of rights in general, which is foreign to 
 our purpose. Property is from the first, to all appear- 
 ances, a right recognized much in the same fashion as 
 rights of the person or marital rights are recognized, 
 and on this side the development follows the same 
 general lines in all cases. The important point for us 
 to consider is what sort of things are objects of prop- 
 erty, and whose property they are ; or in more ultimate 
 analysis. What sort of exclusive control is exerted over 
 things, and by whom! 
 
 Now among the simplest known tribes, who live by 
 gathering fruits, digging roots, and hunting, the pos- 
 sible objects of property may be divided into two 
 categories. On the one hand there are the trivial per- 
 sonal belongings that have been mentioned. On the 
 other hand there is the land, uncleared and unculti- 
 vated, but the one great means of subsistence. Of the 
 first kind there is private ownership ; but it will be ap- 
 parent that the life of the little isociety will be deter- 
 mined principally by liberty or restriction in the matter 
 of hunting or collecting food, that is to say, by the 
 ownership of the land. How then is land owned in 
 these communities? Is it communal or is it personal? 
 If we could answer this question clearly and unambigu- 
 ously, we should get as near as the evidence is ever 
 likely to bring us to a solution of the problem of prim- 
 itive property, and in particular of the vexed questions 
 surrounding the nature of the village community. Un- 
 
 6 In nine cases out of ten the "thievishness" attributed by travellers 
 to simple peoples is seen on careful reading to mean that they dis- 
 regarded the proprietary rights of the whites. Could these peoples 
 describe the morals of the whites, what might they say of the civilized 
 man's regard for their property? It is true that in some cases belong- 
 ings are taken without leave and without censure, but these are cer- 
 tainly the exception. 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF PROPERTY 13 
 
 fortunately the evidence is not altogether clear and 
 unambiguous. In some instances the communal tenure 
 of the land is beyond doubt. The case of the Central 
 Australians already quoted may serve as an instance. 
 In the first place, among these people the tribe has its 
 kno^\ii area, with boundaries recognized by the neigh- 
 bouring tribes. Within the tribe there are divisions 
 and subdivisions, the ultimate unit being a *' local 
 group'' of a few families — in one tribe forty individ- 
 uals constitute the largest existing group — who roam 
 about an area which, like that of the tribe as a whole, 
 is clearly defined. Within this area there is no indi- 
 vidual property. It is free to all members of the group, 
 but no one else may hunt in it without permission, and 
 the boundaries are habitually observed. Moreover, 
 ownership is associated with the centres within the 
 area in which the souls of ancestors who lived in the 
 Alcheringa— -the great long ago — are deposited, which 
 souls are reincarnated in living members of the group. 
 Within the terms of our definition it is clear that this 
 area is the common property of the group. Writers 
 who deny communal property altogether among the 
 hunting peoples can only deal with a case like this by 
 calling it not property but sovereignty. It is true that 
 the group is substantially an autonomous unit, but the 
 only deduction that can be drawn from this is that 
 political control — if we may use such an expression 
 here— -and the right of property are not at this stage 
 differentiated. Indeed, in the case of land this differ- 
 entiation is not completely effected till a relatively late 
 stage in social development, and it may be doubted 
 whether a complete differentiation is ever possible 
 without socially disastrous consequences. In any case 
 the effective control of the land is in the hands of 
 the group. No single member has an exclusive right 
 
14 PEOPEETY 
 
 against the group, while the group has an exclusive 
 right against all others, and this right is recognized by 
 the others. We cannot refuse to call this common 
 ownership ; and if the same system obtained among all 
 hunting people, the starting-point in the development 
 of property in land would be perfectly clear. 
 
 But this is not the case. The necessities of hunting 
 and the collection of food may lead to further sub- 
 division, and we find cases, both in Australia and else- 
 where, where land is owned by an individual hunter 
 and his family.^ We saw above that same ambiguity 
 may attach to the evidence in these cases. Let us take 
 an instance where the report is precise. The Veddas 
 are organized in very small groups of families closely 
 related to one another. Each group has its definite 
 hunting area, but within it each man has his own 
 land. This land passes by regular inheritance, or may 
 be given to a son or a son-in-law. It may also be 
 alienated. But whether it is given to the natural heir 
 or to any one else it can only be with the assent of 
 every adult male of the group.® In this instance it 
 is clear that immediate ownership is private, and that 
 
 7 In ten Australian tribes or groups common ownership is pretty 
 clearly indicated, and in five family ownership. But several authors, 
 e.g., Lang, Grey, Eyre, Curr, assert individual ownership. The evidence, 
 however, is often conflicting and in some cases we can only suppose a 
 kind of dual ownership. Thus J. Browne, writing in Dr. Petermann's 
 Mitteilungen for 1856, describes four West Australian tribes which he 
 knew well, as having land possessed by families and individuals; but 
 he remarks that it is difficult to say in what private property consists, 
 as the tribe roams the whole area without distinction, while if a 
 stranger trespasses, it is resented and a fight ensues. Perhaps the only 
 prerogative of the owner, he says, is to take the lead in this resistance. 
 As to family property, it must be borne in mind that the Australian 
 local group is often so small as to be little more than an enlarged 
 family, so that family and group ownership pass into one another. 
 It should also be noted that rules for the division of the spoils of the 
 hunt are common in Australia. Of twenty cases of which I have infor- 
 mation, the food is divided between the whole camp in ten; between 
 the relations, including the wife's relations, in six; while in four the 
 rules are not specified. s Seligmann, op. cit. pp. 107, 111. 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF PKOPERTY 15 
 
 the eminent o^\mersliip is in the group. The control 
 of the group secures the important point, that access to 
 the land will be maintained for those who are by birth 
 its members. As long as this principle is maintained 
 land may be communal property, or it may be personal, 
 or the two principles may be intermixed, but in any 
 case it will be held for use and not for power. Its 
 tenure will be occupational, and I think we may pro- 
 visionally conclude that this is the general character- 
 istic of primitive property in land, that is to say, of the 
 one essential basis of production in the lowest stages of 
 development.® 
 
 This suggestion is confirmed when we consider the 
 beginning of agriculture. Land at the outset is cleared 
 for the raising of a crop. Its fertility is soon exhausted, 
 perhaps after a single harvest, and the little commu- 
 nity moves on to another spot. But the whole amount 
 brought under cultivation at any one time is a very 
 small fraction of the waste belonging to the commu- 
 nity and hunted over by any of its members indiscrimi- 
 nately. No difficulty is made about the right to clear 
 
 9 Among fifty-five tribes of "hunters and gatherers." as to whose prop- 
 erty system I have found some account, forty-four appear to hold 
 land either as property of the tribe or of a smaller group — clan, village, 
 or band — within the tribe. Of the remainder five are the Australian 
 tribes in which ownership is attributed to the family, and there are 
 left six cases of individual ownership, to which perhaps a few more 
 Australian eases ought to be added. In two or three instances owner- 
 ship is attributed to the chief, but this seems to be rather as the 
 representative of the community than as true personal property. 
 
 In a few cases special clans monopolized the land or the best part 
 of it. Thus among the Thlinkeets, according to Swanton {Smithsonian 
 Annual Reports, xxvi), certain clans had no land of their own, and 
 either used the common land of the tribe or had to wait until the more 
 fortunate clans had done with their land for the season. Among the 
 Chilcotin, Carriers, and Western Shushwaps land was the property of 
 the nobles. In the two former cases, according to Father Morice {Pro- 
 ceedings of the Canadian Institute, 1893), the heads of non-noble 
 families might hunt on the land with the chief's permission. In the 
 latter, according to Teit {Report of the Jesup Expedition), the nobles 
 charged rents on the commons, fined them for trespass, and drove them 
 
16 PEOPEETY 
 
 a field, but whatever one man has cleared belongs, at 
 least while he tills it, to himself and his family. At 
 this stage private property can hardly be more than 
 a possessory right, for when the last crop has been 
 taken the clearing is really of less value than the waste. 
 **Arva per annos mutant et superest ager." There 
 is uncleared land in abundance. It belongs to the com- 
 munity and is open to any one to break up.^** Thus 
 there is temporary private possession and permanent 
 common ownership. But on this point more than one 
 possibility arises. Agriculture may become a collec- 
 tive industry, fields being tilled and the harvest gath- 
 ered by the common labour, as among the Karaya 
 tribes," and a special store may be set apart for the 
 necessitous, as among the Creeks. But more often, 
 as tillage develops and becomes more intensive, the 
 temporary occupation becomes permanent. The neces- 
 
 oif to the more distant tribal grounds quite in the style of modern 
 civilization. Among the Tsimshian, according to Boas, a clan retained 
 the rights to its land even though it moved av^ay; but I do not know 
 whether it could charge anything for its use by others. All these 
 instances are from the relatively developed hunting and fishing tribes 
 of the west coast of North America, where class distinctions had come 
 into being. 
 
 In the Torres Straits land may be held in individual ownership and 
 is not infrequently lent or let for a share in the produce, e.g., a garden 
 is lent on the understanding that the first-fruits go to the owner 
 ( Haddon, Cambridge Expedition, vol. iv. ) , One group of these islands 
 is non-agricultural, and private property also obtains here, but whether 
 the leasing system is also known is not clear to me. 
 
 The figures given above are from an enquiry whick is not quite fin- 
 ished and needs final revision, but are not likely to require any such 
 modification as would invalidate the general rule that, with a few 
 exceptions such as those mentioned, land in a community of hunters 
 and gatherers is accessible to all members of a social group. This, it 
 may be remarked, would hold even in the Australian cases where owner- 
 ship is assigned to the individual. There is nowhere any hint of a 
 landless class. 
 
 10 Compare the remarks of Von Martins, Zur EtfmograpMe Amerikas, 
 on Brazilian land tenure, which are sufficiently clear, notwithstanding 
 the criticisms of Dargun {Entioicklimgs-Geschichte, pp. 51-54). 
 11 Ehrenreich, Veroff. Konigl. Museums, Band 1. 
 
THE EVOLUTION OE PEOPERTY 17 
 
 sity of letting the land lie fallow may be met by a 
 two-field or three-field system, and the recurrent pos- 
 session of the same plots hardens into permanent own- 
 ership. The holding, however, may still be that of 
 the family or of the kindred rather than that of the 
 individual; and the kindred, living together in a Long 
 Honse with stores in common, constitute a smaller and 
 stricter communism within the community as a whole.^^ 
 But whether through the break-up of the kindred or 
 as the direct result of the growth of cultivation,^^ land 
 may be recognized as the private property of the man 
 who clears or tills it, and may be alienated, sold, or 
 bequeathed/* Immediate ownership of the culltivated 
 plots thus passes to the kindred, the family, or the indi- 
 vidual. Still the community may retain certain emi- 
 nent rights and certain powers of control : for example, 
 alienation to an outsider may be forbidden, or allowed 
 only by common consent of the original group,^^ while 
 the right to acquire new land by clearing requires a 
 more definite assent from the community or chief as 
 it becomes more valuable. 
 
 12 The Iroquois lived in joint houses containing from five to twenty 
 families and made common store of the food, which was duly distributed 
 among the component families by the superintending matron. The 
 Creeks lived in clustered houses, practising a similar communism (Mor- 
 gan, Houses and House Life, etc, pp. 64-68). 
 
 13 The evidence does not justify us in laying down a fixed order lead- 
 ing from the community through the kin to the individual. It is more 
 likely that development followed a different course among different 
 people. 
 
 14 Thus, among the Kayans of Borneo, according to Niewenhuis { Quer 
 durch Borneo), unbroken land is accessible to any one, but land once 
 tilled passes into private ownership and may be let or exchanged. 
 Among the Hill Dyaks, according to Ling Roth {Natives of Sarawak), 
 land is abundant within the tribal limits, but very little is individual 
 property, except the private plots near the houses, which are saleable. 
 The locality of the farms is generally settled by the council of the tribe, 
 so that one road may serve all. Among the Sea Dyaks a man acquires 
 a title to the land by clearing it. 
 
 15 So in early mediaeval Germany, Schroder, Lehrhuch der deutschen 
 Rechtsgeschichte, pp. 207-8. 
 
18 PEOPERTY 
 
 Again, the community may retain a general control 
 of cultivation, and may remain the guardian and ulti- 
 mate court of appeal on questions of the rights and 
 duties of its members, and on all customs regulating 
 the common life. On this side, the old principle sur- 
 vived into the manorial courts of our mediaeval system. 
 Furthermore, the cultivation of the arable is not self- 
 sufficient. As agriculture develops it requires beasts 
 of burden, and a right of grazing on the common pas- 
 ture and the use of the waste are essential to the main- 
 tenance of the tillage. But the pasture and the waste 
 remaiji common; and if there is meadow land, its use 
 is duly apportioned by the community in accordance 
 with the needs of each holding. Lastly, if holdings be- 
 come unequal and unsuited to the needs of families, 
 there may be a conscious effort to maintain the part- 
 nership by a system of periodical redistribution, as 
 in the case of the Russian mir. 
 
 Systems like these, though compatible with a con- 
 siderable development of individual ownership, are still 
 so far primitive that they associate property, not with 
 power, but with use.^^ At least until property begins 
 to press on the means of subsistence, every boy on 
 growing to manhood will have the basis of his life- 
 economy secured to him by the social structure. He 
 will succeed to his share in the family land, with the 
 right to pasture, meadow and waste, which it carries 
 with it; and if, through the growth of the family, the 
 lot has become too narrow, he will readily gain the 
 consent of the community to an additional clearing in 
 the was]te. If the pressure of population has begun, 
 it is more likely to lead to trouble with neighbouring 
 
 16 In more than one hundred descriptions of land tenure among agri- 
 cultural and pastoral peoples of simple culture, I have onlyt found ten 
 cases in which a system of letting or leasing land is suggested. 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF PEOPEETY 19 
 
 peoples than with landlessness and poverty at home. 
 Its effects will be seen in tribal nnrest, migrations, and 
 wars of conqnest. Here then is one possible root of 
 disorganization. But there are others. Men are by 
 nature unequal, and one family will thrive while 
 another decays. If debt- slavery — particularly for non- 
 payment of the wergild— is recognized, men will fall 
 into the hands of creditors for whose benefit in future 
 they may have to till the land, and prisoners of war 
 may be put to the same use." Whole tribes, indeed, 
 may become tributary to a stronger people.^* Within 
 the community the growth of military organization in- 
 volves the elevation of the chief and his trusted fol- 
 lowers into a nobility standing above the mass of the 
 free men, and this elevation implies at some point or 
 another a corresponding depression. Some one must 
 serve, if some one else is to have leisure to be a noble- 
 man. 
 
 But apart from these tendencies, there is another 
 economic movement on which we have not yet touched. 
 In some regions of the world, particularly on the 
 steppes of Eastern Europe and Asia, the pasture land 
 provides opportunity for a different form of develop- 
 ment from the hunting stage. The possession of flocks 
 and herds is far more free from communal restrictions 
 than the tilling of the soil; and even if the herds are 
 family property, the power of the father among these 
 peoples is often so great that he deserves to be called 
 the true owner. But what is more important, property 
 in flocks and herds can wax and wane with ease and 
 celerity; and in pastoral societies accordingly, the dis- 
 
 17 For serfs of this type among the Germans, see Tacitus, Germania, 
 25, Schroder, op. cit, pp. 46, 47. 
 
 18 Even a tribe of hunters like the South American Mbaya hold the 
 neighbouring Guanas in a form of serfdom, compeUing them to till 
 land for them. 
 
20 PEOPEETY 
 
 tinction of rich and poor readily makes its appearance. 
 Some pastoral tribes indeed are slaveholding. In 
 others the poorer members of the community suffi- 
 ciently supply the need/^ The definite appearance of 
 the man who is neither provided for as a slave, nor by 
 his own hereditary share in the common basis of sub- 
 sistence, seems to be especially associated with the 
 pastoral stage, and in agricultural societies to be at 
 least largely influenced by the pastoral element. It was 
 in the end the enclosure of the pasture and the waste 
 which destroyed the remains of the common field sys- 
 tem in this country and achieved the ruin of the small 
 holder.^^ 
 
 This slight sketch may serve to show the general 
 character of the economy from which the mediaeval or- 
 ganization of Western Europe was evolved. The whole 
 problem of the antecedents of the manor is still en- 
 tangled in endless controversy; but a survey of the 
 anthropological data on the whole confirms the view 
 that at the back of the entire process we must place 
 **a village community of shareholders which cultivated 
 the land on the open field system and treated all other 
 requisites of rural life as appendant to it. ' '^^ The only 
 question is as to the extent to which within this com- 
 munity private property was developed or eminent 
 control maintained. In any case it is probable that 
 land was originally held for use, and that its value to 
 its separate owner was conditioned by the right which 
 it carried to that part of the area which was undeniably 
 common. But we have seen that from the first this 
 
 19 Or there may be a subject tribe who are hewers of wood and 
 drawers of water. Cf. Nieboer, Slavery as an Industrial System, who 
 finds ten clear cases of the presence and twelve of the absence of slavery 
 among pastoral folk (p. 262 ff. ). 
 
 20 See Tawney, Agrarian Problems in the Sixteenth Century; and 
 Hammond, The Village Labourer. 
 
 21 Vinogradoff, Growth of the Manor, p. 365. 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF PROPERTY 21 
 
 system was compatible with inequality, and we have 
 noted several methods by which the inequality might 
 develop. In our own country in the early Middle Ages 
 the growth of the king's power, and then the grant of 
 judicial privileges and correlative fiscal duties to pri- 
 vate people, together with corresponding grants to the 
 Church, were continuously at work to convert the 
 village into the manor.^^ Now in the manor the culti- 
 vators had certainly to work for the lord as well as 
 for themselves. The lord's property is held **for 
 power," or perhaps more strictly it is the economic 
 appanage of the legal power which he holds over the 
 inhabitants — it is power held for property. At the 
 same time one good feature of the older system sur- 
 vives. The ordinary child is still born into a system in 
 which the basis of his work and his livelihood is as- 
 sured to him. He has his virgate or half virgate. At 
 worst— -if not a slave^^— he is a cottar with a few acres 
 and the right by practice, if not by stringent custom, 
 to the pasture and the waste. Unfortunately these 
 rights were insecure, and when the strain came, when 
 it became profitable to lay down pasture, to enclose the 
 demesne, and to encroach on the waste, there was no 
 one but the freeholder who was in a firm position for 
 resistance.^* In the break-up of the manorial system 
 the serf gained his freedom, but he lost his land. The 
 outline of the story has now been pretty clearly made 
 out, but is too long and complex even for summary 
 here.^^ With the upshot we are familiar — on the one 
 hand private ownership denuded of the old public obli- 
 
 22 Cf. Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond. 
 
 23 Chattel slavery disappeared in England during the twelfth century. 
 
 24 On the position of the copyholders and the customary tenants, see 
 Tawney. 
 
 25 See the works already cited of Mr. Tawney and Mr. and Mrs. 
 Hammond; also The English Peasantry and the Enclosures, by Gilbert 
 Slater. 
 
22 PEOPEBTY 
 
 gations; on the other, a landless proletariate whose 
 chief economic privilege is that its members are free 
 to leave their homes and do better elsewhere ; and be- 
 tween them the farmer owning his stock but renting his 
 land. 
 
 The appearance of the capitalist farmer is, however, 
 only a minor symptom of a vast change in the nature 
 of property which has developed pari passu mth the 
 private ownership of land on the large scale. In early 
 society we could virtually treat land as the one neces- 
 sary basis of subsistence ; and the fact that land could 
 not be accumulated in private hands apart from per- 
 sonal occupation was noted as a preservative of the 
 common life. In the pastoral stage, however, we saw 
 accummulation of a different kind, and the growth of 
 flocks and herds, the first form of true capital, at 
 once involved the distinction between the possessing 
 and non-possessing classes. The development of indus- 
 try and commerce has always engendered the same dis- 
 tinction, and has set a problem to legislators whether 
 in Athens or in Kome or in our own time. But as in- 
 dustry is more productive, so accumulation proceeds 
 on a vastly greater scale in our own civilization; and 
 while the borders of political, religious, national, and 
 one may say social, freedom have widened, the inequal- 
 ities of wealth have only increased. Yet it is not in- 
 equality as such that is the fundamental fact of our 
 system. It is the entire dependence of the masses on 
 land and capital which belong to others. Five out of 
 six, I suppose, of the children now born, are born to 
 no assured place in the industrial system. They have 
 of their own no means of subsistence. They have 
 hands and brains, but they have neither land to till nor 
 stock to till it with. What is more, only a fraction of 
 our population could be supported by agriculture ; and 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF PEOPERTY 23 
 
 for the cotton spinner, the railway man, or the coal 
 miner, there is no sense in talking of his owning the 
 means of production as an individual. The rise of 
 large-scale industry has abolished the possibility of any 
 form of individualism as a general solution of the 
 economic problem. 
 
 Thus, while modern economic conditions have virtu- 
 ally abolished property for use — apart from furniture, 
 clothing, etc. ; that is, property in the means of produc- 
 tion, for the great majority of the people — they have 
 brought about the accumulation of vast masses of 
 propert:^ for poiver in the hands of a relatively narrow 
 class. The contrast is accentuated by the increasing 
 divorce between power and use. The large landowner 
 stood in some direct governing relation to his estate. 
 Eesponsibility went with ownership, and even survived 
 the explicit association between land tenure and politi- 
 cal functions. The capitalist employer, who began to 
 be differentiated from the workman in the earlier part 
 of the modern period, and who was the prominent fea- 
 ture of the first two generations of the industrial revo- 
 lution, was still, as the name implies, the employer as 
 well as the capitalist. He himself, that is to say, was 
 actively engaged in carrying out the function which his 
 property made possible. But with the progress of ac- 
 cumulation there came further differentiations. It be- 
 came more and more indisputable that the possession 
 of capital was one thing and the conduct of business 
 another; and with the rise of the joint-stock system 
 capital became so split up into shares and stocks that 
 it has come to be for its owners nothing more than a 
 paper certificate, or an entry in the books of the Bank 
 of England, which they have never seen, meaning to 
 them only what it brings in by the quarter or the half 
 year. And yet these investments, this capital, is the 
 
24 PEOPEETY 
 
 governing force in the lives of thousands and millions 
 of men scattered throughout the world. It is the instru- 
 ment by which they are set in motion, by which their 
 labour is sustained, above all, by which it is directed 
 and controlled. The divorce of functions is complete ; 
 and what wonder if the owner of capital presents him- 
 self to the imagination of the workman merely as an 
 abstract, distant, unknown suction-pump, that is draw- 
 ing away such and such a percentage of the fruits of 
 industry without making a motion to help in the work! 
 Lastly, behind the mass of the investors, is the finan- 
 cier who shuffles all these abstract pieces of capital 
 about, controls their application, takes his commission 
 on the proceeds, and constitutes himself the working 
 centre of industry and commerce. The institution of 
 property has, in its modern form, reached its zenith 
 as a means of giving to the few power over the life of 
 the many, and its nadir as a means of securing to the 
 many the basis of regular industry, purposeful occu- 
 pation, freedom, and self-support. 
 
 5. Some Theories of Property 
 
 With these few illustrations of the diversity of forms 
 which the institution of property has assumed in the 
 course of social evolution, we may usefully compare 
 some distinctive theories which have been held by 
 thinkers of its basis and functions. We may consider 
 first those who have attacked the institution of private 
 property altogether, in the interests of conmiunism; 
 secondly, those who have found a general justification 
 for the institution of private property either in its 
 economic or in its ethical value ; and thirdly, those who 
 have held that the solution lies in the discrimination 
 of kinds of property and the function which each sev- 
 erally performs. 
 
 y 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF PEOPEETY 25 
 
 (a) Property has sometimes been attacked on phil- 
 osophical, sometimes on religious grounds. In the 
 Bepuhlic, the object of Plato is to set out in clearest 
 possible outline the picture of a completely imified 
 State. The State is to be so compact a unity that, if 
 one of its members suffers, it is to feel that it suffers 
 in that member, just as when the finger aches the man 
 feels the ache in the finger. Looking over the rallying 
 points at which the individual can assert himself 
 against the social unity, Plato finds them conspicuously 
 in family life on the one hand and in property on the 
 other, and he succeeds to the abolition of both ; at any 
 rate, the guardians, who are to lead the highest, the 
 most completely social, and the most fully philosophic 
 life, can have no room in their minds either for family 
 or for economic cares^ Communism is advocated in the 
 interests, not of enjoyment but of austerity; and in 
 this the Platonic philosophers may be regarded as pro- 
 totypes of the monastic community. In both cases it is 
 open to criticism to maintain that social unity is pushed 
 to a point at which personality is obliterated, and that 
 the independence of material things is expressed in a 
 form in which it defeats itself. Man cannot live with- 
 out material things, and in so far as he is dependent 
 for his necessaries on the will of others, his life is 
 also dependent upon these others. Where he cannot 
 move hand or foot without them, he abandons self- 
 direction, and the self-denial, which was to give spiri- 
 tual freedom, ends by denying autonomy altogether. 
 
 But the principle of property was also criticized in 
 antiquity from the point of view of Natural Law. 
 Property, it was clear to the thinkers who introduced 
 this conception into ethics, was a human institution. 
 The gifts of nature, the land and its fruits, must orig- 
 inally be free to all men; appropriation was the act of 
 
26 PEOPERTY 
 
 man, and the institutions by wMch appropriation is 
 regulated derived from man-made laws. Just as by 
 nature all men are free and equal, so by nature they 
 have a right to use the earth and its fruits for their own 
 purposes, to apply their labour to them freely, and to 
 enjoy the product at their will. 
 
 This conception of a natural Conmiunism underlying 
 the institutions of positive law was taken up by the 
 Early Church, where it fused with the conception of a 
 Christian Communism, based, not on the Platonic 
 principle of an abstract unity, but on the ideal of 
 brotherly love and mutual aid as between co-religion- 
 ists,* the sons of one Father, the members of one house- 
 hold. This was an ideal which could only be effective 
 among the members of a small community; and when 
 the Church had seriously to undertake the problem of 
 reconciling State law with Christian ethics, it had to 
 fall back on the Stoic distinction between the law of 
 nature and the positive institutions of government. 
 The fabric of society was accepted, and though Com- 
 munism is proclaimed as the law of nature at the out- 
 set of the Canon law, it is not so interpreted as to direct 
 or to qualify those institutions of State which deter- 
 mine the conditions on which property is held, and by 
 which wealth is distributed, excepting in so far as it 
 secures the levy of a tax on wealth for the service of 
 the Church and of the poor. The theory of Commu- 
 nism, as qualified by respect for established institu- 
 tions, becomes a doctrine of charity. 
 
 In point of fact, as a political doctrine, Conmiunism 
 is an emotion rather than a system. In a small com- 
 munity it has its place. Every family, while the mem- 
 bers live together, *is in essence a communistic unit; 
 and Communism may be conceived as operating suc- 
 cessfully among any small group of enthusiasts as long ' 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF PEOPEETY 27 
 
 as the enthusiasm is maintained. In the larger world 
 the communal principle has its place only in respect 
 of the enjoyment of those things in which no correlative 
 performance of duty is requisite. Public spaces, recre- 
 ation grounds, the advantages of lighting, and, in some 
 respects, of cleaning, sanitation, order and good gov- 
 ernment, are common property in the strict sense of 
 the term. Everybody can enjoy them without payment, 
 for some of them are things which cannot exist at all 
 unless they are available for every one, and others 
 cost no more when available to all than they would if 
 restricted to a few. But Communism of this kind only 
 touches the outside of life. 
 
 (b) For the regular working of the economic order 
 it has been clear to most thinkers that there must be 
 some systematic apportionment of the instruments of 
 production, and the fruits of industry. The social or- 
 ganism has many functions, and each function requires 
 its due stimulus and sustenance ; hence the most popu- 
 lar theory of property associates it with the right to 
 labour and the product of labour. On this basis Locke 
 ^ds a justification for property antecedent to positive 
 law. By the law of nature the earth stood open to all 
 men, but also by the law of nature a man had the right 
 of property in his own person, and in that which he 
 wrought with his hands. Accordingly, that in which he 
 ** mixed his labour" became his own, and this would 
 include the portion of soil which he reclaimed by occu- 
 pation and tillage. But in this conception, as Locke 
 apparently recognizes, property is limited by use: **As 
 much as any one can make use of to any advantage of 
 life until it spoils, so much he may by his labour fix, 
 and property in whatever is beyond this is more than 
 his share, and belongs to others." Hence Locke pro- 
 tests that his theory is incompatible with ** engross- 
 
28 PROPEETY 
 
 ing." Unfortunately he only works it out for ** Amer- 
 icans/' as typical instances of people who live under j 
 conditions where land is still superabundant. ''"And [ 
 when he comes to consider property as an established 
 institution of organized society, he can only tell us 
 what is painfully obvious, that **it is plain that the con- 
 sent of men have agreed to a disproportionate and un- 
 equal possession of the earth— I mean out of the bounds 
 of society and compact, for in governments the laws 
 regulate it, they having by consent found out and 
 agreed in a way how a man may rightfully, and with- 
 out injury, possess more than he himself can make use 
 of, by receiving gold and silver. "^^ 
 
 Locke, it is true, states in general terms that laws 
 and government ought to accommodate themselves to 
 the principles of natural law; and if we press tliis 
 principle in the case of property, it seems clear that 
 Locke might be led, if he were living now, to somewhat 
 radical conclusions. Be this as it may, we find in Locke 
 the basis of a view which is at once a justification of 
 property, and a criticism of industrial organization. * 
 Man has a right, it would seem, first to the opportunity 
 of labour ; secondly, to the fruits of his labour ; thirdly, 
 to what he can use of these fruits, and nothing more. 
 Property so conceived is what we have here called 
 property for use. The conception is individualistic, 
 but it may be given a more social turn if we bear in * 
 mind, first of all, that society as a collective whole is 
 that which determines the structure and working of 
 economic institutions; and secondly, that in a society 
 where men produce for exchange, labour is a social 
 function, and the price of labour its reward. Locke's 
 doctrine would then amount to this, that the social right '' 
 of each man is to a place in the economic order, in 
 
 29 Second Treatise on Civil Government, chap. v. 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF PROPERTY 29 
 
 which he both has opportunity for exercising his facul- 
 ties in the social service, and can reap thereby a reward 
 proportionate to the value of the service rendered to 
 society." 
 
 (c) But there exists a much more radical Individual- 
 ism than Locke 's, \vhich also ascends to antiquity. The 
 Aristotelian criticism of Plato proceeds partly from 
 the just conception that unity is only one feature of 
 social life, and that the true connnunity must be a 
 whole of many diverse parts. It rests also upon the 
 conception that property is among the external good 
 things which are necessary to the full expression of 
 personality. In emphasizing this side of the matter^^ 
 it may be allowed that Aristotle lets the communal 
 principle evaporate into a mere pious aspiration. Pri- 
 vate possession and common use is a pleasant phrase, 
 but, we may safely maintain, remains a mere phrase. 
 It is no organic law for society to lay down, that men 
 should use their possessions in the spirit of the proverb 
 that *Hhe things of friends are common.'' 
 
 The centre of this line of thought is the conception 
 that property is an instrument of personality, and in 
 that form it has been revived and has played an im- 
 portant part in modern thought. In general terms, 
 what has been said at the outset will have justified this 
 principle by anticipation. Material things that a man 
 can count upon as his own, that he can leave and return 
 to, that he can use at his wiU, are, w^e have admitted, 
 the basis of a purposeful life, and therefore of a ra- 
 tional and harmonious development of personality. But 
 as a basis of the institution of property this principle 
 
 2T For some further account of Locke's doctrine and criticism of it 
 see Essay II., in which also will be found a fuller account of Aristotle's 
 theory of property than is needful for the purpose of the next para- 
 graph. 
 
 28 Hid. 
 
30 PEOPEETY 
 
 carries with it consequences which seem too often to 
 be overlooked. On the one hand it carries the condem- 
 nation of a social system in which property of the kind 
 and amount required for such development of person- 
 ality is not generally accessible to all citizens, who do 
 not forfeit their right by misfeasance. A society which 
 should accept this principle, could not tolerate any; 
 thing like the existing distribution of wealth, could not 
 permit those methods of accumulation which concen- 
 trate wealth in the hands of the few, and leave the 
 many — so far as the practical object of earning their 
 living is concerned — as naked as they were born. Cher- 
 ished as a Conservative principle, it has in it the seed 
 of Eadical revolution. And secondly, if this principle 
 would require the universal distribution of the means 
 of subsistence, it would also limit the accumulation of 
 property by the measure of that which is healthy for 
 the soul. The possession of property which emanci- 
 pates from toil, the possession of property which 
 makes, not for the guidance of self, but for the control 
 of others, stands on this principle condemned ; and what 
 is a justification of property becomes a reprobation of 
 riches. Ethical individualism in property, carried 
 through, blows up its own citadel. 
 
 {d) There remains the Socialistic conception of 
 property, the term by which in general we may express 
 any theory which distinguishes between the appropria- 
 tion of the means of production and the appropriation 
 of the fruits of labour. The difficulty of this theory, 
 considered merely as a theory — for we are not here 
 concerned with practical applications — is, in the first 
 place, to discriminate neatly between the two kinds of 
 property; and in the second place, to determine the 
 conditions of access for the individual to the means of 
 production, and the ethical basis and measure of his 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF PEOPEETY 31 
 
 reward. But at the outset let ns be clear as to the 
 distinction between the Socialistic principle and the 
 Communist. To the Communist all things are equally 
 the objects of enjo^nnent, without payment made or 
 service rendered. To the Socialist — or indeed to any 
 society so far as the socialistic principle is applied- 
 property is not common to all, but is held in common 
 for all, and its assignment or apportionment is a matter 
 of collective regulation. There is no enjoyment with- 
 out a correlative performance of function. The prob- 
 lem before the Socialist has always been to consider 
 how this collective regulation can be accommodated 
 to the free initiative and enterprise of the individual; 
 and it may be doubted whether, upon purely socialistic 
 principles, this problem is capable of solution. 
 
 The problem is complicated by the psychological 
 difficulties of democratic organization. We talk easily 
 of a conmion property, of a common industry directed 
 to the common good and organized by the general will ; 
 but where is the general will? Is it a figment of the 
 rhetoricians, or is it a working reality in actual lifef 
 In practice, does it mean a collective decision, to which 
 the ordinary man contributes, and in which therefore 
 his personality may, in a genuine sense, be said to be 
 expressed? Or does it mean the fiat of statesmen and 
 of experts, sheepishly accepted by the crowd because 
 they see no way of escaping it? On the former alter- 
 native, collective property might truly be regarded as 
 having that same organic relation to personality as is 
 possessed by the peasant's plot of ground in relation 
 to the proprietor, who knows the capacity of every 
 square yard of it. In the latter alternative, collective 
 industry becomes a mechanism, in which each man 
 might be reduced to the part of an unthinking cog, 
 grinding his grind with no more freedom than the 
 
32 PEOPERTY 
 
 factory hand under the capitalist employer, and withi 
 no more sense of the social value of his work than the; 
 machine-minder performing a fragmentary process ini 
 the manufacture of an article, which, whether sound I 
 or unsound, wholesome or unwholesome, will go to the i 
 use or the annoyance or the injury of people whom he ' 
 has never seen and never will see. Considerations 
 such as these have led some of the more generous 
 minds of our own time to look for the reform of prop- 
 erty rather in a revived individualism than in further- 
 ing the collectivist tendencies, which, of late years, 
 have influenced legislation. Their ideal would be 
 something like the mediaeval organization, without its 
 restrictions on personal freedom. They sigh for the 
 day of the small landed proprietor and the master- 
 workman. 
 
 In relation to the land this conception, no doubt, has 
 a certain limited applicability; but in the main its de- 
 velopment seems barred by the hard facts of economic 
 development, making for the large scale of production 
 and the complex interchange of goods throughout the 
 world market. Yet the principle is in so far just that 
 it recognizes an indestructible core of value in the idea 
 of property. Only it has to be maintained that, if 
 private property is of value, for reasons and within 
 limits that have been indicated, to the fulfilment of 
 personality, common property is equally of value for 
 the expression and the development of social life. The 
 problem of modern economic reorganization would 
 seem to be to find a method, compatible with the indus- 
 trial conditions of the new age, of securing to each 
 man, as a part of his civic birthright, a place in the 
 industrial system and a lien upon the common product 
 that he may call his own, without dependence either 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF PEOPERTY 33 
 
 upon private cliarity or the arbitrary decision of an 
 official. 
 
 The other side of this problem is that of securing 
 for the State the ultimate ownership of the natural 
 sources of wealth and of the accumulation of past gen- 
 erations, together with the supreme control of the 
 direction of industrial activity and of labour contracts. 
 We cannot reconstitute the early commune. We can- 
 not secure for each man his inheritance, his virgate, 
 and his plough team. What we have to aim at would 
 seem to be an analogous relation between the individual 
 and the community, adapted to the complexity of mod- 
 ern conditions, combining the security of the old re- 
 gime with the flexibility and freedom of the new, partly 
 by education and training, partly by the supervision 
 of industrial organization. We have to restore the 
 contact between the individual and the instruments 
 of labour. We have to assure him of continuity in 
 employment, and—given reasonable industry and thrift 
 — ^of provision against the accidents of life and the 
 periods of helplessness. And for these purposes we 
 have to restore to society a direct ownership of some 
 things, but an eminent ownership of all things material 
 to the production of wealth, securing ** property for 
 use'' to the individual, and retaining ** property for 
 power'' for the democratic state. 
 
n 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOEY 
 OF PEOPEETY 
 
 BY 
 
 The Kbv. HASTINGS RASHDALL, D.Litt., F.BA. 
 
 FELLOW AND LECTUBER IN PHILOSOPHY, NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD 
 CANON OF HEEEFOBD 
 
SUMMARY 
 
 The Platonic Utopia lias little bearing on modern controversies. Aris- 
 totle understood the advantages of private property, but was not an 
 extreme Individualist. Defects of his treatment due to (a) his not 
 appreciating the functions of Capital, (&) not seeing that his con- 
 demnation of Usury would apply to the land-owner. His argument 
 (against Plato) for private property contains in germ the best that 
 has ever been said on the subject. But his views presuppose an aristo- 
 cratic class-morality. 
 
 Stoicism and Christianity both contributed to a more universalistic 
 and humanitarian morality. Views of the Fathers, Canonists, and 
 Jurists. The legal idea that property can be acquired by occupatio 
 passes into an ethical justification of property. 
 
 Locke's attempt to base property upon natural law by assuming that 
 a man has a natural right to his own labour and to everything ( including 
 land) with which he mixes his labour. Difficulties and inconsistencies 
 of the theory, which contradicts itself, since its application would violate 
 the natural right of the landless man to his labour. This seen by Karl 
 Marx and the a priori Socialists, who made the same principle the basis 
 of extreme Socialism, i.e., the principle that a man is entitled to the 
 whole produce of his labour. The theory cannot be applied in practice. 
 
 Impossible to settle the question by any a priori theory. Duties and 
 rights cannot be ascertained without an appeal to social consequences. 
 This recognized by Hume and Utilitarians. 
 
 Many later thinkers would accept the view that property can only 
 be justified by its tendency to promote the public good without admit- 
 ting that "good" means only pleasure. 
 
 Locke's principle on the whole followed by Kant. 
 
 Kant's influence produced a tendency in Idealists generally to treat 
 the rights of property as natural rights, e.g. in Hegel; but Hegel's 
 influence valuable (a) in promoting a more spiritual view of the State 
 and its functions, (6) in emphasising the influence of property upon 
 character — its necessity as an expression of personality. 
 
 The extreme Individualism of Herbert Spencer based on same prin- 
 ciple as Locke's, aided by a misapplication of the Darwinian doctrine 
 of the "struggle for existence." He failed to see that private property 
 implies as much State interference as Socialism. 
 
 The influence of Hegel on T. H. Green and other English Idealists. 
 
 The general tendency of modern political thought is to base the 
 justification and the limitation of property-rights upon their social 
 effects, including moral effects. 
 
 Bosanquet's insistence upon the necessity of private property for the 
 development of character: a man's future must depend upon his own 
 efforts and foresight. 
 
 Value of the principle admitted — as also the importance of liberty 
 for social development, even if this liberty can only be fully enjoyed 
 by the few. 
 
 Criticism of Professor Bosanquet: (a) he seems to forget that Social- 
 ism does not condemn private property but only private capital; (&) he 
 too readily assumes that private property must always imply the present 
 rights of inheritance and capitalisation; (c) while rightly insisting on 
 the good effects of property upon character, he ignores the intense selfish- 
 ness promoted by the present system of almost unlimited competition. 
 
 The problem of the future is gradually to modify the institution so 
 as to secure its good effects, economic and moral, without its injustices 
 and other bad effects. The whole question must be solved by an appeal 
 to the social effects of different systems, not by any a priori principle. 
 
 36 
 
II 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOEY 
 OF PKOPERTY 
 
 A HisTOKiCAL Survey akd Criticism 
 
 It will be impossible in a short article to dwell on the 
 earlier history of speculation on this subject. Plato's 
 drastic treatment of the institution must be passed 
 over altogether; and after all, the Platonic Utopia has 
 little bearing on modern controversies, for it was ap- 
 parently only for a particular class that his Com- 
 munism was designed. It w^ould be more to the point 
 to dwell upon the theories of Aristotle; for there is 
 much in his treatment of the subject which is of the 
 highest significance for the modern world. Nobody 
 understood better the advantages of private property 
 as an institution ; and yet he was far indeed from the 
 position of modern Individualists. His fundamental 
 thought was that property was an instrument of life 
 —of the highest life; and he recognized that not an 
 unlimited but a limited amount of property was neces- 
 sary for such a life. For him the ideal arrangement 
 was that half the land of the state should be held in 
 common and only half held by private owners, and he 
 thought it desirable that in the original distribution 
 of wealth extreme inequalities should be avoided; but 
 he was far too keenly alive to the dangers of Eevolu- 
 tion {(TTaaLs) — that ever-present peril in the ancient 
 City-state — ^to favour a compulsory expropriation of 
 
 37 
 
38 PEOPERTY 
 
 existing owners. His objection to lending money upon 
 interest does perhaps imply some suspicion of the 
 moral difficulties connected with it : but he had no con- 
 ception at all of the true functions of capital, and so 
 fell into the economic fallacy so familiar to us from 
 the speech of Antonio in the Merchant of Venice, that 
 usury is wrong because ** barren metal" does not 
 breed. It never occurred to him that, though money 
 does not breed, it will buy a cow which does breed. 
 If A borrowed from B £20 for a year, and bought there- 
 with a cow, and then proposed to hand B back the cow 
 (or the £20 which it cost) and keep the calf, the absurd- 
 ity would be evident. Nor did he recognize that, if all 
 lending upon interest is to be condemned, the condem- 
 nation would fall as much upon the aristocratic land- 
 owning citizen — the type with him of all that was 
 excellent and respectable — as well as upon the despised 
 alien money-lender. In fact Aristotle was far too much 
 imbued with the prejudices of the aristocratic class to 
 be capable of discussing the subject in any fundamen- 
 tal manner. The ethical question as to the justification 
 of private property and private capital (he, of course, 
 does not distinguish between them) is never fairly 
 raised. So far as the problem is raised and answered, 
 the answer amounts to this: That material wealth is 
 necessary as a condition of the higher life; and that 
 some measure of private property is more conducive 
 to the higher life than any form of common ownership, 
 because (1) it tends more to real unity of sentiment 
 (the raison d'etre of the Platonic Utopia) than Com- 
 munism; (2) it is economically superior to it, for 
 people bestow more attention upon the management of 
 private than of public property; (3) ownership is a 
 source of pleasure ; and (4) it is more conducive to the 
 growth of character, for Communism destroys the pos- 
 
THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEORY 39 
 
 sibility of exercising two important virtues, self-con- 
 trol and Liberality/ It is not too much to say that we 
 have here an outline of the best that has ever been said 
 in defence of private property; but the difficulties of 
 the subject are not appreciated. Aristotle's intensely 
 aristocratic moral theory, according to which virtue 
 was only possible to gentlemen of education and ^* pri- 
 vate means," while the slave and even the free artisan 
 (if he was not a citizen) were mere means to virtue or 
 noble life in another, prevented his arriving at any 
 fully thought out theory which could be acceptable to 
 those who have rejected his narrow civic and class 
 morality. 
 
 Both Stoicism and Christianity contributed to the 
 establishment of a more universalistic and more hu- 
 manitarian ideal of life. And there is much in the 
 teaching of the Christian Fathers, as well as of the 
 Stoic Philosophers and of the great Roman Jurists 
 (the earlier of whom were powerfully affected by Stoic 
 ideas, and the later also by Christianity), which would 
 be well worth examining if space allowed (see below, 
 Essays IV.-V.). Within our limits it is only possible 
 to remark that the Christian teachers were for the 
 most part occupied merely with the question of pri- 
 vate ethics, not of State regulation : in so far therefore 
 as they felt scruples about the justification of large 
 private wealth, the moral drawn was simply an incul- 
 cation of almsgiving. So far as there is any definite 
 ethical theory of property, the general tendency is to 
 admit that originally, and therefore *' naturally," all 
 things were common, but that private property is 
 necessitated by that corruption of human nature which 
 was brought about by the Fall. Still, in so far as the 
 actual state of human nature required such a private 
 
 1 Aristotle, Politics, ii. pp. 1261 b-1263 b. 
 
40 PROPERTY 
 
 appropriation of goods, this very necessity constitutes 
 a certain justification for it. So far the tendency was 
 to treat the laws of property as a branch of positive 
 law, and to find the justification for them in the same 
 considerations which justified the State in general.^ 
 During the Middle Ages the question of the right and 
 justification of the State's authority was a matter of 
 lively controversy. The Decretum of Gratian — the fa» 
 mous text-book of Canon Law which appeared about 
 1142 — finds the origin and justification of the State in 
 a supposed original contract; and though it had to 
 contend with other theories, the tendency during the 
 latter portion of this period was towards a general 
 acceptance of the theory which found the justification 
 of the State in a contract or agreement, the duty to 
 observe which belonged to natural law and was itself 
 independent of State enactment. It was implied in 
 this theory that all property rights must be derived 
 from the authority of the State, and must therefore be 
 liable in the last resort to be overruled for the public 
 good by that authority. At the same time the absolute- 
 ness of the power which this view seemed to give to 
 the State — that is, practically in most cases to a mon- 
 arch who was becoming more and more despotic- 
 made the defenders of law and public right unwilling 
 to acquiesce in a view which placed all property at the 
 mercy of the ruler, and anxious to find a basis for their 
 rights in the requirements of natural law. This was 
 
 2 For further information as to patristic and mediaeval views about 
 property, see Essay V.; also Carlyle, History of Mediaeval Political 
 Theory in the West, I. chap, xii., II. chap, ii., etc.; Gierke, Political 
 Theories of the Middle Age, ed. Maitland, pp. 78 sq., 178 sq. et passim^ 
 It must be remembered that the ancient and mediaeval thinkers were 
 largely prevented from taking a strong view of the naturalness or sacred- 
 ness of property by the fact that for them property included slaves. 
 The tendency was therefore to rest its justification solely upon the 
 authority of the State. 
 
THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOEY 41 
 
 done by what we may call an ethical application of 
 the purely legal theories about occupatio. The Jurist 
 as such was not concerned with the strictly ethical ques- 
 tion, but he was concerned with the question how and 
 when private property was to be recognized, how it 
 was to be distinguished from that which was not prop- 
 erty at all or which was in some sense common prop- 
 erty — ^in fact what constituted a valid title to property : 
 and this question was one which to some extent in- 
 volved the historical question as to the origin of private 
 property. Nov^ it was a simple matter of historical 
 fact that one at least of the ways in which private 
 property began was by some person or persons *^ occu- 
 pying ' ^ or appropriating to his or their own use some- 
 thing which previously was unappropriated {res 
 nullius) ; and the Roman Law recognizes such occu- 
 patio as a valid title to property. So far the theory 
 was merely legal and historical; but it was an easy 
 step to find in this historical fact an ethical justifica- 
 tion of the institution. This occupatio was morally 
 justified by the theory that the appropriation involved 
 labour, and that this labour gave the appropriating 
 individual a right to the fruits of his labour, in accord- 
 ance with the provisions of natural law. That a man 
 who takes the trouble to cut down a tree in a wild and 
 unappropriated forest and make a canoe of it should 
 be allowed to keep the canoe and reserve it for his 
 exclusive use, is indeed so natural and convenient an 
 arrangement that it has been recognized by most primi- 
 tive peoples and savage tribes. This recognition is not, 
 we are told, universal; in some primitive communities 
 the tribal instinct is so strong, and the recognition of 
 the individual's claims so weak, that there would not 
 be the smallest notion that the making of a canoe gave 
 a man any title to prevent his fellow tribesmen using 
 
42 PEOPEETY 
 
 it on the following morning. Still, on the whole, pri- 
 vate ownership in things actually and obviously created 
 by labour is a fairly primitive and fairly universal 
 human institution. And it was natural enough to ex- 
 tend the same mode of thinking to the case of cultivated 
 land, though the more careful study of primitive his- 
 tory has taught us that as a rule the first appropriation 
 and cultivation of land was the work of groups rather 
 than of individuals. It was tempting to the philos- 
 opher in search of a theoretical justification of prop- 
 erty to accept this natural instinct of appropriation, 
 and the legal notions which had grown out of it, as an 
 ultimate solution of his difficulties and not to go behind 
 it. Sometimes the justification was eked out either by 
 utilitarian considerations or by the theory of a general 
 consent, given either directly to the principle that occu- 
 pation or labour constitutes ownership, or indirectly 
 as a corollary of the general agreement that the State 
 which has sanctioned this arrangement is to be obeyed. 
 I shall not attempt to follow the growth of these 
 ideas through the Fathers, the Jurists, the Canonists, 
 the Schoolmen, the modern juristic thinkers like Gro- 
 tius, or the earlier modern Philosophers. The subject 
 is not prominent in the earliest modern Philosophers, 
 except quite incidentally as a department of Ethics. 
 Speaking very broadly, the general tendency was to 
 defend the institution of private property and the pro- 
 hibition of theft on utilitarian grounds, as conducive 
 to the good of human society, whether that good was 
 made to consist in mere pleasure (as with Hobbes) or 
 in some higher kind of Well-being. I will pass imme- 
 diately to the writings of Locke, whose version of the 
 theory already touched upon — the natural right of the 
 fruits of one 's labour — ^has become the basis of almost 
 all the attempts of modern philosophers to base the 
 
THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOEY 43 
 
 justification of private property upon some a priori 
 principle, and not upon the gronnd of general utility 
 and convenience. 
 
 Strictly speaking, Locke was himself a pure Utilita- 
 rian. In his Essay he strenuously denies the existence 
 of any *4nnate practical principles,'' and occasionally 
 in his Treatise of Civil Government he attempts to 
 defend the doctrine that labour confers ownership on 
 utilitarian grounds—as a means to the general good; 
 but in general, when dealing with this subject— as in- 
 deed in his political speculation generally — ^he entirely *- 
 forgets his utilitarian principles, and treats the theory 
 as if it were indeed an * Annate practical principle." 
 The explanation of this curious lapse is to be found in 
 the circumstances of his time. There was a general 
 agreement among the thinkers too enlightened to accept 
 the High Anglican divine right of Kings, that the 
 authority of Government must be found in a supposed 
 original contract. Primitive men had elected a Sov- 
 ereign and agreed to obey him, and there is a tacit 
 agreement of living men to go on obeying the State. 
 The chief subject of dispute was as to the limits of ' 
 the authority thus conferred. Hobbes, as a champion 
 of Absolutism in the State — that is to say, as regards 
 England, of absolute Monarchy— treated that author- 
 ity as practically unlimited.^ Locke as a Whig was 
 interested in setting limits to it. In particular he en- 
 deavoured to turn the familiar Whig doctrine * ' No tax- 
 ation without representation" from an accepted maxim ^ 
 of the English constitution, or a convenient under- 
 standing for any developed political community, into 
 an absolute ethical principle. He admitted that Mon- 
 
 3 See the early chapters of his Leviathan. The theory had been 
 already adopted by Hooker in the first chapter of his Ecclesiastical 
 Polity, 
 
44 PEOPERTY | 
 
 archy might be a lawful form of govermnent when 
 established by general agreement. In such a govern- 1 
 ment a King might make laws and issue orders, and j 
 it was the duty of the subject to obey them, but there; 
 was one thing which the most absolute monarch in^ 
 the world could not lawfully do: he could not take aii 
 sixpence out of his subject's pockets without his ex-' 
 press consent given personally or by representation. 
 The King could make laws under which the subject! 
 could be shot; he could enter upon a war and compel! 
 him to fight in it and be shot by the enemy; he could! 
 interfere with his liberty and convenience in a thou-- 
 sand ways without any consent except the assumed! 
 consent to enter into political society ; but no original 
 consent or consideration of social advantage, how^ever 
 pressing, could overcome the inherent sacredness of 
 the breeches pocket. To maintain this theory it was 
 necessary to represent that the institution of private 
 property did not depend simply upon any laws made 
 by the Sovereign, but was part of the law of nature, 
 and as such existed already in the supposed state of 
 nature prior to the institution of civil society. It 
 rested upon the law of nature. 
 
 Hobbes had represented the state of nature as one 
 in which there was absolutely no law and no morality, 
 no duties and no rights. Every man could do what 
 he liked and take what he liked — checked only by the 
 equally comprehensive right of every one else to do 
 the same. Only when men had entered into a contract 
 to obey a common superior did any rights or obliga- 
 tions arise. Not so with Locke. According to him 
 individuals in a state of nature had certain rights and 
 certain corresponding duties, discernible by the light 
 of nature and prescribed by its laws. Among these 
 **laws of nature," or self-evident moral principles, 
 
THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEORY 45 
 
 was this : that every man has a right to his own person, ^ 
 to his own labour, and to that with which he mixes 
 his labour. 
 
 *' Though the earth, and all inferiour creatures, be common 
 to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person : i^ 
 this nobody has any right to but himself. The labour of his 
 body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly 
 his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature 
 hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, 
 and joined to it something'^ that is his own, and thereby makes 
 it his property. It being by him removed from the common 
 state nature hath placed it in, hath by this labour something 
 annexed to it, that excludes the common right of other men. 
 For this labour being the unquestionable property of the 
 labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once 
 joined to, at least where there is enough, and as good, left in 
 common for others, 
 
 * * He that is nourished by the acorns he picked up under a 
 oak, or the apples he gathered from the trees in the wood, has 
 certainly appropriated them to himself. Nobody can deny 
 but the nourishment is his. I ask then, when did they begin 
 to be his? when he digested! or when he eat? or when he 
 boiled? or when he brought them home? or when he picked 
 them up ? and it is plain, if the first gathering made them not 
 his, nothing else could. That labour put a distinction between 
 them and common ; that added something to them more than 
 nature, the common mother of all, had done; and so they 
 became his private right. And will any one say he had no 
 right to those acorns or apples he thus appropriated, because 
 he had not the consent of all mankind to make them his? was 
 it a robbery thus to assume to himself what belonged to all in 
 common? If such a consent as that was necessary, man had 
 starved, notwithstanding the plenty God had given him. ' ' * 
 
 Private property in land can be acquired in the 
 same way — by mixing one's labour with it — though in 
 a state of nature these rights are qualified by certain 
 important reservations. In the first place, a man may 
 
 * Treatise of Civil Government, chap. v. $$ 27, 28. 
 
46 PEOPEETY 
 
 only appropriate as mnch wealth as he can use. * * The 
 same law of nature that does by this means give us 
 property, does also bound that property too. *God 
 has given us all things richly' (i Tim. vi. 12). Is the 
 voice of reason confirmed by inspiration? But how 
 has He given it us? *To enjoy.' As much as any one 
 can make use of to any advantage of life before it 
 spoils, so much he may by his labour fix a property in. 
 Whatever is beyond this is more than his share, and 
 belongs to others." ^ Thus if a man plucks apples and 
 heaps them up beneath the tree, his labour in plucking 
 them gives him a right to appropriate them. The 
 next wayfarer coming along must starve rather than 
 touch them; but if the plucker lets any of the apples 
 perish uneaten, he is a thief. This restriction is meant 
 no doubt to apply to the case of land as of other prop- 
 erty. But in the case of land in particular a very 
 significant restriction is (as we have seen) introduced, 
 though in a hesitating manner — '*at least where there 
 is as much and as good left for others. ' ' Private prop- 
 erty in land may have been justified on these principles 
 **in the beginning" or when **all the world was Amer- 
 ica"; but it is difficult to see how he could have thought 
 that it justified private property as it existed in Eng- 
 land at the end of the seventeenth century. 
 
 What shall we say to this theory? Is it self-evident 
 that a man has a right to all that his labour produces ? 
 Eights are meaningless except as the converse of du- 
 ties. To say that a man has a right to all that his 
 labour produces, means that other people are under a 
 moral obligation to let him enjoy all that his labour 
 produces. Is it self-evident that they ought to do this, 
 even if the consequences to Society should be disas- 
 trous? Was a party of primitive men — ^if we presup- 
 
 5 Ibid. $ 31. 
 
THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEORY 47 
 
 pose Locke's nnliistorical conception of primitive life 
 —wandering over an unappropriated prairie, morally 
 bound to allow an individual who had got a few miles 
 beyond them to appropriate all the available apples or 
 acorns or dates? Ought they to starve rather than 
 interfere with his hoard, until it was proved by expe- 
 rience that he had appropriated more than he could 
 consume? And then, if we concede the right to what 
 the labour produces, what about the material with which 
 he chooses to *^mix his labour ''? Labour produces 
 nothing without some material, which is always in the 
 last resort some part of the soil or of the things that 
 grow out of it. May a man mix ever so little labour 
 mth ever so much raw material, and yet secure a right 
 over that material for himself and his heirs for all 
 timef May he by merely constructing a ring-fence 
 round some thousand acres of the best soil, or perhaps 
 lightly scratching its surface with a plough, secure 
 that property to himself, his heirs, and assigns for 
 ever! If we concede that his labour gives him the 
 property in it for his lifetime, what about his heirs 
 who have not laboured upon it1 Is there any self- 
 evident principle which determines what is to become 
 of it after his death! Locke assumes that the English 
 liberty of bequest (not altogether unlimited in Locke's 
 time) was the *' natural" arrangement. Yet a will of 
 lands was only made possible by a statute of Henry 
 VIII. ; and in case of intestacy three separate systems 
 of distribution prevailed (and still prevail) even within 
 the limits of England. In the greater part of the 
 country the whole of the real estate goes to the eldest 
 son ; in certain parts of the county of Kent it is equally 
 divided in accordance with the custom of Gavelkind; 
 while in other parts of the country it all goes to the 
 youngest son, in accordance with the custom of Bor- 
 
48 PEOPEETY 
 
 ougli English. Are all these arrangements in accord- 
 ance with the law of nature? Locke would probably 
 have urged that these were modifications of the law 
 of nature introduced by the State-made or civil law, 
 which derived its authority from the social contract. 
 But it is not apparent how the contract, the obligation 
 to keep which itself rests upon a principle of natural 
 law, can override other laws of nature which are (ac- 
 cording to Locke) as sacred and absolute as the law 
 that contracts shall be kept. And after all the law of 
 nature only conferred a limited right of property. 
 What has become of the limitations which restricted 
 property to as much as a man could use and no more, 
 and qualified even this principle as regards land by 
 the **at least when there is as much and as good left 
 for others"? 
 
 The best wa^^- of criticizing Locke's theory is to show 
 that, when thought out, it contradicts itself. Let us 
 suppose that ten men appropriate a desert island, di- 
 vide it among themselves, and cultivate their respec- 
 tive shares. Each of them has ten sons, and having 
 a taste for '^founding a family" leaves his share to 
 the eldest. In the next generation there will be ten 
 landlords and ninety landless men. These men have 
 a sacred, natural right to the fruits of their labour: 
 but how are they to exercise it? They will say to the 
 elder brothers: **We have a right to labour: let us 
 work on your lands." **By all means," the elder 
 brothers will say, **on condition of paying over to us 
 all that the land produces over and above what will 
 keep you and your families." In that way the prin- 
 ciple contradicts itself. The rights of property, sup- 
 posed to be derived from a man's natural right to 
 the fruits of his labour, involves the negation of that 
 right in the non-inheritors of property. This is exactly 
 
THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEORY 49 
 
 what Karl Marx and the a priori Socialists saw. They 
 accepted Locke's own principle, and expressed it in 
 the only logical form — **the labourer has a right to 
 the ivhole produce of his labour." But this right is 
 defeated by any private appropriation of land and 
 capital; therefore all land and capital, all the * instru- 
 ments of production," must be held in common. Thus 
 the same principle which was intended by Locke as 
 the basis of a system of extreme Individualism, has 
 be«3ome the corner-stone of a system of extreme and 
 thorough-going Socialism. Upon the premises it can- 
 not be denied that the socialistic application is the 
 more logical. And yet in one way the socialistic? appli- 
 cation is open to the same fundamental objection as 
 Locke's. It might possibly be applied to a very primi- 
 tive society in which each individual, or rather each 
 family, produced by their own unassisted efforts 
 everything that they wanted. But in a piece of cloth 
 woven in a modern factory, who shall say how much 
 of the finished product was really due to the weaver, 
 how much to his assistant, how much to the shepherd 
 who tended the sheep, how much to the merchant who 
 brought it to market! And then the soldier, the mag- 
 istrate, the policeman, the schoolmaster, the builder, 
 who all indirectly took part in its production, will 
 reasonably contend that they too assisted to make that 
 piece of cloth, and will demand their shares. But the 
 maxim gives us no guidance as to the principle upon 
 which the resulting wealth is to be divided between 
 ail these classes of labourers without all sorts of sup- 
 plementary principles, about the justice or reasonable- 
 ness of which endless disputes arise. And then after 
 all, as Locke saw", the appropriation of Capital by the 
 State only settles difficulties of distribution so long as 
 ** there is as much and as good left for others." The 
 
50 PKOPERTY 
 
 Karl Marx theory may justify the appropriation of' 
 land as between the members of a particular section 
 inter se ; but it assumes the appropriation of the whole 
 country by a particular community, and this cannot 
 be justified as against the inhabitants of less favoured 
 regions, if labour alone can confer a title to the enjoy- 
 ment of wealth. Nobody has created the soil with 
 which the man has mixed his labour. The fundamen- 
 tal question which Locke's theory raises is, whether 
 any principle for the regulation of property or the 
 enjoyment of wealth can claim to be self-evident apart 
 from all considerations of social effects. 
 
 It cannot be too strongly insisted that the question 
 of property is only a particular department of the 
 more general question, whether there are any a priori 
 self-evident rights ; and that in turn depends upon the 
 question whether there are any duties which can be 
 laid down a priori, and without reference to the social 
 effects of conduct. Eights are meaningless apart from 
 duties ; if all duties spring in the last resort from the 
 duty of promoting the general good, then rights must 
 also be shown to spring from the same principle. This 
 was seen by Hume, who is generally regarded as the 
 founder of modern Utilitarianism, the system accord- 
 ing to which all duty consists in promoting the general 
 good — interpreted to mean nothing but happiness in 
 the sense of pleasure. The system was really much 
 older than Hume. But Hume did much more than 
 his predecessors in attempting to apply the principle 
 to the details of duty ; and he made a much more sys- 
 tematic attempt than they to meet some of its obvious 
 difficulties. One of the most conspicuous of these was 
 connected with the question of property. If an act is 
 always right which produces a maximum of happiness, 
 how could any act be more justifiable than to pick the 
 
THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEORY 51 
 
 pocket of a Duke, who wonld not feel the loss, and to 
 give the proceeds to a beggar to whom it would give 
 much pleasure ? Hume met this difficulty by the great 
 utilitarian principle of the general rule or the long- 
 run. Many isolated acts might produce happiness, 
 which would be socially disastrous if generally imi- 
 tated. 
 
 To make this (the principle that the idea Justice is based 
 npon Utility in an indirect and artificial way) more evident 
 consider, that tho' the rules of justice are establish 'd merely 
 by interest, their connexion with interest is somewhat singular, 
 and is different from what may be observ 'd on other occasions. 
 A single act of justice is frequently contrary to public inter- 
 est; and were it to stand alone, without being follow 'd by 
 other acts, may, in itself, be very prejudicial to society. When 
 a man of merit, of a beneficent disposition, restores a great 
 fortune to a miser, or a seditious bigot, he has acted justly and 
 laudably, but the public is a real sufferer. Nor is every single 
 act of justice, consider 'd apart, more conducive to private 
 interest than to public ; and 'tis easily conceiv 'd how a man 
 m.ay impoverish himself by a signal instance of integrity, and 
 have reason to wish, that with regard to that single act, the 
 laws of justice were for a moment suspended in the universe. 
 But however single acts of justice may be contrary, either to 
 public or private interest, 'tis certain, that the whole plan or 
 scheme is highly conducive, or indeed absolutely requisite, 
 both to the support of society, and the well-being of every 
 individual. 'Tis impossible to separate the good from the ill. 
 Property must be stable, and must be fix'd by general rules. 
 Tho' in one instance the public be a sufferer, this momentary 
 ill is amply compensated by the steady prosecution of the rule, 
 and by the power and order, which it establishes in society. 
 And now every individual person must find himself a gainer, 
 on balancing the account; since without justice society must 
 immediately dissolve, and every one must fall into that savage 
 and solitary condition, which is infinitely worse than the 
 worst situation that can possibly be suppos'd in society.® 
 
 6 Treatise of Human Nature, Pt. ii. § 2. 
 
 y 
 
52 PEOPERTY 
 
 From Hume the Utilitarian principle passed to 
 Jeremy Bentham and Ms followers, the first school 
 who were actually called Utilitarians. Hume himself 
 was a man of very conservative views, and little social 
 or humanitarian enthusiasm. The application which 
 he gave to his doctrine of property was eminently 
 conservative; the rights, practically the unlimited 
 rights, of property had no more ardent champion than 
 this sceptical and very destructive thinker. Bentham 
 was, of course, a zealous social reformer; and would 
 heartily have favoured any attempt to modify the ac- 
 tual legal rights of property in any way which would 
 tend to promote the public happiness. But the Ben- 
 thamites were not Socialists. They were, most of them, 
 ardent champions of a Psychology which regards the 
 individual's love of his own pleasure as the supreme 
 motive in human conduct, and of a Political Economy 
 which was based upon that psychology, and which was 
 consequently disposed to defend the system of private 
 capital, with the inducements which it offers for indi- 
 vidual exertion and accumulation, as absolutely essen- 
 tial to the public good. With the economic theory we 
 are not now concerned. It is enough to point out that 
 according to the Utilitarian school the rights of prop- 
 erty spring ultimately from their tendency to promote 
 the public good. This is a principle in which both the 
 most ardent Individualist and the most extreme So- 
 cialist may agree. And there has been, on the whole, 
 a general (though of course not by any means a univer- 
 sal) disposition ever since the time of Bentham to 
 argue the question of property upon this basis — upon 
 the question of its social effects. Karl Marx, indeed, 
 based his Socialism upon an a priori principle ; but of 
 late the controversy between Socialism and its critics 
 has generally been conducted on the assumption that 
 
THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOEY 53 
 
 the Utilitarian criterion is to be accepted. The ques- 
 tion has been simply which system has the greatest 
 tendency to promote the public good. The principle 
 of Utility is practically assumed in discussing ques- 
 tions of politics or public policy by many who would 
 (however inconsistently) refuse to apply it to the de- 
 tails of private morals; and it has been even more 
 universally accepted in popular controversy than 
 among professed philosophers. 
 
 The most important qualification of the Utilitarian 
 principle which has been introduced among philoso- 
 phers is that most of them refuse to accept the view 
 that the good is identical with pleasure. Many of those 
 who would agree with Bentham in making the justifi- 
 cation and the limitation of property-rights (as of all 
 other principles of conduct) depend upon their ten- 
 dency to promote the Well-being of human society, 
 decline to follow him in thiriMng that Well-being means 
 simply pleasure, and that pleasures differ only in 
 quantity, not in quality. They will agree with Ben- 
 tham as to the impossibility of pronouncing upon the 
 morality of any human act apart from its conse- 
 quences ; they will differ from him as to the character 
 of the consequences which have to be taken into con- 
 sideration. They will admit that what appear at first 
 sight self-evident moral rules are found on a little 
 reflection to contradict themselves, to involve excep- 
 tions really based on considerations of social well- 
 being, and to be really incapable of being laid down 
 with any definiteness or precision without reference to 
 such considerations. They will contend that we do 
 not really understand what an act is until we under- 
 stand its consequences, so far as these can be foreseen : 
 and if consideration of consequences is once admitted, 
 it is arbitrary to stop at any particular point. Ideally, 
 
54 PEOPEETY 
 
 an act is right which tends to promote the largest pos- 
 sible amount of true human Well-being.^ If so, the 
 duties which the institution of property imposes must 
 be defended on exactly the same principle — ^by their 
 tendency ultimately (with immense stress on the ulti- 
 mately) to promote this end. But it does not follow 
 that true human Good or Well-being consists solely in 
 a greatest qiiantum of pleasure. Many of those who 
 would agree with Bentham in appealing to conse- 
 quences, would insist strongly that morality or char- 
 acter or the good will is an end in itself and the most 
 important element of Good; that intellectual and 
 aesthetic activity are lil{:ewise valuable in themselves 
 and not merely on account of the pleasure which they 
 produce; and that, though pleasure is certainly an ele- 
 ment in Well-being, its value depends upon its kind 
 or quality and not merely upon quantity. Further to 
 develop this view or the history of the controversies 
 connected with it belongs to moral rather than to 
 political philosophy. I can only point out that the 
 question of property is part of a wider ethical prob- 
 lem; and that if we accept a consequential or 'Heleo- 
 logical" theory of Ethics, we are bound to make the 
 justification of property depend upon the same prin- 
 ciple. But I must now return for a moment to the 
 a priori theories held by those who refuse to accept 
 the teleological theory,^ whether in its hedonistic or 
 its unhedonistic form. 
 
 For the most part the modern attempts to place the 
 
 7 I have developed the ethical theory here presupposed in my Theory 
 of Good and Evil, and more briefly in a little volume on Ethics in "The 
 People's Books" Series. This view may conveniently be styled "Ideal 
 Utilitarianism." 
 
 8 I.e., a theory which finds the test of the morality of an act in the 
 end which it promotes: the term "Utilitarianism," when used without 
 explanation or qualification, is generally used to imply that this end 
 is maximum pleasure. 
 
THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOEY 55 
 
 rigihts of property upon an a 'priori basis have followed 
 very much the lines laid down by Locke. Kant, who 
 introduced such a ^^Copernican revolution" in Meta- 
 physics, was the author of no new principle in politics. 
 He accepted the social-contract view as to the origin 
 |and authority of the State in its crudest and most 
 ^individualistic form, and he based property, like Locke, 
 Jon what we may call the divine right of grab. The 
 ^ first occupier acquired thereby a sacred right to the 
 ownership of it for all eternity. He introduced a quali- 
 fication of the theory which brings out with peculiar 
 distinctness its wholly unethical character. He held 
 that a man has only a right to so much property as 
 he can defend, and on this basis attempted to place on 
 an a priori footing the convenient but arbitrary rule 
 of international law which makes the dominion of 
 States extend three miles into the sea, this being in 
 Kant's time the maximum range of artillery.® "What 
 Natural Law will have to say when the guns on both 
 sides of the English Channel can equally sweep the 
 middle of the intervening waters is a problem which 
 he has naturally not discussed. In Kant, however, the 
 theory as to the way in which property could be ac- 
 quired in a state of nature was seriously modified in 
 its application to organized civil society. In civil 
 Isociety property can only be acquired by the implicit 
 ^iconsent of Society, to which the State itself owes its 
 jiauthority. And the proper limits to the State 's author- 
 iity are fixed by the principle that the State's duty is 
 ito exercise the minimum of restraint under which the 
 Imaximum liberty of each shall be compatible with the 
 maximum liberty of every other. By a maximum of 
 |liberty he did not mean any of the subtler ethical ideas 
 I which have been read into the phrase by later Idealists 
 
 9 Kant's Philosophy of Law, Eng. trans, by Hastie, pp. 82-92, etc. 
 
56 PEOPERTY 
 
 who have used the same language, but simply freedom L| 
 from constraint. It would be impossible further to 
 develop Kant's view of property without discussing' 
 his whole conception of the nature of the State and, 
 of human society. It will be sufficient to say that the ii 
 influence of Kant has produced a disposition among- 
 idealistic Philosophers to regard the rights of prop- 
 erty as natural rights. We find in them a tendency 
 to use the formulae of the old individualist theories, 
 but to give them an attenuated or sublimated meaningc 
 Hegel, for instance, — the most influential of these 
 writers, — tells us that *'a person has the right to direct 
 his will upon any object, as his real and positive end» 
 The object thus becomes his. As it [the object] has 
 no end in itself, it receives its meaning and soul from 
 his will. Mankind has the absolute right to appropriate 
 all that is a thing. ' ' ^^ It will be observed that in this 
 passage Hegel passes from *^a person" to ''mankind'' 
 as though the change made no difference. Nothing 
 can be more reasonable than that ''mankind" has a 
 right to appropriate material things; nothing more 
 unreasonable than to say that any individual has a 
 right to appropriate any object he pleases, without con- 
 sidering the effects of such appropriation upon others. 
 In so far as Hegel is the asserter of a vast system of 
 absolute, isolated, self-evident "rights," his system 
 is open to all the objections which we have noticed to^ 
 Locke's theory and to the intuitive systems of Rights 
 and of Morals generally. As regards such questions 
 as that of property, his speculations were prevented 
 from leading to any really satisfactory results by his 
 determination at all costs to defend the existing order 
 of Society and even the most accidental peculiarities' 
 of the Prussian Constitution of his time. Every Prus- 
 
 10 PhilosophA/ of Right, Eng. trans, by Dyde, p. 51. 
 
THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOKY 57 
 
 sian institution is shown to flow from a necessity of 
 thought: in England and France apparently the de- 
 velopment or self -manifestation of the *4dea" had 
 constantly gone wrong. But in two ways Hegel con- 
 tributed to a better theory of property. In the first 
 place, although he still used much of the old individ- 
 
 jjualistic language, he had a more *^ organic'' view of the 
 nature of Society and a juster view of the functions 
 of the State. He took a more spiritual view of the 
 functions which the State could perform, and conse- 
 quently the moral as well as the merely economic 
 advantages of private property begin to come into 
 prominence. In the second place he insisted upon one 
 particular advantage of property by making much of 
 the doctrine that property is an expression of person- 
 ality. Sometimes this doctrine is in Hegel couched in 
 somewhat bombastic and by no means illuminating 
 language : * * To appropriate is at bottom only to mani- 
 fest the majesty of my will towards things," and so 
 on. Merely to say that property is an expression of 
 personality does not really close the controversy; for 
 after all, why should personality be expressed except 
 in so far as this is a means to human good or actually 
 constitutes that good? The real difficulty of the prob- 
 
 jlem begins where these expressions of my personality 
 begin to get in the way of other people expressing 
 
 jtheir personalities too. But the doctrine does supply 
 a much needed corrective to the ordinary utilitarian 
 view, and has tended towards the recognition of the 
 importance both of character and of intellectual devel- 
 opment as elements in the total Well-being at which 
 both legislation and individual conduct should aim. 
 
 In order to keep our review of modern thought on 
 jtMs subject within limits it will be weE to confine our- 
 iselves to two of the more recent tendencies of political 
 
58 PEOPEETY 
 
 thought, and to take our illustrations from this coun- ! 
 try only. Towards the middle of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury the influence of the Utilitarian School in its 
 Benthamite form began to be disputed by the growth 
 of a school which professed to found its doctrine upon j 
 the Darwinian doctrine of Evolution. The most pop- ' 
 ular representative of this tendency was Herbert 
 Spencer. His Ethics were fundamentally Utilitarian ; ^ 
 but he attempted to extract from the teaching of Dar- 
 winism the doctrine that, as a means to the increase of 
 pleasure, it was essential that the struggle for existence 
 should go on unchecked by excessive State interfer- 
 ence. Any meddling with private property which went 
 beyond the most indispensable taxation was held to ^ 
 constitute such an excessive interference; and in his 
 zeal for Individualism he revived what was substan- 
 tially the theory of Locke, and justified the extremest 
 view of the sacredness of property on the ground of 
 a man's natural right to the produce of his labour. 
 The total inconsistency between this theory and the 
 ** scientific" Utilitarianism which he professed in his ♦ 
 ethical writings appears to have escaped his notice. 
 He defends the principle as a self-evident or a priori 
 truth, and expressly identified his teaching with that 
 of Kant, professing (as was his wont) that he was in , 
 no way indebted to that philosopher (whom he had j 
 not read) or to any other previous thinker. He pushed ( 
 his practical conclusions far beyond the point reached 
 by Kant (who, with all his Individualism, was not quite 
 uninfluenced by the German respect for the State), and 
 treated the Free Libraries Act as a mere piece of rob- 
 bery on the part of Parliament — as much so as the 
 act of any private individual who should walk into my l 
 library and help himself to my books. This a priori 
 theory has already been sufficiently examined. As to 
 
THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEORY 59 
 
 the attempt to reinforce it by the application of Dar- 
 winism to politics, it will be enough to say here that 
 it assumes that the system of private property involves 
 a less measure of State interference than a system of 
 Socialism or even Communismc A very little reflec- 
 tion will show that it is not through an unrestricted 
 struggle for existence, through laisser-faire on the part 
 of the State, that an infant of two inherits on the death 
 of his father a landed estate extending over half a 
 countj^ It is rather owing to an extreme interference 
 on the part of the State with the ** natural right" of 
 the strong man to grab the vacant estate, and to the 
 employment of a host of legal officials, police, and (if 
 necessary) soldiers to prevent the fight for the prop- 
 erty which in a ** state of nature" would inevitably 
 ensue upon the death of the last owner. While the 
 popularity of evolutionary theories in the region of 
 Ethics is by no means at an end, this political applica- 
 tion of the Darwinian theories is too much out of 
 harmony with the practical tendencies of the age to 
 exercise very much influence. One stiU sees a ten- 
 dency towards an individualistic application of the 
 *^ struggle for existence" doctrine among men of scien- 
 tific education; but neither in the region of practical 
 politics nor in that of political speculation can Spen- 
 cerianism as a system now be regarded as a very 
 serious force. 
 
 The other new factor in recent political thought 
 comes from the gradual diffusion among university 
 students, and through them among a wider public, of 
 German Idealism, especially in its Hegelian form, and 
 also, it may be added, of the Platonic and Aristotelian 
 view of the State which was to a large extent the source 
 of what is best in the political thought of Hegel and 
 his disciples. In England the first writer who exer- 
 
60 PEOPERTY 
 
 cised a powerful influence in this direction was Thomas 
 Hill Green, who first as a tutor of Balliol and then as 
 Professor of Moral Philosophy was the most influen- 
 tial teacher of philosophy in Oxford for some twenty 
 years before his early death in 1882. Most of the 
 recent contributions to political thought of the more 
 speculative type owe a good deal to the teaching of 
 Hegel, either directly or through Green. I may add 
 that, though the debt to Hegel is undoubted, the ver- 
 sion of his teaching which is given by his English 
 disciples is far clearer, freer from absurdity, and more 
 soberly thought out than is the presentation of it in the 
 writings of Hegel himself. The reader who begins 
 with Green's Principles of Political OhMgation and 
 goes on to HegePs Philosophy of Righf will probably 
 feel that there is little of value in Hegel which is not 
 better put by Green. 
 
 The versions of HegePs theory about property which 
 are to be found in the writings of his English disciples 
 naturally vary according to the degree of their own 
 approach to Socialism. In the writings of Green the 
 Hegelian reverence for the State and the Hegelian 
 respect for property as the expression of personality 
 are about equally prominent. His strong sense of the 
 necessity of property for the building up of character 
 led him, however, not so much to exalt the sacredness 
 of property in the hands of the large owner, as to 
 insist on the necessity of such legislation as would 
 tend to the diffusion of property as widely as possible 
 among the masses. A more socialistic version of the 
 Hegelian teaching is to be found in the writings of 
 the late Professor Eitchie ; while of a more individual- 
 istic interpretation the most conspicuous representa- 
 tive is Professor Bosanquet. 
 
 Our present concern is, however, not so much with 
 
THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEORY 61 
 
 practical applications or deductions as with the theo- 
 retical determination of the ultimate principle by which 
 the question as to the best way of distributing the 
 fruits of industry ought to be decided. When stripped 
 of technicalities, the general tendency of modern politi- 
 cal philosophy — at least as represented by the more 
 idealistic or spiritualistic writers — is towards the view 
 that the justification of the institution lies in its ten- 
 dency to promote for the whole community a Well- 
 being which is not to be identified with pleasure, but 
 which includes the development of character and intel- 
 ligence as well as pleasure. Property is, as Aristotle 
 held, an instrument of the best and highest life. That 
 arrangement of property is best which tends to secure 
 such a life for the whole community or for as many as 
 possible. It is clear that if this view of the justification 
 of property be adopted, not the same system will be 
 suitable at every time and place. Everywhere the 
 established system has a prima facie claim to accept- 
 ance. Some system for apportioning wealth is the 
 very first condition of social well-being, and the main- 
 tenance of any such system is always better than an- 
 archy and confusion. But every improvement in the 
 established system which will tend to promote that 
 end better has every justification which can be claimed 
 for the existing system. And the existing system loses 
 its justification the moment it is shown that it can be 
 improved. It is extremely important to realize that 
 the question is not as to the rival claims of two sharply 
 opposed, cut and dried systems — one a system of pri- 
 vate Capitalism and the other a system called Social- 
 ism. Private property has meant an immense number 
 of different things at different times and places. 
 Everywhere there has been some subordination of pri- 
 vate property to the authority of the State in the 
 
62 PEOPERTY 
 
 interests of general welfare; and everywhere some 
 collective ownership has subsisted side by side with 
 private ownership. The King or the State, the Munici- 
 pality and all sorts of other corporations, have every- 
 where been large property-owners ; and all States have 
 exercised some sort of control over the use men make 
 of private property. The practical question is, **By 
 what system will men be most stimulated to make a 
 maximum contribution to the general welfare, and what 
 system will lead to the widest possible di:ffusion of the 
 highest kind of lifef Under different conditions 
 every system, from a tolerably extreme individualistic 
 system of private property to a rather extreme col- 
 lectivism, might be the best possible for the particular 
 time and place. To devise the best possible system for 
 a given time and place is a question rather of practical 
 politics than of political theory. 
 
 Are there then, it may be asked, no limits to the 
 socialization of industry which might conceivably be 
 desirable under particular circumstances? Could a 
 complete suppression of all private property be con- 
 ceivably the best system under certain conditions ? Or 
 is there any sense in which we may say that a right 
 to private property is one of the eternal and unchange- 
 able '* rights of man"? It is probable that the un- 
 changeable character of human nature will always set 
 strict limits to the possibility of dispensing with indi- 
 vidual and family interest as a stimulus to the produc- 
 tion of wealth; and some liberty of individual action, 
 some sphere for the operation of individual enterprise 
 and energy, will always be desirable on economic 
 grounds. But a much more certain ground for insist- 
 ing on the permanent necessity of private property as 
 an institution is to be found in what has already been 
 said as to the necessity for the development of char- 
 
THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOEY 63 
 
 acter. Some liberty of action, some form of arranging 
 one 's own life in advance, some freedom of choice, and 
 some certainty that a man will experience the results 
 of his choice, are essential to the development of char- 
 acter; and this there cannot be unless there is some 
 permanent control over material things. Supposing 
 the whole object of life were to secure a maximxma 
 average of enjoyment to each individual, it is quite 
 conceivable that, if only certain initial difficulties of 
 organization could be got over, a higher average could 
 be reached by some extreme communistic arrangement 
 under which any man, woman, or child would be *Haken 
 in and done for" by the State or the Municipality — 
 fed, clothed, instructed, amused, provided with a set 
 task, compelled to work — from the cradle to the grave. 
 Not so, if the object we have in view is the calling out 
 into activity the individuars best and most varied 
 energies, moral and intellectual. Nobody has expressed 
 this more forcibly than Professor Bosanquet. Pro- 
 fessor Bosanquet's Essay on *^The Principle of Pri- 
 vate Property," in the collection of Essays called 
 Aspects of the Social Prohlem^ is perhaps the best 
 brief treatment of the subject which has ever been put 
 into print. He insists that for a man to have every- 
 thing provided for him reduces him to the level of a 
 child. 
 
 Let us take the child in the family as the extreme type, 
 and leave out any imitation of grown-up life which his parents 
 may introduce by way of discipline, by taking away what he 
 wastes or spoils, and so forth. His relation to things has no 
 unity corresponding to his moral nature. No nerve or con- 
 nection runs through his acts in dealing with the external 
 world. So with his food; he may waste or throw away his 
 food at one meal, he gets none the less at the next (unless by 
 way of discipline). He gets what is thought necessary quite 
 apart from all his previous action. So too with his dress. 
 
64 PEOPERTY 
 
 The dress of a young child does not express his own character 
 at all, but that of his mother. If he spoils his things, that 
 makes no difference to him (unless as a punishment) ; he has 
 what is thought proper for him at every given moment. So 
 with travel, enjoyments, and education up to a certain point. 
 What he is enabled to have and do in no way expresses his 
 own previous action or character, except in as far as he is 
 put in training by his parents for grown-up life. The essence 
 of this position is, that the dealings of such an agent with the 
 world of things do not affect each other, nor form an inter- 
 dependent whole. He may eat his cake and have it; or he 
 may not eat it and yet not have it. To such an agent the 
 world is miraculous ; things are not for him adjusted, organ- 
 ised, contrived; things simply come as in s fairy tale. The 
 same is the case with a slave. Life is from hand to mouth; 
 it has as such no totality, no future, and no past. 
 
 Now, private property is not simply an arrangement for 
 meeting successive momentary wants as they arise on such a 
 footing as this. It is wholly different in principle, as adult or 
 responsible life differs from child-life, which is irresponsible. 
 It rests on the principle that the inward or moral life cannot 
 be a unity unless the outward life — ^the dealing with things — 
 is also a unity. In dealing with things this means a causal 
 unity, i.e. that what we do at one time, or in one relation, 
 should affect what we are able to do at another time, or in 
 another relation. I suspect that the difficulty in accepting this 
 principle is largely due to a mistake about inward morality- — 
 to treating the pure will for good as if it could exist and con- 
 stitute a moral being without capacity for external expression. 
 This is a blunder in principle. If all power of dealing effect- 
 ively with things is conceived absent, inward morality, or 
 the good will, vanishes with it. I will return to this point in 
 dealing with the ''no margin'' doctrine. 
 
 Private property, then, is the unity of life in its external or 
 material form; the result of past dealing with the material 
 world, and the possibility of future dealing with it; the gen- 
 eral or universal means of possible action and expression 
 corresponding to the moral self that looks before and after, 
 as opposed to the momentary wants of a child or of an animal. 
 A grown man knows that if he does this he will not be able 
 to do that, and his humanity, his powers of organisation, and 
 intelligent self-assertion, depend on his knowing it. If he 
 
THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOEY 65 
 
 wants to do something in particular ten years hence he must 
 act accordingly to-day; he must be able in some degree to 
 measure his resources. If he wants to marry he must fit him- 
 self to maintain a family; he must look ahead and count the 
 costj must estimate his competence and his character. That 
 is what makes man different from an animal or a child; he 
 considers his life as a whole, and organises it as such — that 
 is, with a view to reasonable possibilities, not merely to the 
 passing moment/^ 
 
 All this is perfectly true and admirably put. The 
 necessity for some liberty and some variety of exter- 
 nal circumstances and modes of life for the highest 
 intellectual development is another important consid- 
 eration which has been much insisted upon by such 
 writers as Durkheim and Simmel. And here it is im- 
 portant to notice that the plea for liberty is not suffi- 
 ciently met by insisting, as has been so eloquently and 
 humorously done by Mr. Lowes Dickinson, upon the 
 absurdity of supposing that the propertyless labourer 
 under the ordinary capitalistic regime enjoys any lib- 
 erty of which Socialism would deprive him.^^ For it 
 may be of extreme importance that some should enjoy 
 liberty— that it should be possible for some few^ men 
 to be able to dispose of their time in their own way — 
 although such liberty may be neither possible nor de- 
 sirable for the great majority. That culture requires 
 a considerable differentiation in social conditions is 
 also a principle of unquestionable importance. But it 
 must not be assumed that liberty and differentiation 
 and opportunities for the development of character 
 in some or all can only be secured by a continuance 
 of the whole system of private Capital as it is now 
 omderstood. 
 
 11 Essay on "The Principle of Private Property," in Aspects of the 
 Social Problem, pp. 309-311. For a more elaborate treatment of the 
 subject see his Philosophical Theory of the State. 
 .( ^2 Justice and Liberty: a Political Dialogue (1908), e.g. pp. 129, 131. 
 
66 PEOPEETY 
 
 Professor Bosanquet and many other philosophical 
 critics of Socialism seem to forget that Socialism does 
 not aim at the extinction of private property bnt only 
 at that of private capital. Under any scheme which is 
 socialistic without being commnnistic, private property 
 might very well exist in the only sense in which the 
 vast majority (say) of Post Office employees now] 
 own property. A postman under Socialism would be 
 able to enjoy property ^ith all its moral advantages 
 as fully as now, except that he would be unable to get 
 interest on the few pounds which he might at present 
 save and put into the Savings Bank. It could scarcely 
 be contended that the right to get a few shillings inter- 
 est upon such savings is absolutely necessary to a 
 man's moral well-being. Professor Bosanquet assumes 
 much too readily that the moral advantages of Social- 
 ism could not be secured without the permission of 
 capitalization and of inheritance. No doubt, when we 
 think not so much of the moral effects upon the average 
 individual as of the advantage to the community gen- 
 erally of having some persons in a position to choose 
 their own tasks and dispose of their own leisure, the 
 difficulty of getting the advantages of property with- 
 out these incidents of our present capitalistic system 
 becomes much greater. / 1 am myself disposed to think 
 that the institution of property cannot bring with it 
 its full advantages, economic, moral and social, with- 
 out some form of capitalization and some rights of 
 inheritance, however much these rights may be cur- 
 tailed and controlled by the State. But the form which 
 it is desirable that the institution of property should 
 assume must be settled by detailed argument as to its 
 advantages and disadvantages; it must be settled by 
 experience, and with reference to each particular stage 
 of social development. We cannot justify the whole 
 
THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOEY 67 
 
 capitalistic system en bloc by the bare formula that 
 property is necessary to the development of individual 
 character. The most that we can claim, as a general 
 principle applicable to all stages of social development, 
 lis that without some property or capacity for acquir- 
 |ing i)roperty there can be no individual liberty, and 
 ^that without some liberty there can be no proper de- 
 iveiopment of character; and further that considerable 
 leisure and liberty of action, such as is now secured 
 by private capital and inheritance, for some persons 
 must always be socially desirable. In this sense we 
 may lay it down that the institution of property is one 
 Jof the permanent conditions of social Well-being or 
 (if we please) one of the inalienable ** rights of man." 
 The exact form which it should assume must be settled 
 for each particular stage of social development and 
 each particular country by the gradual accumulation 
 of experience, the gradual development and the grad- 
 ual criticism of detailed suggestions for social improve- 
 ment. 
 
 I Another remark that may be made upon Professor 
 'Bosanquet's defence of private property is that, while 
 he admirably develops the good effects of the present 
 system upon character, he seems almost blind to the 
 bad effects upon character of the present almost un- 
 limited competition and facility for accumulation. It 
 is undoubtedly a mistake to talk as though all that was 
 required for ** character ' ' was a vague and flabby '* al- 
 truism.'^ In the interests of Society itself such virtues 
 as industry, foresight, self-reliance, self-respect, and 
 the like are quite as important as the more obviously 
 and immediately other-regarding virtues. But the 
 intense selfishness fostered by our present system must 
 not be ignored. I must, however, leave to other writers 
 the further discussion of the problem of Property in 
 
g$ PEOPEETY 
 
 its practical application. The leading idea which. I 
 have attempted to bring out by means of this brief 
 historical sketch is that the justification of property 
 must depend not upon any a priori principle but upon ; 
 its social effects. Among these effects a prominent' 
 place must always be given to its effects upon char-' 
 acter, and the justification of every proposed amend- 
 ment of the institution as it now exists must depend 
 upon these same principles. The problem of the future 
 is to devise a gradual modification of the system by 
 which its advantages — the encouraging of industry^ 
 originality, energy, enterprise, individuality which it 
 affords, the measure of liberty for all and the greater 
 liberty which it secures for a few, the training in J 
 character and the development of individuality, the 1 
 sense of responsibility and of family solidarity which] 
 it encourages — shall be secured without the outrageous | 
 inequalities, the material hardships and uncertainties, [ 
 and the injury to character which are produced alike ' 
 by excessive wealth and excessive poverty. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE PEINCIPLE OF PEIVATE PEOPEETY 
 
 BY 
 
 A. D. LINDSAY, M.A, 
 
 FELLOW AND TUTOR OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD 
 
SUMMARY 
 
 The principle of private property has the twofold character of all 
 rights. It is a right vested in individuals thought of as set over 
 against one another, and it requires the recognition and protection of : 
 society for its existence. Extreme views which neglect either of these ^ 
 aspects are too obviously wrong to need consideration. Differences of 
 opinion about the right of property arise as too exclusive attention is 
 paid to the claims of the solidarity of society or of the independent 
 development of its individual members. The first attitude gives rise 
 to the view that property is entirely the arbitrary creation of society, 
 the second to the view that society must recognize the right of prop- 
 erty but cannot modify or control it. The attempt to make the right 
 of property inherent in the individual apart from society is false to 
 the facts of the creation of wealth. Yet the denial of such rights often 
 leads to mere political opportunism. The good of society is the cri- 
 terion of rights, but that good can only be expressed in the good 
 lives of individuals. Private property can only be defended as a 
 condition of the good life. 
 
 Before such defence is attempted it must be noticed that the right of 
 private property has taken the most diverse forms, and the same defence 
 will not serve all forms. ^ 
 
 We might try to find a defence of private property in the necessary 
 separation of men in some respects. If the production of wealth is 
 co-operative, much consumption is necessarily separate. But property 
 in things that are separately used, in so far as they are so used, is not 
 the principle of private property but of Communism. Communism is 
 an attempt to confine property to use. The disadvantages of such an 
 attempt to distinguish property in matter not in use and in matter 
 in use, and confine the first to the community, are that it is hardly 
 compatible with the discovery of new uses and needs, that it gives 
 enormous power to those who govern the community, and that it takes 
 from the individual the necessity for deliberation and foresight. Private 
 property is essential to the full development of the individual. 
 
 This, however, is not an objection to Socialism, which defends private 
 property in goods to be consumed but attacks it in the means of pro- 
 
 70 
 
PEINCIPLE OF PEIVATE PEOPERTY 71 
 
 iuction on the ground that the production of wealth is co-operative. 
 Consideration of the difficulty of distinguishing between the means of 
 consumption and of production shows that most property does not 
 bonsist in things but in power over other men, and suggests that the 
 real basis of the attacks on property is the evils of the irresponsible 
 power it bestows. 
 
 Nevertheless something can be said for private property in the meana 
 of production. Although the production of wealth is co-operative it is 
 |not therefore impossible to distinguish between the different values of 
 Ithe work of different individuals, and it is essential to encourage in 
 iindividuals originality and invention. Giving to certain individuals 
 Ipower to direct and organize the work of others is also essential. The 
 principle of private property in the means of production may be de- 
 iifended as being but the carrying out of the principles of "tools to those 
 Ivv^ho can use them." 
 
 On the other side the following considerations must be noted: 
 
 1. This defence does not apply to the rights of bequests and inheri- 
 tance, which must be defended on very different grounds. 
 
 2. . The amount of money earned by any individual may represent only 
 very roughly his power to serve society. 
 
 3. The fact that the power given to individuals by private property 
 tends to efficiency when rightly used, does not remove the evils pro- 
 duced by the irresponsible use of that power. We are still faced with 
 the problem of how we can combine efficiency with control in the 
 interests of society. But this is precisely the problem of the control 
 of political power which has in the political sphere been largely solved. 
 The political analogy should show us that no simple or ready-made 
 solution of the problem of property is possible, but may also suggest 
 the lines along which a solution is likely to be found. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF PRIVATE PROPERTY 
 
 The principle of private property partakes in a pecu- 
 liar degree of the twofold character of all rights. On ^ 
 the one hand, as the words show, it implies a right 
 belonging to individuals, and to individuals thought 
 of as set over against and excluding one another. Pri- 
 vate property is something in which a man can express 
 his own individuality and character, and which he can 
 prevent other people from using. In a society with , 
 a developed system of private property wealth is 
 thought of as divided up into separate lots : each mem- 
 ber of society has in his property a sphere of his own. 
 On the other hand private property, just because it is 
 a right, exists only in and through society. Without 
 mutual recognition of rights, without respect for law 
 and its decisions, property could not go on existing. 
 As society develops, the importance of a man's power ' 
 to defend himself, of his physical grasp over his pos- 
 sessions, becomes less, but private property does not 
 diminish but increases. A man's own is what society 
 and law allow him, or what they recognize to be his. 
 On whatever principle this recognition is based, it is 
 by virtue of it that private property exists. Private 
 property then, like other rights, is a creation of society, 
 yet in the institution of private property society seems 
 to be denying its nature and insisting not on the social 
 but on the individual and exclusive nature of its mem- 
 bers. 
 
 72 
 
PRINCIPLE OF PRIVATE PROPERTY 73 
 
 To neglect either of these two aspects of the right 
 of property is fatal. For if you take away the recog- 
 nition of rights which implies society, property dis- 
 appears, and if we wonld vest all property absolutely 
 in society as a whole, we should be denying the separate 
 existence of individuals. Even the most extreme form 
 of Communism must allow a man's property in the 
 jfood that he eats. Communism is only an attempt to 
 reduce to a minimum the right of private use implied 
 mi property. It cannot abolish it altogether. 
 
 These two extremes then need not trouble us. Some 
 sort of recognition must be given to the social as to the 
 individual character of property. Differences of opin- 
 ion as to the place which property ought to occupy in 
 society arise from the difficulty of adjusting the claims 
 of the solidarity of society on the one hand and the 
 independent development of its individual members on 
 the other. Some political thinkers would have all in- 
 stitutions directed to the encouragement of individual- 
 ity and leave the solidarity of society to look after it- 
 self. Others take just the reverse view. 
 
 When interest is focussed on the individual, society 
 is sometimes looked upon as a system of mechanical 
 and external alliances. Property is held to be not 
 created though it must be recognized by society. The 
 right of property then is thought to have its source in 
 the individual regarded not as a member of society but 
 as an independent unit. It is the business of society to 
 maintain and make effective this right, but it has no 
 power to modify it, no control over it. When, however, 
 such stress is laid on the fact that society is an organic 
 whole that the units composing it are thought incapable 
 of independent existence, it is possible to maintain that 
 inasmuch as property would not exist without society, 
 it is created by the definite act of society to suit its 
 
 ij*" 
 
74 PEOPERTY 
 
 convenience, and can be for this same reason modified 1 
 or destroyed by society at will. We ought not on this i 
 view to try to go beyond the existing right. We can- • 
 not discuss what rights of property the State should' 
 recognize, only what it has recognized or now wills to > 
 recognize. 
 
 The classical exposition of the first of these views is 
 found in Locke's Second Treatise on Civil Govern- 
 ment. It has been described and examined in another 4' 
 Essay, and need not detain us here. It seeks to found . 
 the right of private property on the principle that a 
 man has a right to the wealth which he has himself 
 created. The principle is innocent enough, but it will 
 not serve the purpose desired of it. It will not sufiice 
 to fit the facts. For much private property cannot, 
 possibly be described as created by those who own it, 
 and, a more fatal objection, wealth is not created out 
 of nothing, but by the manipulation of previously exist- 
 ing wealth or sources of wealth. If these are privately 
 owned, then all members of society have not an equal 
 opportunity of creating wealth, and therefore the ap- 
 parent justice of the principle that each man should 
 own what he has created is illusory. Further, the crea- 1 
 tion of wealth is not the work of separate individuals 
 working independently, but is a co-operative undertak- 
 ing in which in one way or another the whole commu- 
 nity takes part. In any society of at all developed eco- 
 nomic structure there are almost no articles of value of 
 which a man can say, **This I and I alone produced/' 
 
 The theory really implies that individuals produce 
 wealth in isolation, and that law and society then rec- 
 ognize the position from without. The facts are quite 
 otherwise. Men cannot be cut loose from their past, 
 and regarded as beginning to produce wealth from what 
 has been nothing before, nor as separated from their ' 
 
PRINCIPLE OF PEIVATE PROPERTY 75 
 
 fellows in the act of production. Society has its part 
 in the production as in the recognition of property. 
 
 If society allows each of its members to own prop- 
 lerty which is recognized as his and therefore not 
 another 's, if it seems to think of the individual with his 
 I property as cut off from his fellows, that independence, 
 |, the private nature of property, is not based upon the 
 I private nature or individuality of the production. The 
 I wealth which men possess as property was made by co- 
 I operation, the separate contribution to which of each 
 I member of society cannot be exactly estimated. Pri- 
 vate property is recognized by society not in virtue of 
 a right inherent in the individual, but because it is an 
 ' institution which is thought to be for the good of so- 
 I ciety as a whole. 
 
 This does not necessarily mean that private property 
 is therefore only the creation of convention. The re- 
 placement of the doctrine of absolute natural rights 
 inherent in the individual by the doctrine that the 
 standard of all rights is the convenience or good of 
 society, seems sometimes to imply a justification of 
 political opportunism. For the convenience or good of 
 society as a whole might be interpreted as the con- 
 venience of society at any particular moment, or worse 
 still the convenience of an existing government. The 
 real service of the doctrine of natural rights was that it 
 gave content to the conception of the good of society, 
 that it emphasized the truth that the good of society 
 can only express itself in the good lives of its individual 
 members. We may still then maintain that the prin- 
 ciple of private property ought to be recognized by 
 society, if we can show that it is an essential condition 
 of the good life. And this is the only possible line of 
 defence of the principle. 
 
 Here one thing must be said in warning. Other 
 
76 PEOPERTY 
 
 Essays have shown that the right of private property 
 has existed in the most various forms, exists in differ- ; 
 ent forms at the present day, and has had the most dif- | 
 f erent effects. Yet I have talked so far of the principle i 
 or the right of private property as though that were 
 something simple and always the same. Any discus- > 
 sion then of the part played by the institution of private 
 property in society might seem to require a vast his- 
 torical enquiry, xmless we can distinguish the principle ^1 
 of private property from the various forms in which^ | 
 or the varied extent to which, that principle has been 
 recognized. ' 
 
 It is possible, I think, to do this by going back to a 
 phrase used at the beginning of this paper. In the 
 institution of private property society seems to be in- 
 sisting on the individual, exclusive nature of its mem- 
 bers. We are all members one of another. No man 
 liveth to himself or dieth to himself. We are what we 
 are through the influences of society. In a very real 
 sense it is true that there is nothing of which we can 
 say that it is our own because we alone have made it, or - 
 because it interests or affects us only. Yet what is 
 legally mine is not another's, and I have sharply- 
 defined and clear-cut rights over my property. On what 
 grounds can such an artificial distinction of man from 
 man be justified, and how far ought it to be extended? 
 
 We might begin by attempting to base private prop- 
 erty on actual facts. Men in society form an organism \ 
 and yet they remain in some respects distinct. We 
 cannot separate men in the production of wealth, that 
 must always be co-operative; but we obviously can in 
 the consumption. A dinner that another man eats is 
 no use to me. There are some things which, from the 
 necessities of our physical nature, must be used sepa- 
 rately. Private property then may be justified if it is 
 
PEINCIPLE OF PEIVATE PEOPERTY 77 
 
 based on use. Those things are rightly privately 
 owned, it will be said, which are necessarily privately 
 used, and in so far as they are so used. Such a prin- 
 ciple, however, has little to do with the principle of 
 private property as commonly understood. Eather, 
 it is the principle of Communism. For Communism is 
 I an attempt to confine property to use. The community 
 j takes over all rights in things that are not being used, 
 I and gives to individual members of society only these 
 I rights which are coincident with prescribed uses. 
 I Private property, as generally understood, implies 
 I rights over things when they are not being used, the 
 I right to use or refrain from using, the right to allow 
 I or to prevent use to others. 
 
 A successful state of Communism would imply that 
 all care of property when it was not being used, all 
 provision of property in anticipation of its use, and the 
 reconciliation of all conflicting claims to the use of the 
 same property would be the business of the community. 
 The individuals would only have to think what they 
 wanted to do, to manifest their needs, and if the com- 
 munal organization was adequate, these would be sup- 
 plied. Such a system of society is not unthinkable. 
 It can easily be realized in a family or in a monastery ; 
 but it is a principle very difficult to realize in an ordi- 
 nary political society, and it has a serious moral disad- 
 vantage. The position of property in anticipation of 
 its use could be organized communally only if the uses 
 of property remained uniform. Such an organization 
 would be hardly compatible with the discovery of new 
 uses and needs by the individual members of society. 
 Further communal organization can only mean organi- 
 zation by some individuals on behalf of the rest, and 
 would be possible only where, as hi a family or a mon- 
 astery, most members of the community were content 
 
78 PEOPERTY 
 
 to allow others to arrange their lives for them. If the | 
 control over wealth when it is not being used is sepa- | 
 rated from the right over it in use, and the former as- ' | 
 signed to the commnnity, and the second to the indi- I 
 vidnal, the necessity for deliberation and foresight is ; 
 taken from the individual. The moral advantage of Ij 
 private property over Communism is that it makes the 
 private person think of his life as a whole, and realize J 
 his responsibility for his actions. Unless we learn that 
 if we are reckless now we shall be less able to do what 
 we want in the future, and that not for want of the per- i 
 mission of others whom we might try to get round, but j 
 because of the simple law that you cannot eat your cake ■ 
 and have it, we should probably remain children all our j 
 lives. We need not go to actual systems of Communism 
 to discover that. It is equally apparent in the life of 
 those unfortunate sons of very wealthy and foolish 
 parents who are sure that they will be given as much 
 money as they may want whatever they may do, as in 
 those whose livelihood is so insecure that it is not 
 worth their while to look ahead. Private property 
 enables the individual to develop that power of plan- 
 ning and deciding for one's self which is as important 
 a factor in the good life of society as the sense of com- 
 munity and interdependence. Its ultimate justification 
 is the worth of individuality, and the fact that individ- 
 uality expresses itself in relation to external goods. 
 This point is so familiar and obvious that there is no 
 need to labour it. Most people recognize by this time 
 of day that the good of society is not helped but hin- 
 dered by the elimination of individuality and character 
 in its members. 
 
 Opinions differ as to where these considerations 
 should lead us. They are often, for example, adduced 
 as an argument against Socialism, but private control 
 
PEINCIPLB OF PRIVATE PROPERTY 79 
 
 over the spending of income is as compatible with 
 Socialism as with the existing system of property. The 
 Socialist w^onld indeed maintain that under Socialism 
 
 I more people would be in a position to enjoy the advan- 
 tages of private property; but Socialism attacks not 
 
 [ private property in general, but private property in the 
 means of production; and it might well be contended 
 that while spending or consumption should be as indi- 
 vidual as possible, the production of wealth is essen- 
 tially a co-operative undertaking in which the emphasis 
 laid on individuality by private property is disadvan- 
 tageous» Any monopoly of the means of production 
 can only be harmful. Let us see then what there is 
 to be said for private property in the means of pro- 
 duction. 
 
 The first point which might be made is that no clear 
 line can be drawn between means of production and 
 means of consumption, or between capital and income, 
 for capital is only created by the income or the 
 wealth owned by individuals being set aside or used 
 for a particular purpose. We can point to almost 
 nothing that is always a means of production or always 
 a thing to be consumed. 
 
 This objection is not a fatal one because there is no 
 doubt that we can roughly say when wealth is being 
 used as capital and when as income. But in it we are 
 confronted with a fact about property which is of the 
 utmost importance. We often think of property as 
 consisting of things. When we insist on the importance 
 of property as a means to the expression of individual- 
 ity, we think of the importance of a man's possessing 
 things that are his own, his own books and pictures, 
 his own house and so on. But in a society whose eco- 
 nomic organization is at all developed, most property 
 consists not in rights to the enjoyment of things, but 
 
80 PEOPEETY 
 
 in rights to services; the power to make men act in 
 certain ways. This power, it may well be contended, 
 is as essential a part of what makes individuality in 
 life as is the possession of objects. Far more than 
 snch possession it makes possible the abuses which are 
 the real grounds of attacks on the principle of private 
 property. The desire for wealth to consume has after 
 all got its limits, the desire for power over other men's 
 lives has not. The difficulty of distinguishing between 
 property used as a means of production and property 
 consumed may be used not only as an argument to 
 defend the first because of the virtues of the second, 
 but to attack the second because of the vices of the first. 
 
 But something else can be said for private property 
 in the means of production. The argument may be 
 put in some such way as this. 
 
 It may be true that all productive work is co-opera- 
 tive and that, therefore, no wealth is produced by indi- 
 viduals in isolation, but it does not follow that the part 
 played by different individuals is the same or of equal 
 value. Co-operation is the combining of different 
 wills and different minds, and all deliberation and con- 
 trivance comes originally from individual minds. Effi- 
 cient production is only possible if encouragement is 
 given to originality and invention in individuals as 
 much as to the co-operation between all the members of 
 society. It may be true that power over and control 
 of other men is liable to abuse, but it is also an essential 
 instrument in achieving anything of note in combined 
 effort. If private property gives men the power of 
 directing others in the work of co-operative production, 
 that is no evil but a manifest good if that power is in 
 the hands of those who can use it best. Further, while 
 it may be true that we cannot divide up wealth into 
 parts and say this part was created entirely by this 
 
PRINCIPLE OF PRIVATE PROPERTY 81 
 
 man and this by that, it does not follow that we cannot 
 estimate the relative importance of the parts played 
 by dii^erent men. On the contrary, a man's income 
 does ronghly express the value which society puts 
 upon his services, and the money a man makes is a fair 
 criterion of his capability to use profitably the power 
 
 I over other men's lives which the possession of property 
 gives. Such a criterion may not be infallible. No doubt 
 it is not, but it is a better criterion than any other which 
 can be substituted for it. The principle of private 
 property in the means of production is but the carry- 
 
 [ mg out of the principle *Hools to those who can use 
 
 ; them,'' and that surely is a principle conceived- k the 
 interests not primarily of the individual but of society. 
 
 i In this argument there is much truth, in so far as it is 
 an argument, that individuality in the production of 
 wealth is for the good of society as well as individuality 
 in the spending of it, and must be made possible under 
 any system of property. But it does not follow that 
 such individuality is best realized under the existing 
 system of private property. Against that particular 
 conclusion the following considerations may be urged. 
 1. Such arguments would not justify the rights of 
 bequest or inheritance. It may be that the power of 
 bequest in some form is a necessary incentive to effort. 
 It is also true that the solidarity of the family which 
 the right of inheritance encourages, though the right 
 of bequest does not, is for the good of society. Never- 
 theless in themselves these rights go against the prin- 
 ciple of tools to those who can use them, in as much as 
 they put great power into the hands of those whose 
 only claim to it is that they are the natural or chosen 
 heirs of those who have shown the capability of using 
 it. Any defense of these rights must ultimately be 
 based upon a recognition of the importance and value 
 
82 PKOPEETY 
 
 of the existence of associations within the State inter- 
 mediate between the State and the individual, such as 
 the family or what are called voluntary associations. 
 The attempt to enforce rigidly the principle of tools 
 to those who can use them or money to him who has 
 earned it, and to give all else to the State would deny 
 the value of all such lesser bonds and communities. 
 
 4 The permanence of the family has a social value which 
 the right of inheritance helps to maintain. The prac- 
 tice of charitable bequest led at an early date to the 
 recognition by law that there are certain purposes 
 which may well be made more permanent than the lives 
 of the individuals who serve them, and which are 
 therefore allowed to own property and regarded in- 
 deed as in some sense persons. How far the rights of 
 property vested in corporations should be the same 
 as those vested in individuals is a subject of too great 
 complexity to be entered into here. For our present 
 purpose it is enough to note that it cannot be solved 
 by the application of any simple rule. It demands the \ 
 adjustment of various interests, each having a value ' 
 of its own. The problem of the position of voluntary ! 
 associations in the State is one with a long history 
 behind it, and the powers of such associations to hold 
 and inherit property has played a large part in that 
 history. How to preserve the variety and initiative 1 
 which the existence of such associations makes possible 
 consistently with maintaining the stability of the whole 
 
 ^^ State and the freedom of individual members of each 
 association and of the State, is perhaps the most diffi- 
 cult of political problems which confronts us to-day, ^ 
 and one of which there is certainly no final solution. As 
 little can there be any final settlement of the rights of 
 property which are connected with it. 
 2. To return to the argument that the existing sys- 
 
PEINCIPLE OF PEIVATE PEOPERTY 83 
 
 tern of private property is based on the principle of 
 tools to those who can use them, exceptions having been 
 now made of the rights of inheritance and of bequest, 
 it is clear on consideration that the amount of money 
 earned in any undertaking is obviously only a very 
 \ rough test of its public utility. There are some ways 
 I of making money, e.g. the promotion of lotteries or 
 j gambling, which the State definitely forbids, thereby 
 I claiming that the collective verdict of the community 
 may override what may be called the economic verdict 
 expressed in the fact that so many individual people 
 j are prepared to pay money to the promoters of lotter- 
 ies. The same principle is implied in the special taxa- 
 tion on lotteries in countries where they are permitted, 
 ' or on the drink traffic. It is also implied in the State 
 endowment of research or education. It is there recog- 
 nized that research has a value to the community which 
 is not recognized in the value given to it in the open 
 market. For it is something which pays in the long run 
 but perhaps pays no individual immediately. This is 
 expressed in the common phrase **the State or a cor- 
 poration can afford to wait for its money.'' The com- 
 munity's judgments of value can take in a wider range 
 of circumstances, and take thought for a longer period 
 of time, than the judgments of value expressed in the 
 economic preferences of individuals. Even so the argu- 
 ment from money earned to public service rendered 
 would only hold of a system of perfectly free competi- 
 tion. Actually it is vitiated wherever monopoly exists. 
 3. While it is true that the power given to individ- 
 uals by private property tends to efficiency when 
 rightly used, that does not remove the evils produced 
 by the irresponsible power thus acquired with prop- 
 erty. It may be the case that as yet no means have 
 been devised which can prevent these evils without also 
 
84 PROPERTY 
 
 taking away the advantages of private property, and 
 that they are a price which is worth paying. On that 
 point opinions will differ. But obviously it would be 
 desirable if the efficiency produced by the encourage- 
 ment of individual initiative and the entrusting of 
 power into the hands of individuals were combined with 
 some means of preventing that power being abused^ 
 with some method of enforcing responsibility. Even 
 if we hold, as some do, that to encourage in individuals 
 possessing property a sense of this responsibility is all 
 we can compass at present, we need not give up hope of 
 contriving something better in the future. 
 
 Here we have the analogy of the control of political 
 power to encourage us. Indeed once we realize that 
 property exists mainly as power, we can see that the 
 
 ^ problem of the proper regulation of property is only 
 the old political problem of the recognition and control 
 of political power in a vastly more complicated form. 
 The same difficulty of combining the efficiency which 
 is given by the concentration of power with the preven- 
 tion of its abuse and the insistence that such power 
 shall be used for social and not for anti-social ends, has 
 been realized and to some extent solved in the political 
 sphere. The pressing need for strong and efficient 
 government in the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
 turies made writers like Hobbes treat political 
 power as the absolute property of the sovereign, and 
 denounce any attempts to limit such power or make 
 it responsible as fatal to the efficiency of government. 
 Means of combining efficiency with popular control 
 
 \ have been evolved but slowly ; no ready-made or simple 
 solution could possibly have been found ; it needed the 
 political experience of generations to achieve a system 
 of responsible government. At first the possibility of 
 good government depended on individual rulers choos- 
 
PEINCIPLE OF PEIVATE PEOPERTY 85 
 
 ing to act as though they were responsible to their 
 people. Bnt there has grown up such a system of gov- 
 ernment as makes the irresponsible use of political 
 power difficult if not impossible. 
 
 The problem of combining the free use of power and 
 individual initiative with their control in the interest 
 of society, of giving scope and yet preventing the evils 
 arising from irresponsibility, will probably be much 
 more difficult in the sphere of economic production than 
 in that of government for various reasons. (1) The ^ 
 problem has been solved in the political sphere only 
 by a strict limitation, in the early stages of the solu- 
 tion at least, of that sphere. The power given by prop- 
 erty extends to every corner of social life, and is in- 
 finitely more indeterminate and fluid than political 
 power. (2) The problem has to be solved without des- 
 troying private property in the means of expenditure 
 and consumption, and it is not easy to draw the line 
 between the two forms of property more than roughly. 
 (3) Initiative and inventiveness are more important in 
 the economic than in the political sphere, and regu- 
 lation of economic will have to be more elastic than 
 regulation of political power. 
 
 We may be confident that no simple ready-made solu- 
 tion of it will be found. But that is no reason for sup- 
 posing that the task is impossible or that the present 
 makeshift system is the only one that is possible. 
 Without being able at this moment completely to work 
 out a better system we may be able to see the direction 
 in which development is desirable. In the meantime, 
 if we realize that the existing institution of private 
 property is not based on absolute right and has no ^ 
 absolute but only a partial justification, in that while 
 it makes for the good life of men in society it does so at 
 a considerable cost, we may see that the system will be 
 
86 PROPERTY 
 
 tolerable only if the possessors of property act as the 
 good sovereign of earlier times acted — as though, that, 
 is, they were under obligations which law is not yet 
 able or does not think it convenient to enforce. 
 
IV 
 
 THE BIBLICAL AND EAKLY 
 CHEISTIAN IDEA OF PEOPERTY 
 
 BY 
 
 The Rev. VERNON BARTLET, D.D. (St. Andrews) 
 
 PBOFESSOB OF CHUBCH HISTOBY IN MANSFIELD COLIJEGE, OXFOBD 
 
SUMMARY 
 
 The discussion limited for practical reasons to one specific type of 
 religion, the Biblical and Early Christian. 
 
 Here the religious view of Humanity is determinative of property. 
 
 I. Old Testament religion: its genius and social implications, as 
 realized at various periods in Israel's history. 
 
 The principles of social justice emphasized by the Hebrew Prophets, 
 both earlier and later, and in its own way by post-Exilic Judaism 
 generally. 
 
 The prophetic ideal re-emerges in full power in John the Baptist and 
 in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 
 
 II. New Testament religion: the fundamentally social nature of 
 Jesus's Grospel of the Kingdom of God on earth, as based on the Divine 
 Fatherhood. Here the ideas of Divine "stewardship" for all a man 
 holds, and of the rightful use of property as relative to the welfare of 
 persons, attain fresh depth, emphasis, and range. Such use of prop- 
 erty a test of loyalty to the Heavenly Father and His Will for men. 
 
 This felt from the first, but applied in various ways according to 
 current ideals of human need. 
 
 The "communistic" temper of the Primitive Church, on a voluntary 
 basis of Christian Love, in the New Testament and in sub-apostolic 
 writings. The Preaching of Peter afi'ords a locxis classicus for the early 
 second century and for the ante-Nicene ideal generally. The Church's 
 sensitiveness to morally dubious trades, and especially usury. 
 
 First explicit discussion of property (to the point of riches) in 
 Clement of Alexandria early in the third century. It continues the 
 old tradition, seen also in Tertullian and Cyprian, but adds some more 
 modern considerations. 
 
 Lactantius, early in the fourth century, the next exponent of the 
 Christian theory of property, which he treats in the light of Justice 
 and Humanity. 
 
 Certain limitations under which the positive Christian idea of prop- 
 erty operated within the Roman Empire, first as pagan, then as ofiioiaily 
 Christian. These due to the time-limitation of the Advent Hope, the 
 Church's earlier status as a small minority, and the genius of the 
 Gospel as primarily spiritual in its interest. 
 
 Hence (a) toleration of slavery as an institution, and (5) "other 
 worldly" asceticism. As the foreshortened perspective of the Kingdom 
 of God on earth was outgrown by experience, the existing social order 
 assumed a more positive significance as something to be leavened by 
 Christian principles, especially after Constantine's conversion. But the 
 Church's grasp on Christian principle in this sphere was no longer 
 such as to make it take full advantage of the new opportunity, which 
 was largely lost. Thus the idea of property really remained pagan and 
 Roman rather than Christian. The fact is that the Church's idea of 
 the Gospel had itself changed in emphasis. The idea of "retreat" from ^ 
 the world now widespread: the morally aggressive power of "faith" 
 impaired: the negative aspect of Monasticism and of the Augustinian / 
 doctrine of Original Sin. ' 
 
 "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven" an ideal largely lost 
 since early days; is now being realized as never before. 
 
 Responsibility the note of the religious idea of property, especially 
 in Christianity, which lays such stress on the value of persons as 
 compared with things. Between the competing interests of persons, 
 God is the Great Arbiter as regards just use of His gifts of property. 
 
 88 
 
IV 
 
 THE BIBLICAL AND EARLY 
 CHRISTIAN IDEA OF PROPERTY 
 
 Our subject is the religious idea of property as trace- 
 able in the Bible and in the Early Christian Church. 
 Such limitation of treatment as this involves is dictated 
 by practical considerations. It seems best to concen- 
 trate attention on that part of the whole subject which 
 has most direct bearing on the form in which the idea 
 of property exists to-day in most minds of the Euro- 
 pean type of culture. For our present purpose, then, 
 the significance of religion generally for the idea of 
 property may best be studied under the specific forms 
 of that religion which has so largely moulded Euro- 
 pean society and our own attitude to its institutions. 
 Every civilization has at its heart its own idea of 
 Humanity, which, in the last resort, controls its social 
 thought and practice. Through all varieties of this 
 idea certain broad distinctions run. Society may be 
 viewed primarily as a community, the general well- 
 being of which is all in all, or on the other hand as 
 made up of individuals, the particular well-being of 
 whom is of prime importance. Further, on either view 
 humanity may be viewed on a materialistic basis, as 
 having its sole ground in Nature in the same way as all 
 else known to our senses ; or again, on a spiritualistic 
 basis, as having its real meaning, and therefore its 
 ultimate motives of social conduct, in relation to some- 
 
 89 
 
90 PEOPERTY 
 
 thing above Nature, to some Being akin to, and the 
 proper source of, the highest element in us. Now it is 
 obvious that, according as one or other of these concep- 
 tions of persons and their destiny prevails, it must 
 profoundly affect both theory and practice as to the 
 distribution and use of the things through which 
 persons find more or less scope for self-realization, 
 that is, touching property in its widest sense. This 
 being so, it cannot but be that the religious view of 
 humanity must contribute a factor of profound and 
 indeed decisive import to the working idea of property, 
 so far as religion is a real thing to those who profess it. 
 Religion is in principle all or nothing: by its fruits 
 it is known one way or another. True, what once had 
 ethical meaning may be narrowed down to mere sacred 
 ritual or custom, with no conscious relations to living 
 conduct, individual or social. But this is simple lapse 
 into unreality as regards one aspect, and in all higher 
 faiths the primary aspect, of the full fact of religion, 
 which is in idea coextensive with the whole life of 
 personal responsibility. The religion of the Bible at 
 least, and of the Early Church, was for the most part 
 really effective in moulding men's social ideals and 
 conduct; and we shall now trace in outline the idea 
 of property which underlay the historical develop- 
 ment of such religion. 
 
 In Old and New Testament alike the idea of God 
 ruled human life in all its relations. At all stages of 
 Israel's history we find the sense of social duties as 
 having their chief sanction in the Divine Being with 
 whose sovereign rights each Israelite felt himself face 
 to face, in virtue of the Covenant relation on which 
 the national existence was based. Further, at a certain 
 
BIBLICAL IDEA OF PEOPEETY 91 
 
 stage, visible for instance in Is. xl. ff., there emerges a 
 clear consciousness of the God of Israel as the Creator 
 and Upholder of all things. In this character He 
 possesses absolute rights to the allegiance of all men, 
 and not only of His Chosen People, in soul, body, 
 and goods of every sort. All these things, powers of 
 mind and body as well as material possessions, are held 
 in stewardship for God, and for His ends in creating 
 manldnd to show forth and share His *' glory" or 
 manifested nature. It was relative to this outlook on 
 the world, and on life in society, that property was 
 conceived of in Hebrew religion ; and it can readily be 
 imagined how powerful an incentive to social justice 
 and to social reform, as ideals grew in range and 
 purity such a conception would present to truly relig- 
 ious minds in Israel. 
 
 Let us recall some of the leading expressions of Old 
 Testament religion bearing on the matter in hand. ^*In 
 the beginning God created" the earth and all upon it, 
 and finally man as the crown of His purposes on earth. 
 Man, then, was created as God's vice-gerent over the 
 lower creation, as being **made in the image of God," 
 or as Psalm viii. has it, **but little lower than Deity" 
 {Elohim)j in respect of his latent capacities, insignifi- 
 cant though man is on his material side. Accordingly 
 David is described as addressing God as follows, in 
 connection with the offerings of Israel for the building 
 of the Temple (1 Chron. xxix.) : 
 
 Thine, Lord, is the greatness*, and the power . . . and the 
 majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is 
 thine; thine is the kingdom (sovereignty), Lord, and thou 
 art exalted as head above all. Both riches and honour come 
 of thee, and thou rulest over all; and in thine hand it is to 
 make great, and to give strength unto aU. . . . But who am 
 I, and what is my people, that we should he able to offer so 
 
92 PEOPERTY j 
 
 i 
 willingly after this sort! for all things come of thee, and ofEj 
 thine own have we given thee. ... Lord our God, all this; 
 
 store . . . Cometh of thine hand, and is all thine own I 
 
 Lord, the God of our fathers, keep this for ever in thes' 
 imagination of the thoughts of the heart of thy people, and 
 establish their heart unto thee. 
 
 Here we have a perfect expression of the genuine He- 
 brew view of hnman property — all that a man can call 
 his own and control — ^as verily the gift of God, to be 
 held before all else in trust for the Giver's own uses, - 
 for the realization of His kingdom or manifested sov- 
 ereignty on earth. Such rights, then, as any man can 
 have in anything he possesses — his faculties of body 
 and mind, lands and all in or upon them, and what is 
 ** produced" (by God's power and bounty) as result 
 of human faculty applied to the resources of Nature — 
 such ** property" rights are purely relative, derivative, 
 conditional, in the presence of God's sovereign over- 
 lordship of all He has produced, and is still producing, 
 through the subordinate agencies of Nature and man. 
 None on earth has absolute or indefeasible rights, but 
 all only in so far as they fulfil the terms of the steward- 
 ship entrusted to them by God and the duties to others 
 which flow therefrom. This applies alike to nations 
 and to individuals. But the Divine mil for and in the 
 larger unit of its purposes must be regulative of the 
 same will for and in the smaller unit of humanity, so 
 that the rights of the latter are relative to those of the 
 former as a whole. In other words, the general or 
 national welfare is prior to and determinative of that 
 of the individual in the Divine order, and so by right. 
 To this conception of property, its duties and rights, 
 the general trend of the Old Testament data broadly 
 and normally conforms; and there are constant signs 
 of a tendency to reform actual conditions, when these 
 
BIBLICAL IDEA OF PEOPERTY 93 
 
 seem to diverge intolerably from the Divine ideal. The 
 various forms of the Mosaic legislation found in the 
 different codes embodied in the Pentateuch illustrate 
 this tendency.^ We can see the process of social reform 
 going on before our eyes, and realize the religious 
 motives which animated reformers, in the pages of the 
 Hebrew Prophets. The occasion of their utterances 
 was the great change for the worse in economic con- 
 ditions—away from a relatively equal ownership of 
 land — which was due partly to losses from foreign in- 
 vasion, plunging the poor into debt to the richer mem- 
 bers of the community, and partly to the new factor of 
 commerce fostered by foreign intercourse. In these 
 and other ways the sacred bond between the family and 
 the land — conceived to belong to the nation's God and 
 to have been given by Him to all Israelites to enjoy in 
 essential equality for ever — ^was broken. There arose 
 a landless and dependent class, sometimes to the point 
 of enslavement of Israelite to Israelite. This last was 
 an abomination in the eyes of all save those who them- 
 selves made property of their fellows. But even the 
 lesser abuse, as a virtual negation of the idea of broth- 
 erhood before God, the real owner of the land and of 
 all its increase, stirred prophets like Amos, Hosea, 
 Isaiah, and Micah to witness that social justice is of the 
 essence of true religion. Their constant language is of 
 the ** oppression" of the weak by the strong, as when 
 social and economic advantages were used to increase 
 any accidental inequality in the distribution of material 
 goods, and this often under the forms of law and jus- 
 tice. ** Jehovah will enter into judgment with the 
 eiders and princes of his people. It is ye that have 
 eaten up the vineyard ; the spoil of the poor is in your 
 
 iSee Dr. W. H. Bennett's Essay in Christ and CiviUzation (1910), 
 pussirti. 
 
94 PEOPEETY 
 
 houses. What mean ye that ye crush my people, and 
 grind the face of the poor? This is the oracle of the 
 Lord.'' Or again, ^*Woe unto those who join house to 
 house, who add field to field, till there is no more room, 
 and ye are settled alone in the midst of the land. "^ 
 Here what is chiefly condemned **is really the iniqui- 
 tous distribution of the gain and loss arising out of 
 the social changes" of the period: '^the profit mainly 
 falls to a limited class . . . callous, self-seeking, and 
 self-indulgent, and deepens their moral deterioration; 
 while the loss is borne by the poor and helpless.''^ 
 Over against such injustice and oppression, flowing 
 from self-seeking use of economic power, the prophets 
 place the outraged Justice of the all-sovereign King of 
 Israel, who is the one real Owner of the land and of 
 its produce, and whose prime concern in its use is the 
 well-being of all His People. Any other use of it is 
 sacrilege, simply robbing God. This is the idea under- 
 lying the Sabbatical Year and the Year of Jubilee. The 
 former provided for the poor from the land as it lay 
 fallow in the seventh year (Ex. xxiii. 10 f.), as well as 
 for the release of the Hebrew from bondservice (Ex. 
 xxi. 2 ff., Deut. xv. 12 ff.), or from debts (Deut. xv. 1 
 ff.). By the latter Leviticus makes similar provision 
 for the recovery of ^ liberty throughout the land," for 
 all Hebrews, at the longer interval of fifty years. As 
 regards land, it all reverts to its original owners (xxv. 
 10) ; it ^* shall not be sold in perpetuity; for the land 
 is Mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with Me" 
 {v. 23). As to bondservice, even in the modified form 
 of hired service, which alone Leviticus allows, it too 
 then ceases; *^for unto Me the children of Israel are 
 servants ... I am the Lord your God" {v. 55; cf. 42). 
 
 2 Isaiah iii. 14 f., v. 8; cf. i. 17. ' 
 
 3 Bennett (as above), p. 60. 
 
BIBLICAL IDEA OF PROPERTY 95 
 
 Both of these ordinances, then, in theory at least, recog- 
 : nize in a striking and radical way the sovereign rights 
 of Jehovah as the Overlord, as it were, of the theo- 
 cratic Feudal System of Israel, and the supreme value 
 of persons over property in His eyes. It is in this light 
 that the Eighth Commandment must be read. So 
 viewed, it tells against all accumulation of land and 
 wealth as ** private property'' which affects inequitably 
 and oppressively the opportunities and welfare of men 
 and women, as God's own special property. 
 
 If the later prophets, a Jeremiah or an Ezekiel, 
 when face to face with a disintegrated Israel, **feel 
 that a true social organism can be created only out of 
 true individual members, they never abandon the idea 
 of founding a new social organism. Individualism is 
 but the necessary stage towards this," by creating 
 more responsible moral units.* While trying to lay the 
 foundations of religion more deeply in the individual 
 conscience, and on God's Covenant in the heart, they 
 do not forget the cause of social justice. They, too, 
 echo in effect^ Micah's memorable words (vi^ 8) : **He 
 hath showed thee, man, what is good ; and 'what doth 
 Jehovah require of thee, but to do justly, and to love 
 mercy, and to walk hmnbly with thy God I" Here we 
 have the very essence of prophetic religion, social 
 justice and mercy, rooted in an abiding sense of God's 
 eye upon all a man's ways. It is the exact opposite of 
 the attitude in which one claims a right *'to do as one 
 pleases with his own property." The decisive ques- 
 tion for a man who '* walks humbly with his God" 
 would be, '^Lord, what would 'st Thou have me to do 
 with Thine own ? ' ' By whatsoever means it has come 
 
 4 Dr. A. B. Davidson, article "Prophecy" in Hastings's Diet, of the 
 Bihle, vol. iv. 
 
 5 Jer. vii. 6, xxii. 3, 13, xxxiv. 8-22 ; Ezek. xviii. 8, xxxii. 7 1, 29, 
 xxxiv. 8, 17 ff., xlvi. 18. 
 
96 PROPERTY 
 
 to him, it still has come from God, and remains by right 
 under His control.^ 
 
 Even after the Exile, one great act of reparation 
 seems to have been achieved by Nehemiah,^ when by 
 moral suasion he induced the wealthy to restore lands 
 and houses to expropriated poorer brethren. The post- 
 Exilic prophets^ still breathe much of the old spirit: 
 **The fast is worthless when the worshipper oppresses 
 his labourers; the true fast is to loose the bonds of 
 wickedness and let the oppressed go free, to feed the 
 hungry, to house the outcast, and to clothe the naked'' 
 (Is. Iviii. 3-8). And the witness of the Wisdom 
 writings is to like effect,^ notably in Job 's picture of the 
 righteous man (xxix., cf. xxxi.). Yet here the old 
 prophetic insistence on the *^ justice" which goes to the 
 root of social evils by enabling men to remain self- 
 supporting, has already dwindled to praise of the 
 * 'mercy, " which tries to cope with the resulting dis- 
 tress. The latter is relative to the religious ideal of a 
 society too individualistic to feel the divine discontent 
 of the older prophecy, though it kept on turning out the 
 extremes of need and superfluity. If a pious soul here 
 and there prayed, like Agur (Prov. xxx. 8 f.), for the 
 happy mean between poverty and riches, it was for its 
 own spiritual welfare, and not as the condition of a like 
 lot falling to others also, which is the moral principle 
 and test of a true social order. *^ Under the abnormal 
 conditions of foreign domination, religion had grown 
 narrower and feebler, when it was forced back frorii 
 the great national and human interests into an ecclesi- 
 
 ePs. xxiv. 1; Job xli. 11. 
 
 7 Nehemiah v. 
 
 8 Dr. Bennett specifies, e.y., Isaiah xxiv.-xxvii., Ivi.-lxvi., Haggai, 
 Zechariah, Malaehi, Joel. 
 
 8 Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes in the Hebrew Canon, while the 
 Apocrypha is here in full agreement. 
 
BIBLICAL IDEA OF PEOPERTY 97 
 
 astical habit of mind. ... It became legal, fixed, mo- ^ 
 notonous, a thing by itself. . . . The prophetic voice 
 was hushed and the prophetic fire died ont."^° Yet 
 there is evidence even in the later post-Exilic Judaism 
 that the old ideal of social righteousness remained for 
 many in Israel the essential test of piety. Thus, in 
 Malachi iii. 5, Jehovah warns, * ' I will come near to you 
 in judgment" — the setting right of what is wrong — 
 *^ against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, 
 the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the 
 stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord 
 of Hosts." Here we get the social ideal in the setting 
 most characteristic of the last centuries of the nation's 
 corporate life, viz. as projected into the future, the 
 Messianic age, w^hen by a great divine intervention in 
 history God shall vindicate in the eyes of all His ideal 
 of human society. This vindication is usually depicted 
 as achieved through a personal representative of God. 
 Marked by a spirit of ^^righteousness and lowliness "^^ 
 — once the sifting judgment is past — ^he shall do away 
 with unjust and oppressive riches on the one hand, and 
 dependent and hungry poverty on the other. This is 
 evactly the note of the Messianic Hope in the Mag- 
 nificat,^^ which is most significant in the present con- 
 nexion as showing the true line of continuity from Old 
 Testament religion to that of the New Testament. That 
 line first emerges quite clearly in the great prophets, 
 whose teaching as to property in a religious light has 
 just been summarized. Its presence later on is made 
 manifest in John the Baptist, whose strongly social 
 message echoes in his replies to various classes as to 
 a true repentance,^^ and whose spirit is emphatically 
 
 low. Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis (pp. 27-32). 
 
 11 Zech, ix. 9 ; Ps. xlv. 4 ; Test, of Judah, xxiv. 1 ; Psalms of Solomon, 
 xvii., xviii. 
 
 12 Luke i. 46-55. is Luke iii. 10-14. 
 
98 PROPERTY 
 
 sanctioned by Jesus Himself. It is a serious error toi 
 overlook this, and to imagine that He who claimed to] 
 fulfil **the Law and the Prophets" intended, by his 
 new emphasis on the worth of even the humblest indi- 
 vidual man or woman, to supersede, rather than inten- 
 sify in its moral and religious sanctions, the teaching 
 of the prophets as to social justice and equity. 
 
 n 
 
 We have dwelt thus long on the Old Testament 
 phase of the Biblical idea of property, because from 
 the nature of the case such an idea comes out more 
 fully in the national story there unfolded than in the 
 New Testament writings. In particular the teaching 
 of the Founder of Christianity Himself, owing to its 
 very genius and historical setting,^* does not furnish 
 much explicit reference to the subject. Yet it has a 
 vital bearing on property in its religious and ethical 
 asiDects. The Kingdom of God, the reign of the Divine 
 Will in and through men on earth, is a conception fun- 
 damentally social, and casts light upon the principles 
 underlying every social institution. Hence just as 
 Jesus confirms certain elements in Old Testament or 
 Jewish religion, and supersedes others as untrue to its 
 deeper tendency, as well as inadequate to the idea of 
 God's Fatherhood which He made determinative of 
 everything; so is it with property in the light of the 
 same idea, even if He does not draw forth all that is 
 here implied. Certainly that detachment of a man's 
 heart from all material wealth which He so solemnly 
 
 1* For our present purpose the historical and temporal perspective of 
 Christ's message of "the Kingdom" as "at hand," is immaterial,, save in 
 so far as it helps to explain why the Gospel at first had nothing to say 
 directly as to social reform. The social principles involved are intrinsic 
 to the relations of men to God and to each other, whatever the scale of 
 time or space to which they may be applied. 
 
BIBLICAL IDEA OF PBOPEETY 99 
 
 inculcates, and that love for one's neighbour as for 
 Due's self which He makes central in true religion, 
 [iiike rebuke all self-assertive claims for ^Hhe rights of 
 jproperty," as if of absolute validity. The Old Testa- 
 •ment doctrine that all a man has, whether of material 
 3r spiritual wealth, he holds as God's property and on 
 trust for His uses, is assumed and enforced with new 
 smphasis. ^* Mammon" or material wealth is entrusted 
 to a mean's stewardship in order to test whether he will 
 be **faithful in that which is least," and so be fit to 
 iiave entrusted to him *Hhe true riches" of the soul. 
 •'But if ye have not been faithful in that which is 
 Another's, who will give you that which is your own" 
 —that is, those possessions which can be made one's 
 OY\Ti by the real appropriation of the spirit, to which 
 tliey are akin. Further, as regards God's uses for what 
 He entrusts to a man's stewardship, they are simply 
 the service of human need for the love of God. This is 
 tantamount to ministering to Christ, the Father's 
 special representative — a truth set forth with special 
 solemnity in the picture of the Final Judgment in 
 Matthew xxv. 31-46. Persons, then, being God's one 
 real concern, and their welfare being the end for which 
 everything which can become human property exists 
 and is held in trust from God, all life becomes a prov- 
 ing of loyalty and love to Him through loyal love to 
 one's brother man.^^ 
 
 *^Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, or thou 
 deniest both his sonship to God and thine own"; that 
 is the message of the Gospel for all social relations. 
 This of course includes implicitly economic relations, 
 as affecting the well-being of men, and so the degree 
 to which property may be held or increased, where the 
 wealth of one lessens the opportunity of others. While 
 
 15 Luke xvi. 10-12; cf. ix. 18. 
 
100 PEOPERTY 
 
 accepting the institution of private property as a con- 
 dition of social life, Christianity changed the whole 
 perspective and emphasis of men's thoughts about it, 
 and, what is still more difficult, their instinctive feelings 
 towards it, by teaching the incomparable value of man- 
 hood. In the light of Christ 's idea of humanity, viewed 
 in and through the high and indeed divine possibilities 
 latent even in those of least account with their fellows, 
 property underwent a radical transvaluation. If the 
 Sabbath, a divine institution for the training of human 
 life, was yet **made for man,'' was relative to his well- 
 being, and not vice versa j how much more so property I 
 Property had no rights that were not relative to this 
 great law of human life, that everything is to be judged 
 as having the sanction of God only so far as it sub- 
 serves, or at least does not stand in the way of, the 
 Divine idea of man as a being created for spiritual like- 
 ness to Himself. To this end of ends for man all else 
 must be treated but as means. Thus every institution 
 of society is to be regarded as liable to modification as 
 in practice it fails to work in such a way as to respect 
 the sovereign rights of God in humanity, as His chief 
 handiwork and property, and that for which, as poten- 
 tial sharer in His own nature and glory, all else was 
 created. 
 
 These corollaries of the central Christian duty, love 
 to God and to man in the light of God's interest in him 
 — love with the mind and conscience as well as with the 
 feelings — were no doubt felt at once, so morally obvi- 
 ous are they. Yet they would be felt in various degrees 
 of urgency, as their practical bearings were patent or 
 required more reflection in order to be realized. The 
 Master Himself had not dealt directly with economic 
 conditions but only with moral disposition as deter- 
 mining the use of these. All, then, that was at once 
 
BIBLICAL IDEA OF PEOPERTY 101 
 
 realized was the duty, or rather privilege, of ** charity," 
 
 in the restricted sense of that term, the divine obliga- 
 
 j tion to share one's goods with those in actual need of 
 
 I bodily necessities, even to the point of impoverishing 
 
 ! one's self in fulfilment of the law of Christ. ^*As ye 
 
 , would that men should do unto you, do ye also so unto 
 
 them." There was no compulsion to sacrifice one's 
 
 property at a stroke or to any given point ; only, such 
 
 conduct was highly honoured, as in the case of Barna- 
 
 I bas. What did become a part of the ordinary Chris- 
 
 I tian's ideal, and often of his practice, was the habit of 
 
 treating his goods as not his very own, but as held in 
 
 trust for the brethren in proportion to their need. 
 
 j *^None said that aught of the things which he possessed 
 
 I was his own"; and in that sense ^Hhey had all things 
 
 \ in common. ' ' 
 
 So says Aets;^® and the idea is echoed in the early 
 ^Catechism called The Ttvo Ways, which adds, *'For if 
 iwe are fellow- sharers in that which is imperishable, 
 I how much more in things perishable!" Here we 
 I have the authentic note of primitive Christian faith; 
 I and indeed it is a timeless conviction of Christian faith 
 worthy the name. For **w}ioso hath the world's goods, 
 and beholdest his brother in need, and shutteth up his 
 compassion from him, how doth the love of God abide 
 in himf" (1 John iii. 17). The only point at which 
 hesitation might arise, and where it did arise during 
 i the early centuries, as in later times, was as to the best 
 form in which this spirit of boundless goodwill (the 
 ■social equivalent of Christian love) should act in any 
 given state of society — especially outside the special 
 ; bonds and guarantees of actual Christian brotherhood. 
 [Here indeed there has been great variety in practice. 
 But as to the essential Christian attitude there can be 
 
 16 Acts iv. 32; cf. ii. 44 f. 
 
102 PKOPERTY i 
 
 no change without virtual repudiation of discipleship 
 to Christ Himself, let alone primitive practice. Two 
 things are axiomatic; first the incomparable value of 
 persons as compared with property; and next the 
 purely relative property-rights of any individual, not 
 only as compared with God's absolute rights as Pro- 
 ducer and Owner both of all things and of all persons, 
 but also as compared with the paramount human or 
 derivative rights of Society as representing the com- 
 mon weal. Of this, the individual's weal is only a 
 dependent part, and should be limited by the rights of 
 all others to the conditions of personal well-being. 
 
 The resulting practical principle, viz. the steward- , 
 ship of property on behalf both of God and of Society, 
 and the moral duty of fidelity in this relation as the 
 condition of any correlative rights of private personal 
 enjoyment, is too deeply embedded in Christ's teaching, 
 notably in the parables, to need demonstration. But 
 how thoroughly St. Paul, too, grasped this principle in 
 all its range, applying it not only to material but also 
 to spiritual possessions, may be seen from his search- 
 ing words to certain at Corinth" who prided them- 
 selves on their mental superiority. *'For who maketh 
 thee to excel? And what hast thou that thou hast not 
 received? But if thou didst receive it, why dost thou 
 glory as if thou hadst not received it?" Everything is 
 a gift of God's bounty, and calls for a grateful steward- 
 ship of love, the primary objects of which are the 
 brethren, and beyond them all in need. As a manual of 
 the next generation,^^ a sort of *^ Whole Duty of the 
 Christian Man," puts it: **For the Father wills that 
 to all there be given from His own gracious gifts."' 
 The real danger, in the case of the more earnest souls,, 
 
 17 1 Cor. iv. 7. 
 
 18 The Teaching of the Apostles, i. 5. 
 
BIBLICAL IDEA OF PROPERTY 103 
 
 was a too indiscriminate charity to every applicant in 
 the guise of need, particularly where the Jewish notion 
 was adopted that alms had an atoning virtue (cf. iv. 
 6-7). But apart from abuses in both directions, in the 
 motives of receiver and giver, self-sacrificing benefi- 
 cence towards every form of need, inspired by an 
 ** enthusiasm of humanity," such as Ecce Homo de- 
 scribes as likely to be evoked by Christ's teaching and 
 His own attitude to men, marked the Christianity of 
 the early centuries and moulded its whole attitude to 
 property. 
 
 Most typical is the terse statement in The Preaching 
 of Peter a summary of Christian teaching probably be- 
 longing to the first half of the second century: **Rich 
 is that man who pities many, and in imitation of God 
 bestows from what he hath : for God giveth all things 
 to all from His own creatures. Understand, then, ye 
 rich, that ye are in duty bound to do service, having 
 received more than ye yourselves need. Learn that 
 to others is lacking that wherein you superabound. Be 
 ashamed of holding fast what belongs to others. Imi- 
 tate God's equity, and none shall be poor." This long 
 remained a locus classicus for the Christian idea 
 yl property. Gregory of Nazianzus,^^ for instance, 
 towards the end of the fourth century, cites its closing 
 sentences, with the preface: '*Let us not be bad stew^- 
 ards of what has been given to us. "Similarly in an earn- 
 est call to truer living issued by a Christian prophet 
 before the middle of the second century, we read: 
 ' * Every man ought to be rescued from misfortune ; for 
 he that hath need and suffereth misfortune in his daily 
 life is in great distress and necessity," and ^^ suffers 
 [ike torment with one in bonds." Such men, in fact, 
 
 is Oration xiv. In Orat. xvi. 18, he denounces as "most unjust of all," 
 biie man who keeps to himself "much property unexpectedly gained." 
 
104 PEOPERTY j 
 
 are often driven to desperation : hence, to know and not 
 to rescue them is to be gnilty of their blood.^° Or^ 
 again :^^ ** Instead, then, of fields buy ye souls in dis- 
 tress, as one is able, and protect widows and orphans. 
 . . . For to this end the Sovereign Master enriched 
 you, that ye might perform these services for Him.'^ 
 For the Christian to do otherwise is to ** repudiate,'' 
 for the sake of earthly possessions, **the law of his own ( 
 city," i.e. brotherly love, and follow **the law of the 
 city" (the world), viz. selfishness. For himself he 
 should seek to provide no more than a modest suf~' 
 ficiency. 
 
 The tone of the Apologists of the second century is ^ 
 the same. There is no thought of individual rights ' 
 making a truly Christian use of property optional or 
 voluntary, rather than obligatory, on the lines just 
 indicated: for ** wherein any can do good to his neigh- 
 bours and does it not, he shall be reckoned alien to 
 the Lord's love," i.e. the Christian law of life.^^ 
 
 Further, the ancient Church was very sensitive about 
 morally doubtful trades,-^ and refused to receive for , 
 God's service, especially the relief of the poor and ' 
 needy conceived of as God's special ** altar" for ac- 
 ceptable sacrifices, anything made from such sources, 
 or to accept as members those who persisted in such 
 trades. Among forms of tainted money the Church 
 reckoned usury, mainly having in mind the poorer class 4\ 
 of borrower in time of distress,^* who could ill afford I 
 to pay the high current rate of interest, and often fell 
 
 20 The Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude X. iv. 2 f. 
 
 21 Simil. I. 5-8; cf. Mandate viii. 10, and the parallels adduced in 
 Harnack's note in his Patrum Apost. Opei'a. 
 
 22 Irenaeus, Frag. 10, in Harvey's edition, ii. 477. 
 
 23 The Apostolic Didascalia, iv. 5-6 (^Apost. Const, iv. 6), the CaTuins ' 
 of Hippolytus, xi. fif. and parallel documents. 
 
 24 Cf. Gregory Naz., Oration xvi. 18, "Farming not the land but the * 
 necessity of the needy." 
 
BIBLICAL IDEA OF PEOPERTY 105 
 
 as a debtor into the power of the lender. The lending 
 of business capital on terms offering good chances of 
 repayment was not in question. In the matter of usury, 
 then, we get a good instance of the way in which the 
 Christian conscience placed the use of property under 
 the control of the law of justice that is also sympathy. 
 So far we have summarized the incidental teaching 
 of the Early Church generally as to the duties of prop- 
 erty. But there are a few writers who deal with the 
 subject more particularly. The most careful handling 
 of the subject of riches— primarily indeed in relation 
 to their possessor's true welfare — from an Early 
 Christian standpoint, is a tractate of Clement of Alex- 
 andria early in the third century. It is entitled **Who 
 is the Rich Man that is saved! ^' in allusion to Christ's 
 reply to the man who asked ^^Wliat shall I do that I 
 may inherit eternal lifef — *^How hardly shall they 
 that have riches enter into the kingdom of God. ' ' These 
 words deeply impressed the Early Church. Indeed 
 Clement found it needful, even after the lapse of 
 nearly two centuries, to explain that they did not shut 
 out rich men as such from eternal life, any more than 
 they guaranteed it to poor men as such. Yet he does 
 not disguise the grave difficulties which beset the rich 
 man in the path of eternal life. He enters on the 
 Christian race severely handicapped with the weight 
 of earthly wealth ; yet need he not give up the idea of 
 entering at all, only he must submit to the strictest 
 training of all under Christ the great trainer (ch. iii.). 
 Everything depends on the motive, the attitude of will, 
 *Hhe stripping from the soul itself, and the disposition, 
 the underlying passions, and the cutting out by the 
 roots of things alien " (c. xii.). To judge the task im- 
 possible would be to make impossible also the principle 
 of sharing one's goods with others. ''For what shar- 
 
106 PEOPERTY 
 
 ing would be left open to men if no one had anything ? ' ' 
 This does not indeed quite cover the defense of riches 
 as such. But it does tell against a Kteralistic and 
 purely ascetic reading of Christ's teaching as to prop- 
 erty, such as was evidently current in certain circles 
 in Clement's day. 
 
 Accordingly the sum of the matter is this: ** Wealth 
 which benefits one's neighbours also is not to be dis- 
 carded. For it is ^wealth' as being useful. It is, in 
 fact, like some material or instrument, for good use 
 by those who know how. . . . Such an instrument is 
 riches also. Thou canst use it justly: to righteousness 
 it is subservient. A man uses it unjustly : again a ser- 
 vant it is found of injustice. For its nature is to be 
 a servant, but not to rule. ... So let no one do away 
 with possessions, but rather the passions of the soul 
 such as do not permit the better use of property, in 
 order that, becoming noble and good, he may be able to 
 use nobly even these possessions." To those who have 
 cast aside the passions of the soul which lead to abuse 
 of wealth, Christ says, *^Come, follow me," as the Way , 
 in the use of wealth also. 
 
 Such was Clement's view of Christian duty as to 
 property, even when amounting to riches. It was not 
 exactly the primitive Christian one, which resulted 
 largely from expectation of a near end to the present 
 order of things; but it had at its heart the same idea ^ 
 of property, whether material or spiritual, as a 
 stewardship from God for the good of all within our 
 reach (c. xvi.). ^^For he who holds possessions as 
 God's gifts, both ministering from them to God the 
 giver, unto men's salvation, and knowing that he pos- 
 sesses them for the brethren's sake rather than his ■ 
 own, . . . not being a slave of what he possesses and 
 not carrying them about in his soul, but ever labouring • 
 
BIBLICAL IDEA OF PEOPEETY 107 
 
 at some good and divine work ... he is the man 
 deemed blessed by the Lord and called poor in the 
 spirit . . . not one who could not live if not rich " 
 (c. xvi.). 
 
 Nay morCy man's natural stewardship towards God 
 is for Christians enhanced by the debt owed to Christ 
 foT laying down His life for them, ^^ This (life) He 
 demands of ns in return on behalf of one another. But 
 if we owe our lives to the brethren, ... should we any 
 longer hoard and shut up worldly things, those beg- 
 garly and alien and fleeting things?" (c. xxxvii.). 
 Thus the right use of property is simply the corollary 
 of love, in the peculiarly deep and real sense distinc- 
 tive of the Christian Gospel. ^*Love buds into benef- 
 icence." Here Clement stands on the old and broad 
 basis of the common Christian conscience, as we have 
 described it, and as it utters itself in a Jewish Chris- 
 tian writing about Clement's owti day:^^ Every fair 
 deed shall the love of man teach you to do, even 
 as hatred of men suggests ill-doing." In contrast 
 to such *^ philanthropy" stands the self-seeking spirit 
 of greed {pleonexia)^ which readily attaches to the 
 pursuit of temporal gain and prompts to doubtful 
 methods therein. 
 
 Clement can find no Christian warrant for the man 
 who '* goes on trying to increase without limit, ever on 
 the outlook for more, with his head bent downwards" 
 (c, xvii.). On the other hand, he goes beyond the prim- 
 itive Christian mode of thought in a modern direction, 
 when he observes that *^it is impossible that one in 
 want of the necessaries of life should not be harassed 
 in mind and lack leisure for the better things, in trying 
 to provide the wherewithal. How much more service- 
 
 25 The Epistle of Clement to James (viii.-x.), prefixed to the Clemen- 
 tine Homilies but probably of earlier date. 
 
108 PEOPEETY 
 
 able the opposite case, when having a competency he 
 both himself escapes straits as to money and is able 
 to aid deserving persons." The ideal lot is, in fact, 
 that happy mean between riches and poverty for which 
 the **wise man" of Proverbs (xxx. 8 f.) prayed, as 
 best for the soul's welfare. Yet Clement does not feel 
 called on to nrge that this shonld be brought within the 
 reach of all ; that so every man might have the means 
 of self-expression through the true use of some prop- 
 erty of his own, rather than be dependent upon the 
 charity of others. But this defect was common to an- 
 cient thought generally, while in Christianity ** char- 
 ity" was placed on a more ideal basis. 
 
 In TertuUian the primitive attitude to property is no 
 less manifest than in his great Alexandrine contem- 
 porary. **We who mingle in mind and soul," says 
 he,^** **have no hesitation as to fellowship in property." 
 And what is perhaps more striking, the same spirit 
 animates Cyprian in the next generation, a period 
 marked by not a few changes in Christian outlook. The 
 two men differed a good deal in temperament; both 
 were of legal training and spirit; and yet neither 
 dreamt of property being held by Christians otherwise 
 than in trust for God and His interests in humanity. 
 Cyprian, who had himself set a signal example in the 
 matter of yielding all to God's uses, discusses the duty 
 of charity even to such an extent as to make a rich man 
 actually a poor man, and meets current objections to 
 such risks. His arguments may not all be sound, just 
 as his religious theory of this duty is deeply coloured 
 by legalism and the notion of meriting reward at God's 
 hands; but in any case the essential idea of property 
 as held on trust for God, the Giver of all goods, is there 
 and injfluential. To act in the spirit of the Apostolic 
 
 2« Apology, ch. 39. 
 
BIBLICAL IDEA OF PEOPERTY 109 
 
 Cliiircli in Acts is **by heavenly law to imitate the 
 equality of God the Father'' in the common gifts of 
 nature, which *Hhe whole human race" should 
 ** equally enjoy." *' After this example of equality, he 
 who as a possessor on earth shares his returns and 
 fruits with the brotherhood, in being by his free boun- 
 ties not only open-handed (communis) but also just, 
 is an imitator of God the Father. "^^ 
 
 In these brief sentences two ideas emerge which re- 
 ceive fuller expression in the next writer inviting no- 
 tice on a scale similar to Clement, namely Lactantius, 
 who wrote just before the change in the relations of 
 Church and State under Constantino. These ideas are 
 ** equality'' in the enjoyment of God's bounties, and 
 the ** justice" of the claim of need upon the property 
 of those who have enough and to spare. To Lactantius 
 in his Divine Institutes Justice is the very source of 
 virtue; and its function as ''the bond of Society" is 
 set forth by means of a description of life in the 
 Golden Age, when men were true to God's will in giv- 
 ing the earth for the common use of all, that none 
 might lack. All this was disordered by Cupidity. Not 
 only did men cease to share with others their super- 
 fluity, but they snatched at others' property, drawing 
 everything to their private gain. This the strong fur- 
 ther secured by unequal laws for the defence of their 
 property thus won. Thus justice disappeared, with 
 its offices of humaneness, equity, and pity, and was re- 
 placed by proud and swelling inequality (v. 5-6). 
 
 Such is Lactantius 's analysis of the state of things 
 prevalent in society about him, as it struck his Chris- 
 tian consciousness; and the moral roots of it, judged 
 in the same light, he traces to ''the desertion of Divine 
 religion, which alone causes one man to hold another 
 
 27 Ue Opere et EleeTnosynis, 2^. 
 
no PEOPERTY I 
 
 dear, and to know tliat lie is bound to him by the bond 
 of brotherhood, in that God is one and the same Father 
 to all." It was to restore ** justice" as dutif illness 
 (pietas) towards hmnanity in each and all, resting on 
 like dutif Illness to ''the common Father of all," that 
 Christ came. True justice, then, as inclusive of all 
 virtues, has two primary forms. '* Piety and equity ^ 
 {aequitas) are, as it were, its veins, for in these two 
 sources the whole of justice is contained. Its fountain- 
 head and origin is in the first of these, all its force and 
 method {ratio) in the second. If, then. Piety is to 
 know God, and the sum of this knowledge lies in prac- 
 tical worship, he of course is ignorant of justice who ' 
 has not religious regard for God. For how can he | 
 know it in itself who is ignorant of its source!" This . 
 conception Lactantius further develops in a striking ! 
 simile, according to which knowledge of God is to the j 
 organism of justice or true morality as the head to | 
 the body, the source of life and intelligence to all the 
 virtues, if these are to exist in organic unity and vital 
 energy (vi. 9). 
 
 The other part of Justice is Equity, that making 
 one's self equal with others which Cicero calls '* equa- 
 bility." For God, who both produces and breathes in- 
 to men, has wiUed that all should be equal, that is, 
 equally matched {pares) ; has imposed on all the same 
 conditions of life ; has begotten all for wisdom ; has : 
 promised to all immortality. None is with Him a 
 slave, none a master : for if to all the same is Father, 
 by equal right we all are children. Wherefore neither 
 the Eomans nor the Greeks could possess justice, be- 
 cause they have had men of many unequal grades, from 
 poor to rich, from humble to powerful. For where all 
 are not equally matched there is not equity; and in- 
 equality itself excludes justice, the whole force of 
 
BIBLICAL IDEA OF PEOPERTY 111 
 
 wMch lies in this, that it makes equal those who have 
 come by an equal lot to the condition of this life. The 
 spirit which recognizes and acts on such equity be- 
 tween man and man, is called by Lactantius humanitas, 
 which we may render ** humaneness'' or *Hhe feeling 
 of humanity.'' It is just what the author of Ecce 
 Homo means by his '* enthusiasm of humanity," when 
 it exists in intimate union with the sense of the Divine 
 origin and destiny of truly human nature. Such a 
 ujiion is also exactly what Lactantius has himself 
 gathered from the Gospels, and he further uses it as a 
 fruitful principle from which to deduce all social re- 
 lations. Here is how he puts it. ^*I have said what 
 is due to God. I will now say what is to be rendered to 
 man; although this very thing which you render to 
 man is rendered to God, because man is God's image. 
 However the first duty of Justice is to be united to 
 God, the second to man. But the former is called re- 
 ligion, the latter is named mercy of humaneness ; which 
 virtue is proper to just men and worshippers of God, 
 because it alone contains the principle of social life." 
 The chief bond then of men naturally, is humaneness ; 
 and he who has broken it, is to be deemed impious and 
 a parricide. On account of this tie of relationship God 
 teaches us never to do ill but always good, to afford 
 aid to the oppressed and those in trouble, to bestow 
 food on those that have not. For God, since He is 
 Himself loyal (pius), willed man to be a social crea- 
 ture. Accordingly in the case of other men we should 
 think of ourselves as in their place (vi. 10). 
 
 It is only such full and positive well-doing where- 
 ever need exists and one can help from one 's own re- 
 sources, and not mere abstinence from conscious in- 
 jury, or aid given in exceptional c/ises, that satisfies 
 
 that true and genuine justice ' ' wE -jch Cicero dreams 
 
 i( 
 
112 PEOPERTY 
 
 of, but '^ihe concrete and clearly expressed likeness" 
 of which he regards as beyond human reach. It is 
 just such a concrete ideal of justice that has been re- 
 vealed and brought within the reach of men, according 
 to Lactantius, in the Gospel of Christ, who has given 
 absolute value to humanity, as related to God, even in 
 the most despised of men. Accordingly, *' wherever a 
 man's help is needed, there we should consider our 
 duty to be in demand. But in what does the principle 
 of justice consist more than in this, that what we afford 
 to our friends through affection, that we should afford 
 to strangers through humaneness? And this is after 
 all afforded to God, to whom a just deed is the dearest 
 of sacrifices." 
 
 ** Perhaps some one will say: If I do all this, I shall 
 have nothing." Lactantius replies that, after all, the 
 precepts in question are not given to a single indi- 
 vidual, **but to every community (populus) which is 
 united in mind and holds together as one man. If alone 
 thou art not sufficient for great works, work justice 
 with all a true man's might. . . . Nor think that thou 
 art now being advised to lessen or indeed exhaust thy 
 estate, but to turn to better uses what thou would 'st 
 have spent on superfluities." In any case God will 
 judge men by the laws of their own practice. 
 
 The exposition of Lactantius has been given thus 
 fully, because his seems the most explicit statement 
 bearing on the Christian idea of property and its duties 
 to be found in the first four centuries. In its main 
 features it may be taken as also fairly representative, 
 especially of the Latin "West, where the Stoic idea of 
 **the law of nature," as expounded for instance by 
 Cicero, remained widely influential. Thus, his prin- 
 ciple, that to impart of one's larger means to those in 
 need as an act of ** humanity," due to those who share 
 
BIBLICAL IDEA OF PEOPERTY 113 
 
 with one's self a Divine destiny according to God's 
 will, is not a deed of mere charity but of justice, is 
 found half a century later in the Roman churchman 
 known as **Ambrosiaster," when he says^^ that it is a 
 matter of justice that a man keep not for himself alone 
 what was intended by God for the equal good of all. 
 
 So far we have dealt only with the more positive 
 aspect of the Early Christian idea of property, which 
 while assuming certain rights of private ownership 
 laid great stress upon the moral duties conditioning 
 its exercise. God is recognized not only as the real 
 Owner of all He has made and is constantly making 
 and giving to mankind, but also as Father in His pur- 
 pose touching its equitable use among His Jiuman 
 family at large. But there were certain limitations 
 under which these ideas for long operated, particularly 
 the institution of slavery and the absence of a sound 
 constructive theory of civil society, especially in its 
 economic bearings. 
 
 These defects, which were part of the historical con- 
 ditions amid which the earlv Church's lot was cast, 
 were the harder for the Christian consciousness at 
 once to transcend owing to two sets of causes affecting 
 its own original outlook, the one temporary and acci- 
 dental, the other intrinsic. The accidental hindrances 
 were the expectation of the speedy end of the existing 
 order by Divine intervention, and the fact that Chris- 
 tians long formed but a small minority within a spiritu- 
 ally alien social environment — a circumstance which 
 restricted both freedom of action and reflective initia- 
 tive. The intrinsic causes, on the other hand, flowed 
 directly from the very genius of Christianity itself. 
 ''The Gospel" being ''the glad tidings of benefits that 
 pass not away," "it aims at raising the individual to a 
 
 28 Commentary on 2 Cor. ix. 9. 
 
114 PEOPERTY 
 
 standpoint far above the conflicts between earthly 
 prosperity and earthly distress, between riches and 
 poverty, lordship and service. "^^ Snch ^*holy indiffer- 
 ence" to all merely earthly conditions tended natu- 
 rally, especially under the accidental conditions just 
 specified, to concentrate Christian effort upon rooting 
 the eternal boon of spiritual liberty in the souls of men, 
 to the comparative neglect of social and economic con- 
 ditions which had to do primarily with bodily comfort 
 and welfare. Yet it is a mistake to suppose that Chris- 
 tians were ever indifferent to actual bodily distress or 
 hardship in others, even if they believed these things 
 could be overruled to their own good or to needed disci- 
 pline. The Church's ideal in these matters was that 
 of a modest sufficiency, gained by a man's o^vn labour 
 and enabling him to do deeds of mercy to others. But 
 it had not yet enough leisure of soul or mind to direct 
 its thought to the immense problem of the economic 
 reconstruction of the Eoman Empire. What it could 
 do at once, that to a large extent it did. It created a 
 fresh spirit, a new attitude of brotherhood and spirit- 
 ual equality irrespective of all outward distinctions, 
 based on the inherent sanctity of human personality, as 
 heir to Divine sonship; and this was bound forthwith 
 to make all relations new, and in the end — if main- 
 tained in its original purity of emphasis — to leaven 
 every circle of thought and action, however ethically 
 remote from such a dynamic centre. Nay more, it fur- 
 nished within its own special sphere, the Christian 
 community, an object-lesson of its inherent tendencies, 
 on a voluntary basis, stimulated by a public opinion 
 which revered such of its members as were devoted 
 and original enough to carry out as individuals the full 
 Christian ideal even in an alien social order. Thus 
 
 29 Harnack, in Essays on the Social Gospel, 1907, p. 9. 
 
BIBLICAL IDEA OF PEOPEETY 115 
 
 even within the institution of slavery it produced a 
 new moral atmosphere, especially where the new re- 
 ligious relation obtained on both sides ; while it greatly 
 encouraged the freeing of slaves on principle and not 
 merely as a deed of liberality. 
 
 (a) In thinking of slavery, the greatest of abuses of 
 property rights, perhaps the best approach to the 
 Christian attitude under the Eoman Empire is through 
 Seneca, who was contemporary with the birth of Chris- 
 tianity. As distinct from Aristotle, who represents the 
 ancient classical view that many men are by nature 
 destined for slavery and have no right to freedom, 
 Seneca held that since all men have at bottom — in what 
 is noblest and most characteristic — essentially the same 
 nature, this common humanity makes slavery a breach 
 of natural law or right. Here the significant thing is 
 that it is the religious element in Seneca 's thought that 
 makes all the difference. It is his truer idea of per- 
 sonality which leads him to his truer notion of human 
 rights ; and this is the outcome of his religious outlook, 
 which thus lifts humanity above a naturalistic level 
 of valuation and makes it something sacred, an end in 
 and to itself. Here is the meeting ground of Seneca 
 and Christianity, and it is characteristic of the religi- 
 ous view of life, socially as well as individually. The 
 point at which they diverge, the less steady way in 
 which Seneca carries out the thought, suggests the 
 greater power of the Christian idea of God, based on 
 a more vivid and sure sense of His personality as re- 
 vealed in Jesus Christ. 
 
 But apart from this difference of moral dynamic in 
 the teaching of Seneca and the early Christians, their 
 practical attitude to slavery was much the same. They 
 bade the individual rise to a sense of spiritual freedom 
 in spite of outward bondage, rather than denounce the 
 
116 PEOPEETY 
 
 institution as an altogether illegitimate form of prop- 
 erty. The reason for this stopping short of the full 
 application of the religious idea of persons was, in 
 either case, expediency under actual conditions. This 
 was specially clear and urgent for the Christian com- 
 munity, whose status, already precarious in the eye of 
 Eoman law, would have been rendered quite untenable, 
 if colour were given to the suspicion that it meant 
 social revolution on the part of slaves, i.e. the working 
 class as a whole. Hence the official Christian policy^^^ 
 for the brief ** present distress'' was patient endur- 
 ance of wrong *^ after the flesh" in the power of free- 
 dom '4n the spirit.'' After all the principle of author- 
 ity in society was of the Divine appointment,^^ and 
 should not hastily be revolted against, even if identi- 
 fied with what, like slavery, clearly bore the mark of 
 human sin, as selfishness and injustice. Where free- 
 dom was within reach in an orderly way, by a master 's 
 good will, let it be embraced. Such seems St. Paul's 
 advice in 1 Cor. vii. 21, though the passage came to be 
 read otherwise by many Church Fathers. Apart from 
 this, Christians had a special reason for deeming 
 direct efforts to abolish property in slaves as inex- 
 pedient, in their belief that the whole status quo of 
 society was doomed to imminent radical change by the 
 hand of God. Indeed it is in this light that we must re- 
 gard their thought and practice as to all property dur- 
 ing the period when the primitive view of *^the King- 
 dom of God" prevailed. On the other hand, we must 
 notice how later changes in the Christian idea of prop- 
 erty went along with changes in this determinative 
 conception, that of God's Kingdom, its nature, and the 
 time and place relations of its realization. Such his- 
 
 30 E.g. in the Epistle to Philemon, Col. iii. 22 ff., Eph. vi. 5 if., and 
 1 Peter ii. 11-18, iii. 13-17, iv. 12-19. 
 
 31 Rom. xiii. 1-7, 1 Pet. ii. 13 S. 
 
BIBLICAL IDEA OF PEOPEETY 117 
 
 torical circumspection will help to save us from not a 
 few current but grave errors touching both the spirit 
 of Christianity and its view of property as a legal and 
 economic institution. 
 
 (b) So, too, early Christian aloofness from society 
 was not in the main due to **other-worldliness" of 
 spirit in the sense of a dualistic attitude to life under 
 material conditions, or a bias against normal bodily 
 enjoyment of any kind. This is totally foreign to 
 Christ ^s own attitude to Nature and human life. No 
 doubt there was an *^ ascetic" element in His practice 
 as determined by His special mission, and also in His 
 teaching to others in so far as they were called to share 
 the urgent task of preaching the Gospel of the King- 
 dom as at hand. Eelative to such functions property 
 was but a clog. Yet all were not called to *Hake up 
 their Cross" of self-denial in the same way: there was 
 a normal life of labour in gaining for one's self and 
 others the daily bread which was in no way depreci- 
 ated. Only superfluity is regarded as a clogging in- 
 fluence, as it grows to actual ** wealth" and promotes 
 the temper which 'trusts in" riches and their plea- 
 sures. And this, broadly speaking, was also the atti- 
 tude of primitive Christianity, so long as it was deter- 
 mined by the Biblical type of piety proper to its Pales- 
 tinian home. It was only when it passed out into the 
 Graeco-Eoman world that another type of asceticism, 
 foreign in origin, began subtly to blend with the older 
 type of self -discipline with the positive intent of spirit- 
 ual freedom, through simplicity of bodily desires, for 
 service of God and man in love. But apart from this 
 secondary development, which as time went on as- 
 sumed immense dimensions and had far-reaching is- 
 sues, the early Christian spirit towards material con- 
 ditions was not ** other-worldly"; for the scene of the 
 
118 PEOPEETY 
 
 Kingdom of God was to be this earth, transformed in- 
 deed in such a way as to remove all sin and evil, yet 
 the material home of a life in human society not essen- 
 tially other than might be experienced here and now 
 within the new Christian community, with its purified 
 social order. The Lord's Prayer embodies this con- 
 ception of the Kingdom unmistakably, and contains in 
 the order and emphasis of its petitions, including that 
 for daily bread, the principles of the new social idea. 
 The claims of the Heavenly Father and His will are 
 regulative from beginning to end. Over against such 
 an ideal of human life the existing pagan order of 
 society was alien in spirit; and as such it seemed be- 
 yond the hope of renovation by human efforts, how- 
 ever inspired, rather than by sudden Divine cataclysm, 
 of which the fall of the hostile Jewish State seemed 
 the first stage. 
 
 But this foreshortened perspective of the King- 
 dom's history on earth began slowly to recede into the 
 background of the Christian consciousness, from the 
 date of the publication of the Fourth Gospel, with its 
 emphasis on ** Eternal Life" as already present in its 
 essential factors ; and for a time Christians were sadly 
 perplexed between the older and the newer outlook. 
 In some circles the transition was quicker than in others. 
 But the tendency was inevitable; and before the end 
 of the third century the estimate of existing society, 
 as embodying an order that might yet be leavened 
 throughout, began to grow more positive, and was fur- 
 ther enhanced by the adhesion of the imperial head of 
 the State. Thus the sense of the alien nature of the 
 social organism amidst which the Church lived and 
 had its being tended to pass away during the fourth 
 century, as the Empire became more and more Chris- 
 tian in profession, and paganism lost formal control 
 
BIBLICAL IDEA OF PEOPERTY 119 
 
 of society and its customs, while Christian bishops 
 gained ever more influence and even legal authority in 
 the world of affairs and of social custom. Filled with 
 wonder and gratitude at this broad reversal of con- 
 ditionsj Christians neglected to criticize economic and 
 social institutions closely in the light of the Gospel. 
 No doubt the change tended on the whole to a more 
 responsible and Christian use of property in various 
 ways, particularly in the ameliorating of the servile 
 lot, though slavery as such w^as not as a rule opposed 
 on Christian principle. But on the whole a great 
 chance v/as missed ; and the social order, remaining at 
 this crucial point unadjusted to the full spirit of the 
 Gospel of Divine Fatherhood and Human Brother- 
 hood, came to react adversely on Christian ideals of 
 property generally. Broadly speaking, the idea of 
 property as a social and economic institution really 
 remained pagan and, so far as embodied in law, Roman 
 in its spirit and presuppositions. 
 
 Nor is it hard to see how this should be so. The 
 very genius of Christianity laid the main stress upon 
 the spiritual or the intrinsic riches of the soul, rather 
 than upon material conditions. Further j the historical 
 conditions of the Church's life for nearly three cen- 
 turies under the alien Empire, as already shown in 
 connexion with slavery, were such as to prevent the 
 natural extension of Christian thought from the pri- 
 mary to the secondary, yet influential, factors in man's 
 concrete life in society. Accordingly when it would 
 have become natural, with the changed relations of 
 Church and State, for the Christian conscience to take 
 upon itself fuller and wider responsibility for all social 
 conditions affecting the welfare of men, including their 
 mutual relations as equal before God and called to 
 live as brothers in co-operative justice and love, it did 
 
120 PEOPERTY 
 
 not rise to the height of its ethical ideal. There are 
 no signs that the Church of the fourth century had 
 or tended to create any new and constructive ideal of 
 social well-being even for its own members, much less 
 for the commonweal at large; while the economic as- 
 pects of the problem in any comprehensive sense lay 
 quite below the horizon of its thought. That is, it 
 simply shared the conventional ideas underlying the 
 existing economic order, and the hand-to-mouth meth- 
 ods of dealing with its anomalies and evils. 
 
 Why was this? Why did not the Christian con- 
 science concern itself more with such things, as it did 
 (within the limits then restricting its action) with 
 kindred evils in the early days of the Gospel? The 
 answer must be, at bottom, that its idea of the Gospel 
 itself had changed a good deal in emphasis. The old 
 ethical passion, where it existed, had been diverted in 
 the interval during which Christians had been largely 
 shut out from direct influence upon social conditions, 
 into largely different channels, especially those of self- 
 salvation by ascetic retreat from the world. The spirit 
 of moral initiative so characteristic of **faith'' in the 
 early personal sense, the faith which felt able and 
 bound to ** overcome the world," outside as well as in- 
 side its own bosom, was no longer prevalent ; and so no 
 fresh theory of what the social order should be made 
 by Christian influence dawned on it in power, and no 
 corresponding idea of property. Here, most of all, re- 
 treat from the normal social order on the part of the 
 most zealous souls, in the interests of a monastic ideaP^ 
 which meant despair of the leavening of society, was 
 disastrous both in practice and in theory. It meant 
 a virtual dualism between true religious life and duty, 
 
 32 Though that ideal itself included communal ownership in place of 
 private property, as is pointed out in the next Essay. 
 
BIBLICAL IDEA OF PEOPEETY 121 
 
 on the one hand, and civic and economic life on the 
 other. The latter sphere was thns in principle left to 
 go its own way according to its own secular and selfish 
 laws, as a system ontside the redemptive control of 
 Christian motives and methods, yet a system in which 
 Christians were involved and for the hmnan issnes of 
 which they could not bnt be largely responsible. Such 
 a secession of ^*the religious" par excellence could not 
 but hinder the growth of a truly constructive theory of 
 societVj and of property as relative thereto ; and could 
 not but prevent the rise of a Christian public opinion 
 adequate to originate and maintain any far-reaching 
 economic reform. Finally, at the close of the fourth 
 century, a definite theological doctrine, tending to sup- 
 port such practical pessimism touching the possibility 
 of justice, in the fuU sense, in ordinary civic relations, 
 added its weight to the negative scale. 
 
 But apart from the tendency of the Latin doctrine 
 of Original Sin, as applied to civil society, to obscure 
 the sacredness of its essential or ideal ends, the very 
 idea of the petition *^Thy kingdom come. Thy will be 
 done on earth as it is in heaven,'' was already fading 
 from current Christian thought and endeavour in 
 any comprehensive social sense. Therewith the true 
 Christian idea of property passed largely into abey- 
 ance ; nor have conditions equally favourable to its re- 
 emergence returned since then until now. Is it too 
 much to hope that our own age, with its conscious 
 jeffort to return, through past experience, and in an 
 historic spirit which allows for the relative elements 
 in primitive Christianity, to the essential ideals of the 
 Gospel of Jesus Christ for mankind at large, may take 
 a long step towards working out the bearings of those 
 ideals on Property, as a large factor in the task of 
 iSocial betterment? 
 
122 PEOPEETY 
 
 The note of religion is responsibility ; and the genins 
 of Christian religion, as we have seen, is a sense of the 
 sovereign worth of hnman personality as compared 
 with all else in life. This implies the duty of having 
 all things in harmony with the interests of persons, 
 not only in the disposal of wealth and the opportunities 
 it affords, bnt also in the ways by which it is acquired, 
 as these aif ect the persons employed as means to eco- 
 nomic ends. Between competing human interests in 
 this sphere God is the supreme arbiter, as He is also 
 the real creator and owner of all wealth, whether ma- 
 terial or mental; and into His ears enters the cry of 
 them that are overreached in the co-operative business 
 of utilizing His gifts. The unsolved problem, then, for 
 Christian civilization in particular, is how to do justice,! 
 as between persons in the use of the wealth which is-! 
 now so adequate in the gross for the needs of all mem- 
 bers of the social commonwealth. The answer to this 
 problem turns largely on a thoughtfully just idea of 
 Property and its social implications, matters on which 
 further data emerge in the course of other essays in 
 this volume. 
 
THE THEOEY OF PEOPEETY IN 
 MEDIAEVAL THEOLOGY 
 
 BY 
 
 The Rev. A. J. CARLYLE, D.Litt. 
 
 CHAPLx^IT? AND LECTURER IN POLITICAL SCIENCE AND ECONOMICS, 
 UNIVERSITY COLIvEGE, OXFORD 
 
SUMMARY 
 
 I. The conception of the New Testament and the early Fathers rep- 
 resents the principle of the claims of the Brotherhood. Permanence 
 of the conception, which is represented by the organized charity of the 
 Christian Church. 
 
 We are here concerned with the nature of the theory of property 
 which lay behind this, as it was developed by the later Fathers and 
 mediaeval writers. 
 
 II. Mediaeval theory founded mainly on that of the great Fathers. 
 The form of this derived primarily from the later philosophical theory 
 
 of the ancient world. 
 
 The distinction between nature and convention. 
 
 The Fathers held that by nature all things are common, that private 
 property is the result of avarice, but also a restraint upon it. 
 
 Private property is lawful, but the common right remains, and is 
 represented by the obligation to maintain the needy. 
 
 Almsgiving is an action of justice, not merely of mercy. 
 
 Private property is the creation of the State, and belongs to positive 
 law, and is limited by its utility. 
 
 Summary of the Patristic theory. 
 
 III. The Patristic principles furnish the substance of the mediaeval 
 theory. 
 
 The Canonists held that private property belonged to the law of 
 custom and institution, not to the law of nature. 
 
 By the law of nature all things are common, and this principle was 
 represented in the primitive Church and in the theory of Plato. 
 
 Private property is the creation of the State. 
 
 St. Thomas Aquinas's treatment of the origin of property more 
 complex. 
 
 Distinction between the right to acquire and distribute, and the right 
 to use. 
 
 In the first sense private property is legitimate and necessary, in 
 the second sense a man must hold it as for the common use. 
 
 The influence of Aristotle on St. Thomas. 
 
 Private property not an institution of the natural law, but not 
 contrary to it. 
 
 St. Thomas's theory of the rights of property the same aa that of 
 the Fathers and the other mediaeval writers. 
 
 St. Peter Damian's phrase that the rich are dispensatores, not pos- 
 sessores. 
 
 The Canonists held that no man has a right to more than he needs, 
 but recognize that some may need more than others. 
 
 St, Thomas's view is the same: almsgiving is an act of mercy in its 
 intention, but is also a matter of obligation. He goes indeed so far 
 as to maintain that in case of necessity a man may take what he needs. 
 
 In case of necessity all things are common. 
 
 IV. Such conceptions are in some ways far removed from ours. 
 
 We have transcended the sharp opposition between the natural and 
 the conventional. 
 
 We recognize the organic process of the development of institutions, 
 and the relation of private property to individuality. But the medi- 
 aeval conceptions are not unmeaning. We recognize the unity of life, 
 and the truth of the conception of a common right. 
 
 This is the meaning of the principle of brotherhood, and is the true 
 guide to social regulation and action. 
 
 124 
 
V 
 
 THE THEORY OF PROPERTY IN 
 MEDIAEVAL THEOLOGY 
 
 The last essay has drawn out the conception of the 
 nature of property as it is presented in the Old and 
 New Testaments and in the writings of the early 
 Fathers. It is clear that their conception of the nature 
 and rights of property was controlled by the principle 
 of the claims of the Brotherhood, and expressed itself- 
 in the administration of help to those who were in 
 need. This conception never died out in the Christian 
 Church. It would, indeed, be impossible to deal with 
 this subject completely without taking into account the 
 history of charity, or almsgiving, in the Christian 
 Church. In our day we are, no doubt, very conscious 
 of the great difficulties which surround this subject, 
 difficulties so great and serious that there are some 
 w^ho thinlc that the time is rapidly approaching when 
 this function of the organized Christian Society must 
 be, at any rate in large measure, transferred to other 
 organizations. But whatever may be the truth of this, 
 we should fall into a complete misconception of our 
 subject if we even for a moment forgot that the 
 Church, from the days of the Apostles down to our 
 own times, has looked upon the help and maintenance 
 of the needy as among the first of the obligations of 
 the religious life, and that this principle has been rep- 
 
 125 
 
126 PEOPERTY 
 
 resented by an immense network of institutions, and 
 by the constant practice of Christian people. 
 
 We are, however, now concerned primarily with the 
 conception of the nature of property which has lain 
 behind these habits and institutions; and this essay 
 attempts very briefly to set out the substance of these 
 principles as they were conceived in the Middle Ages. 
 
 The theory of the Middle Ages is founded upon the 
 theory of property as it was set forth in the writings 
 of the great Fathers from the fourth to the seventh 
 century, and it is therefore to them that we must first 
 turn our attention. As we shall presently see in more 
 detail the theory of these Fathers represents not 
 merely the influence of the New Testament and the 
 sense of the Christian Brotherhood, but is related to 
 the general principles of current philosophical theory 
 in the later centuries of the ancient world. Indeed, it 
 has not yet been sufficiently understood in how great a 
 degree the intellectual conceptions of the Fathers and 
 of the Middle Ages take their form and even their 
 substance from the general thought of these centuries. 
 The philosophical conceptions of the great Fathers 
 have always their specifically Christian character ; but 
 the general education of these Fathers — and they be- 
 longed to what we may call the educated classes — fur- 
 nished the forms into which they threw their distinc- 
 tive conceptions, and, in the matter of social and politi- 
 cal theory, much of the substance of their theory. 
 
 If we were to attempt to find a phrase which might 
 represent the form of their theory, we might say that 
 it lies in the distinction between nature and convention. 
 In order to understand this distinction we must bear in 
 mind that nature, in the later centuries of the ancient 
 world, means primarily, not the perfection of a thing. 
 
 ■■J 
 
IN MEDIAEVAL THEOLOGY 127 
 
 as it does in Aristotle, but the primitive or original 
 form of a thing ; while the phrase also usually conveys 
 the suggestion that this primitive or original form has 
 some continuing superiority over the conventional in- 
 stitution or custom which has grown out of it ; or more 
 accurately perhaps, that the natural represents some- 
 thing essential, which may be modified for practical 
 purposes by the conventional, but cannot be wholly set 
 aside. This will become clear as we consider the de- 
 tails of the theory of property. 
 
 The most arresting aspect of the patristic theory of 
 property is well illustrated by such phrases as those 
 of St. Ambrose, when he says that nature produced all 
 things for the common use of all men, that nature pro- 
 duced the common right of property, but usurpation 
 the private right; or again that God wished the earth 
 to be the common possession of all men, to produce its 
 fruits for ail men, but avarice created, the rights of 
 property.^ These phrases represent the normal stand- 
 point of the later Fathers.^ 
 
 What does this mean? At first sight it might seem 
 to be an assertion of Communism, a denunciation of 
 private property as a thing which is sinful and unlaw- 
 ful. But this is not what the Fathers mean. There 
 can be little doubt that we find the source of these 
 words of St. Ambrose in such a phrase as that of 
 Cicero, **Sunt autem privata nulla natura,"^ and in 
 the Stoic tradition which is represented in one of 
 Seneca's letters, where he describes the primitive life 
 in which men lived together in peace and happiness, 
 when there was no system of coercive government and 
 no private property, and says that men passed out of 
 
 1 St. Ambrose, De offtcUs, i. 28 ; Comm. on Ps. cxviii. 8. 22. 
 
 2 Cf . Ambrosiaster, Comm. on 2 Cor. ix. 9 ; St. Gregory the Great, 
 Liher Regulae Pastoralis, iii. 21. 
 
 3 Cicero, De officiis, i. 7. 
 
128 PROPERTY 
 
 these primitive conditions as their first innocence dis- 
 appeared, as they became avaricious and dissatisfied 
 with the common enjoyment of the good things of the 
 world, and desired to hold them as their private pos- 
 sessions.* 
 
 Here we have the qnasi-philosophical theory from 
 which the patristic conception is derived. When men 
 were innocent there was no need for private property^ 
 or the other great conventional institutions of society; 
 but as this innocence passed away, they found them- 
 selves compelled to organize society and to devise in- 
 stitutions which should regulate the ownership and 
 use of the good things which men had once held in com- 
 mon. The institution of property thus represents both 
 the fall of man from his primitive innocence, the greed 
 and avarice which refused to recognize the common 
 ownership of things, and also the method by which the 
 blind greed of human nature may be controlled and 
 regulated. It is this ambiguous origin of the institu- 
 tion which explains how the Fathers could hold that 
 private property was not natural, that it grew out of 
 men's sinful and vicious desires, and at the same time 
 that it was a legitimate institution. For it must be 
 clearly understood that they do maintain this. St. 
 Augustine puts this very clearly in several passages 
 of his writings, and he represents the general consent 
 of the Fathers.^ 
 
 This does not, however, mean that the principle that 
 private property was a thing contrary to nature had a 
 merely theoretical importance. On the contrary, it is, 
 I think, clear that the Fathers adopted this quasi- 
 philosophical theory so readily, not only because it 
 
 * Seneca, Epistles, xiv. 2. 
 
 5 Cf . St. Augustine, Contra Adimantum, xx. 2; De morihus Ecclesiae 
 GathoUcae, i. 35; St. Ambrose, Epist. Ixiii. 92; St. Hilary of Poitiers, 
 Comm. on Matt. xix. 9; Salvian, Ad Ecclesiam, i. 7. 
 
IN MEDIAEVAL THEOLOGY 129 
 
 mav have been the doctrine of the schools in which 
 they were educated, but also because it fitted in very 
 well with the traditions which they derived from the 
 New Testament and the Early Church, the tradition 
 that a man must help his brother who is in need. These 
 Fathers are clear that though the institution of private 
 property is lawful, yet the claims of all those who are 
 in want continue to be valid. This principle is admir- 
 ably represented in one of those passages from St. 
 Ambrose ^s writings to which reference has already 
 been made. 
 
 It was the will of God, he says, that the earth should 
 be the common possession of all men, and should fur- 
 nish its fruits to all, it was avarice which created the 
 rights of property; it is therefore just that the man 
 who claims for his private ownership that wiiich was 
 given to the human race in common, should at least 
 distribute some of this to the poor.^ It is very signifi- 
 cant that St. Ambrose treats charity or almsgiving as 
 an action of justice, and this conception is set out very 
 clearly by other Christian writers. Ambrosiaster, for 
 instance, as the previous essay has pointed out, deals 
 with the matter in a very significant phrase when he 
 says that this act of mercy, that is, almsgiving, is called 
 justice, for God gave all things in common to all men ; 
 he is, therefore, a just man who does not retain for 
 himself alone that which he knows was given to all : all 
 things are God's, and God who gives them commands 
 us to give of them to those who are in need ; this is 
 justice, that, as it is God who gives, a man should give 
 again to him who needs.'' And St. Gregory lends his 
 great authority to this principle, for he says that, when 
 we minister the necessaries of life to those who are in 
 
 « St, Ambrose, Oomm. on Ps. cxviii. 8. 22. 
 7 Ambrosiaster, Cormru. on 2 Cor. ix. 9. 
 
130 PEOPERTY 
 
 want, we render to them that which is their oa\ti, we 
 do not give what is ours ; we are discharging an obliga- 
 tion of justice rather than doing an act of mercyc^ 
 
 This principle, that almsgiving is an act of justice 
 rather than of mercy, is very significant, and forms a 
 very important element in the patristic conception of 
 the nature of property. It is true that the word jus- 
 tice was difficult to define then, as at other times; but 
 we shall probably not be far wrong if we suppose that 
 to the Fathers its meaning was very much the same as 
 that which is expressed in the formal definition of 
 Ulpian: ^'Justitia est constans et perpetua voluntas 
 ju suum cuique tribuendi. ' '^ To act justly is to give 
 a man that which belongs to him. When, therefore, 
 the Fathers say that almsgiving is an act of justice, 
 there is little doubt that they mean that the man who 
 is in need has a legitimate right to claim for his need 
 that which is to another man a superfluity. As we 
 shall see, this conception became very important when 
 the mediaeval writers attempted to reduce these prin- 
 ciples to a systematic form. 
 
 One great Father, St. Augustine, has also left us a 
 detailed account of the more immediate origin of prop- 
 erty rights. Property in his view is the creation of 
 the State. This is quite consistent with the more gen- 
 eral conception of its origin in the conventional system 
 of life which men^s vices have made necessary. For 
 the first and most general of these conventions of men, 
 when they lost their original innocence, was the co- 
 ercive State itself ; and as it was its function, from the 
 standpoint of the philosophical system in which St. 
 Augustine was trained, to impose some order upon the 
 chaos of the warring passions and desires of human 
 nature, so especially was it the function of the State to 
 
 8 St. Gregory the Great, Lib. Reg. Post, iii. 21. 9 Digest, i. I, 10. 
 
IN MEDIAEVAL THEOLOGY 131 
 
 decide between the conflicting claims of individuals to 
 the possession and enjoyment of property. 
 
 St. Augustine holds that private property is the cre- 
 ation of the State and exists only in virtue of the pro- 
 tection of the State. To some Donatists who, not un- 
 naturally, objected to the confiscation of their property 
 in the interests of the Catholics, he replies by asking 
 by what law they held their property, by human or 
 divine law; and he answers the question himself, and 
 says that it is only by human law that a man can say, 
 ^*This is my house, ^' or **This man is my slave.'' It 
 is the law of the Emperor upon which is founded any 
 right of property : it is idle therefore for the Donatists 
 to say, ^^Wliat have we to do with the Emperor?" If 
 you take away the laws of the Emperor, who could 
 say This is my house, or This is my slave V^ In another 
 place he very contemptuously sets aside the claim of 
 the Donatists to hold as their property that which they 
 had accumulated by their labours." In other passages 
 he maintains that the right of property is limited by the 
 use to wiiich it is put, a man who does not use his prop- 
 erty rightly has no real or valid claim to it.^^ It is 
 clear that St. Augustine regarded private property as 
 being normally a creation, not of the divine, but of 
 the positive law, and as subject to the determination of 
 the State, and limited by the degree of its utility. 
 
 If we now attempt to put together these patristic 
 principles with regard to property, w^e find that they 
 represent a coherent system of thought, important in 
 its practical significance, however inadequate it may 
 seem when regarded from the standpoint of a strictly 
 scientific examination of the nature of the institution. 
 
 These theories are intelligible only when brought 
 
 10 St. Augustine, Tract VI. in Joannis Eixing. 25. 
 
 11 St. Augustine, Epist. xciii. II. 
 
 12 St. Augustine, Epist. cliii. 6; Bermo, 1. 2. 
 
132 PKOPEETY l 
 
 into relation with that fundamental conception of the i 
 contrast between the natural and the conventional to 
 which reference has already been made. This view 
 is the opposite of that of Locke, that private property 
 is an institution of natural law, and arises out of labour. 
 To the Fathers the only natural condition is that of 
 common ownership and individual use. The world was 
 made for the common benefit of mankind, that all 
 should receive from it what they require. They admit, 
 however, that human nature being what it is, greedy, 
 avaricious, and vicious, it is impossible for men to live 
 normally under the condition of common ownership. 
 This represents the more perfect way of life, and this 
 principle was represented in the organization of the 
 monastic life, as it gradually took shape. For mankind 
 in general, some organization of ownership became 
 necessary, and this was provided by the State and its 
 laws, which have decided the conditions and limitations 
 of ownership. Private property is therefore prac- 
 tically the creation of the State, and is defined, limited, 
 and changed by the State. 
 
 While, however, the Fathers recognize the legal right 
 of private property, as a suitable and necessary con- 
 cession to human infirmity, a necessary check upon 
 human vice, they are also clear that from the religious 
 and moral standpoint the position of private property 
 is somewhat different. The conventional organization 
 of life is legitimate, but the natural law is not only 
 primitive, but also remains in some sense supreme. 
 Whatever conventional organization may be found nec- 
 essary for the practical adjustment of human affiairs, 
 the ultimate nature of things still holds good. Private 
 property is allowed, but only in order to avoid the 
 danger of violence and confusion; and the institution 
 cannot override the natural right of a man to obtain 
 
IN MEDIAEVAL THEOLOGY 133 
 
 what lie needs from the abundance of that which the 
 earth brings forth. This is what the Fathers mean 
 wlmn they call the maintenance of the needy an act of 
 justice, not of mercy : for it is justice to give to a man 
 that which is his own, and the needy have a moral 
 right to what they require. We shall have to discuss 
 the question further when we turn to the theory of 
 property in the Canon Law and in the Schoolmen, 
 [n the meantime it is clear that the Fathers, while they 
 ievelop the theory of property in relation to the 
 philosophical views of the schools, do still under these 
 terms maintain the principles which are characteristic 
 yl the New Testament. The new conditions of the 
 Christian Empire had actually transformed, or per- 
 verted, the original conditions of the Christian broth- 
 srhood, but its principles remained the same. 
 
 When we now turn to the mediaeval theory of 
 property, we find that the patristic principles furnish 
 much of its form and substance. One of the most 
 characteristic and representative phrases of the 
 Middle Ages is that in which Gratian, the great com- 
 piler of the Canon Law in the twelfth century, illus- 
 trates the distinction between the law of nature and 
 custom, or positive law, in relation to property. By 
 the law of nature, he says, all things are common 
 to all men: and this principle was observed by those 
 Christians of whom it is written, in the Acts of the 
 Apostles, that the multitude of those who believed 
 were of one heart and soul. This principle had also 
 been handed down by the philosophers, and thus in 
 the writings of Plato the most just state was so or- 
 dered that no man had merely personal desires : it is . 
 only by the law of custom or of institution that this 
 is mine and that is another 's.^^ 
 
 13 Gratian, Deci'etum, D. viii. Part I. 
 
134 PEOPEETY 
 
 This does not mean, in Gratian any more than in 
 the Fathers, that private property is not lawful, but. 
 only that it is an accommodation to the imperfect orj 
 vicions character of hnman nature. If men were per- 
 fectly good it would be unnecessary; and it is worth 
 noticing that he looked upon the primitive Christian; 
 community as illustrating the ideal temper, and relates 
 this to the conception that in the ideal State things 
 might be so ordered that this private appropriation 
 of things would be unnecessary. Actually private 
 property is the creation of the State, and Gratian re- 
 peats the phrases of. St. Augustine in which this is 
 set out.^* 
 
 These principles are related to, but modified in, 
 the more developed treatment of the subject by St. 
 Thomas Aquinas. He is anxious both to explain the 
 origin and justification of private property, and to 
 determine more clearly its limitations. In the Stimma 
 Theologica he discusses the question with character- 
 istic fulness and precision, and sets out a distinction 
 in the nature of property which he conceives to be 
 fundamental ; that is, the distinction between property 
 regarded as a right to acquire and to distribute and 
 property regarded as a right to use for one's self. In 
 the first sense he recognizes property as legitimate and 
 necessary, because men are more diligent in labouring 
 for that which is to belong to themselves than for that 
 which is to belong to all; because human affairs will 
 be better ordered if each has his own particular work 
 to do in procuring things ; and because human life wiU 
 thus be more peaceable, for there are constant quar- 
 rels among those who hold things in common. In the 
 second sense he refuses to recognize a private right in 
 property, for a man must hold those things which are 
 
 1* Gratian, Deoretuniy D. viii. I. 
 
IN MEDIAEVAL THEOLOGY 135 
 
 Ms as for the common use, he must minister of what 
 he has to the necessities of others.^^ 
 
 We shall probably be right in connecting his treat- 
 ment of private property with his study of Aristotle, 
 for the arguments in the Summa are closely related to 
 his notes on the second book of the Politics.^^ St. 
 Thomas is, indeed, so much influenced by Aristotle ^s 
 conception of nature and the State that he is no longer 
 ready to admit that the great institutions of society 
 are contrary to natural law. To him the State is a 
 natural institution, for man is by nature a political 
 animal, and this principle extends to a great institu- 
 tion like private property. It is not, indeed, an insti- 
 tution of the natural law, but it is not contrary to it, 
 it is a thing added to the natural law by human 
 reason.^^ 
 
 St. Thomas Aquinas 's modification of the patristic 
 theory is important; how far it governed the later 
 mediaeval conceptions it would be difficult to say. 
 Speaking broadly, his adoption of the Aristotelian 
 conception of nature and the State had little perma- 
 nent influence, for the theory of the conventional na- 
 ture of organized society was too firmly rooted to be 
 shaken, even by his authority, and the patristic and 
 Stoic principle continued to dominate political theory 
 till the end of the eighteenth century. 
 
 When we turn to his conception of the rights of 
 property we find little difference between the tradi- 
 tional principles of the Fathers and mediaeval writers 
 in general and those of St. Thomas Aquinas. There 
 is an interesting treatment of this topic in one of the 
 smaller treatises of St. Peter Damian in the eleventh 
 
 15 St. Thomas Aquinas, SumTYia Theol. 2, 2, Qu. 66, 2. 
 
 16 St. Thomas Aquinas, Comm. on Aristotle's Politics ii. Lectio 4. 
 
 17 St. Thomas Aquinas, Surivma Theol. 2, 2, Qu. 66, 2. 
 
136 PEOPEETY 
 
 century. Men who are ricli, he says, are dispensatores 
 rather than possessores; they should not reckon that 
 which they have to be their own; they have not re- 
 ceived their temporal goods merely to be consumed 
 in their own use, but are to act as administrators of 
 these goods/^ This is no doubt related to the tradition 
 represented by the Fathers in passages to which we 
 have already referred, in which they maintain that it 
 is just that those who receive from the Lord should 
 use what they have for the common good. 
 
 The Fathers, as we have seen, held that almsgiving 
 was an act of justice, not of mercy, because the rights 
 of private property cannot alter the fact that God 
 meant the earth to furnish its fruits for the maiii 
 tenance of all men. The Canonists, too, set out very 
 clearly the principle that no man has really the right 
 to hold for himself more than he needs. Gratian cites, 
 as from St. Ambrose, a passage denouncing as unjust 
 and avaricious the man who consumes in luxury what 
 might have supplied the needs of those who are in 
 want, and maintaining that it is as great a crime to 
 refuse the necessaries of life to those who are in want 
 as it is to take from a man the things which are his. 
 In another place he refers to a saying which he attrib- 
 utes to St. Jerome, that a man who keeps for himself 
 more than he needs, is guilty of taking that which be- 
 longs to another.^® These are far-reaching principles, 
 but there are some qualifying phrases. In another 
 place Gratian quotes a passage from St. Augustine, 
 in which he urges that the needs of different people 
 vary, that the rich are not to be required to use the 
 same food as the poor, but may have such food as 
 their infirmity has made necessary for them, while at 
 
 18 St. Peter Damian, Opttsculum, ix. 
 
 19 Gratian, Deer. D. xlvii. 8. 3; D, xlii, Part I. 
 
IN MEDIAEVAL THEOLOGY 137 
 
 the same time they ought to lament the fact that they 
 require this indulgence.^^ 
 
 It is no doubt in this tradition that we must look for 
 the origin of that sharp distinction which, as we have 
 Already said, St. Thomas Aquinas makes between 
 roperty as the right of distribution of things, and 
 fownership regarded as an unlimited right to use for 
 Ipne's self. St. Thomas maintains that private prop- 
 lerty is lawful and not contrary to nature, but that 
 fprivate rights cannot override the common right of 
 Iparikind to the necessaries of life. In discussing the 
 inature of almsgiving he argues that it is an action 
 iwhich belongs to love (Charitas) and mercy in its 
 jspiritual character or intention, but it is also a matter 
 of obligation {in praecepto) ; for temporal possessions 
 are indeed private as regards ownership, but not as 
 regards their use : as regards use, so far as they are 
 superfluities, they belong to others who have need of 
 them. He admits, however, that the distinction be- 
 tween the necessaries and the superfluities of life de- 
 pends largely upon the conditions of a man's life.^^ 
 
 Thus his view of the nature of the rights of prop- 
 erty is substantially the same as that of the Fathers 
 and Canonists ; but he draws from it a conclusion 
 which Gratian does not set out, and which indeed he 
 may have intended to condemn. Gratian, in discussing 
 the question how" far alms may be given from prop- 
 erty unlawfully acquired, quotes a passage from St. 
 Augustine which severely condemns the notion that a 
 Irawa may steal from rich and avaricious persons, and 
 give what is stolen to the poor.^^ St. Thomas, on the 
 I contrary, maintains that as human law cannot over- 
 
 20 Gratian, Deer. D. xli. 3. 
 
 21 St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa TheoL 2, 2 ; Qu. 32, 1, 5, 6. 
 
 22 Gratian, Deer. C. xiv. Q. 5, 3. 
 
138 PEOPEETY 
 
 turn natural and Divine law, and as material, or in-- 
 ferior, things were made to supply men's necessities,, 
 if there is evident and urgent need, a man may legiti-- 
 mately take either openly or by stealth what he needs, , 
 and it is even legitimate in such cases that one man. 
 should take another man's property to help him whoj, 
 is in want. In the case of extreme necessity, Bt\ 
 Thomas says, all things are common.^ 
 
 23 
 
 Such in outline ar^ the conceptions of property held 
 by the Christian Fathers and the mediaeval Canonists 
 and Schoolmen. We are dealing with conceptions 
 which are in some respects far removed from ours* 
 In the modern world we have transcended the sharp 
 opposition between the natural and the conventional, 
 on which the patristic and canonical theory is based, 
 we recognize the organic process of the development 
 of institutions and ideas, and cannot be satisfied with 
 any treatment of private property which looks upon it , 
 as a mere mechanical contrivance of the State for the" 
 correction of men's vices, but rather recognize in the 
 development of the individual relation to things an 
 aspect of the development of individuality itself. 
 
 The mediaeval conceptions are not, therefore, in- 
 significant and unmeaning. We are coming to under- 
 stand that the development of the idea of individuality ' 
 is not to be conceived of as something opposed to the 
 conception of the solidarity or unity of human life, 
 but as something which is unmeaning and sterile,! 
 unless it is reconciled with it. The patristic and' 
 mediaeval conception of property as requiring the rec- 
 ognition of a common as well as an individual right, 
 does really correspond with our experience and our 
 principles, and we find in the interpretation of this, 
 
 23 St. Thomas Aquinas, 8umma Theol. 2, 2 ; Qu. 66, 7, and Q. 32, 7. 
 
IN MEDIAEVAL THEOLOGY 139 
 
 under the Christian terms of the brotherhood of men, 
 the true gnide to our regulation of life. To us also 
 it is clear that it is impossible to assent to the notion 
 that there are unrestricted and absolute rights in 
 property. It is true that the existence of private 
 property is based upon the recognition and protection 
 of the State, and this is not arbitrary or unreasoned, 
 for it is related to something which has its roots in 
 the character and needs of human nature; but this 
 recognition is and must be determined in its form and 
 extent by the experience of what is socially and in- 
 dividually useful and beneficial. The Christian prin- 
 ciple that a man holds his property not only for his 
 own use, but as a trust for the good of the brother- 
 hood, is not only valid in the abstract, but does in the 
 long run remain the true guide to social regulation 
 and action. 
 
yi 
 
 rilE INFLUENCE OF THE KEFOEMATION 
 ON IDEAS CONCERNING WEALTH AND 
 PROPERTY 
 
 BY 
 
 H. a. WOOD, M.A. 
 
 lATE FELLOW OF JESUS COLLEGE, CAMBKIDQB 
 LECTURES AT WOODBEOOKE SETTLEMENT, BIEMINGHAM 
 
 141 
 
SUMMARY 
 
 Among the various embodiments of the influence of the Reformation, 
 Puritanism is selected for special study in this essay, on the ground 
 that the Puritan temper most powerfully influenced the business world. 
 The conceptions of the rights and duties of property which prevailed 
 among the early Puritans {i.e. among those who during the century 
 1560-1660 desired a national church more or less Presbyterian in char- 
 acter) are subjected to a somewhat detailed analysis. Richard Baxter, 
 who has with some truth been described as the last of these Puritans, 
 is taken as representative of the best traditions of his school, and in 
 his Christian Directory the emphasis is found to fall on the sacred 
 character of the institution of property and on the responsibilities of 
 personal stewardship. 
 
 Incidentally, an attempt is made to question the close connection 
 which is often assumed to exist between Puritanism and laissez-faire. 
 This connection is shown not to be so direct and complete as is some- 
 times supposed, at least so far as the earlier phases of the movement 
 are concerned. In Baxter, neither the guiding principle of the common 
 good nor the duty of government control is ignored. 
 
 The developments of the Puritan tradition in the eighteenth century 
 are next considered, together with the teachings which were under- 
 emphasised or altogether forgotten in the main body of Protestant 
 thought, but were welcomed by small groups and Sectarian movements. 
 
 The essay concludes with a brief survey of the influence of the 
 Evangelical Revival. 
 
 142 
 
VI 
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF THE EEFOEMATION 
 ON IDEAS CONCEENING WEALTH AND 
 PEOPERTY 
 
 In any attempt to describe the social teacMng char- 
 acteristic of the Eeformation it would seem natural 
 to start with the work of John Wyclif. Both in point 
 of form and in point of time Wyclif stands closest to 
 the great Scholastics, and the transition from Scho- 
 lastic to Eeformed attitudes of mind might best be 
 studied in his writings. Yet even in tracing the in- 
 fluence of reforming principles in England— and it is 
 to English thought that the present study is almost 
 entirely confined — the work of John Wyclif may prove 
 not to be the true starting-point. One general con- 
 sideration is of importance here. Though the Eef- 
 ormation in England owed much to the Lollard 
 movement, the great leaders from William Tyndale on- 
 v/ards were not, strictly speaking, Wyclif 's followers. 
 The great impetus towards reform came from the 
 Continent, first from Luther and then from Calvin.^ 
 Particularly in regard to property, the teaching of 
 Wyclif found but little echo in the literature of the 
 Tudor period. Even the suppression of the monas- 
 teries, which might be considered as a direct appli- 
 
 1 Compare D. Campbell, The Puritan in Holland, England, and Amer- 
 ica, where the interesting thesis is defended, that English history is 
 not a record of steady progress, but of spasmodic response to foreign 
 influence. In respect of the Reformation this is largely true. 
 
 143 
 
144 PEOPEETY 
 
 cation of that teaching, was seldom defended by an 
 appeal to the Oxford scholar. Moreover, Troeltsch 
 is surely right in classing LoUardy with the many 
 sectarian movements that marked the close of the 
 Middle Ages.^ Though in theory Wyclif demanded 
 **a reform of Christendom, which should embrace the 
 State and Society,'' yet when he sent forth poor 
 priests who might not hold benefices, but who were to 
 organize little groups on a voluntary basis, he prac- 
 tically abandoned the idea of the Church as an organ- 
 ization coextensive with civil society. Now Lutheran 
 and Calvinist alike retained their hold on this latter 
 idea, and similarly Anglicans and early Puritans, the 
 English counterparts to Lutheran and Calvinist, 
 agreed in striving for a Christian society in which 
 State and Church should be coterminous, in opposi- 
 tion to the sects which conceived the Church as the 
 separated company of the saints. It is among these 
 sects that the closest analogies with Wyclif 's doctrine 
 of property are to be found. Consequently, any dis- 
 cussion of his positions may be postponed until the 
 main stream of Eeformation thought in England has 
 been considered. 
 
 Puritanism is rightly regarded as the most repre- 
 sentative interpretation of Protestant morality among 
 English-speaking peoples. The great contribution 
 which the Puritan temper made to the industrial de- 
 velopment of Great Britain is now generally recog- 
 nized.^ In so far as our dominant ideas as to the 
 
 2 See Troeltsch, Die Soziallehren der christlichen Kirchen, pp. 393- 
 401. This masterly work came to my notice too late for this essay to 
 derive full benefit from it. 
 
 3 Compare the sketch of the influence of the Reformation in Marshall's 
 Prijwiples of Economics, 5th ed., pp. 742-44, which sets the matter in 
 its true perspective. The whole subject has been handled more in detail 
 in the writings of Max Weber and Troeltsch, and still more recently 
 by Hermann Levy in his book Economic Liberalism. 
 
AND THE EEFORMATION 145 
 
 rights and duties of property rest on a religions basis 
 or retain a religions sanction, they seem to be linked 
 np chiefly with Puritan teaching. This reason alone 
 might suffice to justify the selection of Puritanism for 
 preferential treatment in this chapter. But the choice 
 is the less irnddious inasmuch as there is no great gulf 
 fixed between Anglican and Puritan, so far as moral 
 instruction regarding wealth is concerned. Richard 
 Baxter may be taken as representative of the early 
 Puritans— the men who desired an established Church 
 more or less modelled on Geneva. As a moralist, 
 Baxter will be found to agree in the main with the 
 English Reformers of the Tudor period, and also with 
 such of his Anglican contemporaries as handled ethi- 
 cal questions. Consequently, in its early phases, Puri- 
 tanism on this side embodies most of what is distinc- 
 tive of reformed opinion in England; while in its 
 later stage it coalesced with the sects, some of which 
 emphasized elements of Christian teaching which the 
 more conservative reform movement was apt to ignore. 
 A study of Puritanism will therefore bring out most 
 easily the nature of the influence which the Reforma- 
 tion exerted on ideas concerning wealth and property. 
 The net effect of the Puritan movement on the use 
 of wealth has often been sununed up as the assertion 
 of greater individual liberty. Under Puritan influ- 
 ence, it is alleged, the Christian was set free from 
 the imperfect but perceptible control of the Catholic 
 Church, and left to take his own line in regard to his 
 wealth with little advice and less discipline. Puri- 
 tanism is the religious root of laissez-faire. Some 
 sentences from Archdeacon Cunningham set forth a 
 verdict of this kind. Speaking of the seventeenth 
 century he says: ** While there was a strong sense of 
 the religious duty of insisting on hard and regular 
 
146 PEOPERTY 
 
 work for the welfare, temporal and eternal, of the 
 people themselves, there was a complete indifference 
 to the need of laying down or enforcing any restric- 
 tions as to the employment of money. Capital was 
 much needed in England and still more in Scotland for 
 developing the resources of the country . . . freedom 
 for the formation and investment of capital seemed to 
 the thoughtful city men of the seventeenth century, 
 who were mostly in sympathy with Puritanism, the 
 best remedy for the existing social evils. They were 
 eager to get rid of the restrictions imposed by the 
 Pope's laws, which it was possible to bring up in 
 ecclesiastical courts, as well as to be free from the 
 efforts of the King's Council to bring home to the em- 
 ploying and mercantile classes their duty to the com- 
 munity. The agitation against the interference of 
 the Bishops in civil affairs and the triumph of Puri- 
 tanism swept away all traces of any restriction or 
 guidance in th^ employment of money. In so far as a 
 stricter ecclesiastical discipline was aimed at or intro- 
 duced it had regard to recreation and to immorality of 
 other kinds, but was at no pains to interfere to check 
 the action of the capitalist or to protect the labourer. 
 From the time when the rise of Puritanism paralysed 
 the action of the Church, and prevented her from 
 maintaining the influence she had habitually exerted, 
 it has been plausible to say that Christian teaching 
 appeared to be brought to bear on the side of the rich 
 and against the poor.''* 
 
 The measure of truth contained in this interesting 
 verdict is not hard to discern. The Puritan divines 
 foUdVed Calvin in rejecting the Canon law against 
 usury. Some of the early Reformers, like Hugh Lati- 
 
 4 Tract on "The Moral Witness of the Church on the Investment of 
 Money," pp. 25, 26. 
 
AND THE EEFOEMATION 147 
 
 mer and John Hooper, sided with Lnther in his de- 
 nunciation of usnry and in his detestation of trade. 
 Calvin and the Puritans found their chief support in 
 the city men, and recognized interest as a legitimate 
 source of gain. It is true that in this direction they 
 broke down the fence of the Pope's laws. Perhaps 
 it would be more true to say, they removed the rem- 
 nants of a canonical hedge which already resembled a 
 series of gaps. The prohibition of usury by the Canon 
 law had become largely ineffective before the close 
 of the Middle Ages. In the new commercial circum- 
 stances of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, its 
 inherent unreasonableness was more evident. The in- 
 consistency of the older position is exposed in the 
 argument of Dr. W. Ames, a favourite moralist with 
 Puritans, who says: *^If a man buys a farm and 
 takes a rent for it, it is held just. But what is the 
 difference if he lends the money to another to buy the 
 farm and gets that other to pay interest instead of 
 rent!"^ The Puritan only completed the inevitable 
 revolt from the Canon law, by showing that the Canon 
 law rested on a misapplication and a misunderstand- 
 ing of the Mosaic law, and that the prohibition against 
 usury had no ground in the gospel.® In addition to 
 claiming the right to receive interest on capital, the 
 Puritan spirit secured a further liberty in the use of 
 capital through the opposition of Parliament to the 
 monopolies set up by the early Stuarts. Since the 
 leaders of that opposition were men of Puritan tem- 
 per, and since one ostensible justification for such 
 monopolies was the maintenance of the quality of the 
 goods manufactured or sold, it is plausible to argue 
 
 5 This passage is from Dr. Ames, De Conscientia (pub. 1631). With 
 it compare Bullinger, Decades iii. p. 42. 
 
 6 For this see Baxter's Christian Directory, Pt. IV. ch. xix. qu. xii. 
 
148 PKOPERTY 
 
 that the Puritans were indifferent to the endeavour to 
 maintain the quality of goods by the exercise of public 
 authority. 
 
 **The agitation against the interference of Bishops 
 in civil affairs" was not a distinctive feature of Puri- 
 tanism. When Laud secured the appointment of 
 Bishop Juxon to the office of Lord Treasurer, he in- 
 censed the nobility in general/ and established the one 
 dogma on which Cavalier and Eoundhead were agreed 
 at the Eestoration — the dogma which William Penn 
 phrases thus: ^*Not many good days since ministers 
 meddled so much in laymen's business.''^ Whether 
 the intervention of the Bishops would have done much 
 to keep moral considerations before merchants and 
 manufacturers may be doubtful ; but the final negative 
 given to Laud's policy of strengthening the Church 
 by securing civil power, closed a channel through which 
 the Church might have exerted a direct pressure. 
 
 The course of events also tended to promote greater 
 liberty for moneyed men, since, naturally enough, the 
 disturbance of the Civil Wars destroyed the control of 
 industry exercised by the Privy Council. A greater 
 license having once been introduced, it was difficult to 
 restore a system of supervision which had been work- 
 ing more or less in the preceding century. 
 
 Above and beyond all this, the Puritan movement is 
 rightly associated with the growth of individual lib- 
 erty. Many of its most distinguished leaders would 
 lave indignantly repudiated the name of democrat, 
 nd would have equally indignantly denounced the 
 
 iresy of toleration. Yet Puritanism in its essence 
 
 irvJit an increased sense of personal responsibility, 
 ar^an assertion of the right of the conscience, under 
 
 ^ee Clarendon, History, Book i. $ 206. 
 
 Penn, No Cross No Grown, Pt. I. ch. xii. § 8. (Words, ii. p. 141.) 
 
AND THE KEFOEMATION 149 
 
 grace, to guide the individual apart from king or 
 bishop. More particularly in its later stage when the - 
 Independents became its chief representatives, the 
 direct influence of Puritanism made for greater lib- 
 erty in religion and politics : it was inevitable that the '^ 
 men who won a greater recognition of self-direction in 
 religion and in politics should also establish a fuller 
 measure of economic freedom. The advocates of tol- 
 eration became suspicious of Government interference 
 in any direction. At the same time, the trend towards 
 laissez-faire under the Commonwealth and the later 
 Stuarts was at first accidental rather than designed; 
 and if the action of the Church was paralysed after 
 1640, the division of Church influence, rather than the 
 direct tendency of Puritan modes of thought, must be 
 held to have occasioned the lowered efficiency of the 
 Church in her moral witness on the use of wealth.® 
 
 Sweeping assertions to the effect that the rise of 
 Puritanism removed all traces of restriction or guid- 
 ance in the employment of money, and developed a 
 public conscience which insisted on labour and sobriety 
 for the poor, but made no attempt to check the action 
 of the capitalist or to protect the labourer, are more 
 
 9 Certain broader influences would faU to be considered in this con- 
 nection, of which the chief would be the rationalist movement of thought 
 so often described as the Illumination. Dr. Johannes Meyer in his 
 pamphlet, Die soziale Naturrecht in der christlichen Kirche (p. 33 foil.), 
 traces back to Grotius the tendency to derive social ideals from a law 
 of nature or reason independent of the idea of God. This involved a 
 separation between the sphere of religion and the sphere of natural 
 law which sways the economic and political life of men. "If natural 
 rights have nothing to do with religion, then religion has nothing to 
 do with the soeial question." The Church lost control of business life 
 because the eighteenth century developed a more secular way of regard- 
 ing the whole subject. It must also be recognized that the Puritan 
 distinction between ordinary moral virtue, "the ligament of human 
 society," and grace, the essence of the religious life, suggested a similar 
 separation of religion from economic life. For later Dissent, religion , 
 and business tend to belong to different worlds, which produces the 
 lowered commercial morality of Defoe's writings. Or if business is 
 part of religion, it concerns the individual, not the magistrate. 
 
150 PEOPERTY 
 
 difficult to justify. Neither the actions and plans of 
 the Commonwealth administration nor the published 
 opinions of Puritan leaders suggest any such indiffer- 
 ence to public control or moral guidance in regard to 
 wealth. 
 
 In the first place, though the Puritan generally ad- 
 mitted the right to take interest, he still regarded usury 
 or excessive interest as a sin, and as a punishable sin. 
 If usury is not expressly mentioned by John Knox in 
 the Scotch Booh of Discipline y it is surely included in 
 the phrase **oppressioun of the poore by exactionis, 
 deceaving of thame in buying or selling be wrang met 
 or measure, "^° which appears in a list of sins to be 
 strictly visited with ecclesiastical punishments. In any 
 case, Thomas Cartwright, who might have been the 
 John Knox of England, expressly cites usury as a case 
 for admonition and exclusion from the Sacraments, 
 '*He that hath usurie proved against him, so that he 
 lose his principal for taking above ten in the hundred," 
 yet shall he also, for committing so hainous offence 
 against God and his churche, to the very ill example of 
 others, not be allowed to the Sacraments, until he shewe 
 himselfe repentaunt for the faulte and study thereby 
 to satisfie the congregation so offended by him."^^ So 
 far from putting no restriction on the use of money, 
 Cartwright here accepts the principle of legal limita- 
 tion of interest, and would inflict church censures in 
 addition to civil penalties. Nor is he singular in this 
 respect. The later Puritans did not depart from this 
 earlier standard. Under Cromwell, in 1651, an Act 
 was passed prohibiting any person to take above six 
 pounds for loan of one hundred pounds by the year. 
 
 10 Hume Brown, John Knox, ii. p. 144 n. 
 
 11 The maximum rate of interest legally established in the reign of 
 Elizabeth. 
 
 ^^ Puritan Manifestoes, p. 120. 
 
AND THE EEFOEMATION 151 
 
 The Barebones Parliament devoted some attention to 
 measures concerning bankruptcy, and Cromwell later 
 put in force an ordinance for the relief of poor debtors. 
 On the side of personal teaching, Puritan moralists are 
 never tired of insisting on moderation in the terms on 
 which money is lent. It is true that Baxter's counsels 
 in his Christian Directory are somewhat vague, and he 
 does not refer to any statutory limitation of interest, 
 but he is clear that all usury is sinful when it is against 
 either justice or charity. In particular, he holds that 
 the Mosaic law was intended to protect the poor frojn 
 oppressive contracts, and the Mosaic law is in effect 
 binding still, being part of the Christian law of charity. 
 This being so, usury is sinful, '^when you lend for in- 
 crease where charity obligeth you to lend freely: even 
 as it is a sin to lend expecting your own again, when 
 charity obligeth you to give it. ' ' In the further speci- 
 fication of cases of sinful usury, Baxter condemns the 
 exaction of interest on business loans where the bor- 
 rower cannot pay, and where the borrower is unable 
 to secure a fair return for himself out of his enter- 
 prise, if he pay the full interest. From Baxter 's point 
 of view, interest could not be made the first charge upon 
 industry. The same temper is apparent in the Puritan 
 discussions of price. Baxter answers the question, 
 '''How shall the worth of a commodity be judged of I" 
 in the following manner: **1. When the law setteth a 
 rate upon any thing (as on bread and drink with us) 
 it must be observed. 2. If you go to the market, the 
 market price is much to be observed. 3. If it be an 
 equal contract, with one that is not in want, you may 
 estimate your goods as they cost you, or are worth to 
 you, though it be above the common price ; seeing the 
 buyer is free to take or leave them. 4. But if that which 
 yon have to sell be extraordinarily desirable or worth 
 
152 PEOPERTY 
 
 to some one person more than to you or another man, 
 yon mnst not make too great an advantage of his con- 
 venience or desire : bnt be glad that you can pleasure 
 him, upon equal, fair and honest terms. 5. If there 
 be a secret worth in your commodity which the market 
 will take no notice of (as it is usual in a horse), it is 
 lawful for you to take according to that true worth if 
 you can get it. But it is a false rule of them that think 
 their commodity is worth as much as any one will), 
 give.'' Baxter is here amplifying Dr. Ames, who also 
 in respect of necessaries holds that the price deter- 
 mined by public authority must be recognized as fmal. 
 It is noteworthy, first that Baxter had no quarrel with 
 the exercise of public authority to establish a fair price 
 for necessaries, and second that he refused to sanction 
 the sacrifice of moral consideration to the tender 
 mercies of the forces of supply and demand. In both 
 these positions, Baxter is thoroughly normal. Both 
 Puritan and Anglican, in the seventeenth century, 
 agreed on these points. In view of the first, we may 
 conjecture that if the Puritans objected to the rule of 
 Bishops exercised in the Star Chamber and the Court 
 of High Commission, or if they disliked the control of 
 the King's Council it was not because they were un- 
 willing to see moral considerations enforced on moneyed 
 men by public authority ; it was rather that they denied 
 to King and Bishop a power of control which they held 
 belonged to Parliament. The Puritan attitude on a 
 constitutional issue cannot be twisted into an endorse- 
 ment of economic laissez-faire. Nor was there any 
 great breach in the tradition of national control of 
 industry, in the time of the Commonwealth.^^ 
 
 13 Hermann Levy maintains the contrary view. He endorses Arch- 
 deacon Cunningham's verdict on Puritanism, and builds his case on the 
 fact, demonstrated by Miss Leonard ( in her History of the English Poor 
 Law), that poor relief was best administered during the personal rule 
 
I AND THE REFORMATION 153 
 
 The attitude of Puritanism towards monopolies, 
 both in theory and practice, is likewise in line with 
 
 of Charles I., when the pressure of the Privy Council forced a common 
 policy on the country, and insisted on the raising of local stocks to 
 give work to the unemployed. After the confusion of the Civil War, 
 these activities and this policy of the Privy Council were never fully 
 resumed, and when in 1704 Sir Humphrey Mackworth introduced a 
 Bill for employing the poor, it was practically killed by the vigorous 
 pamphlet, "Giving Alms, no charity," from the pen of the Noncon- 
 formist Defoe. This abandonment of the early policy Levy attributes 
 in the main to the anti-social tendency of Puritanism. The system set 
 up by Charles I. was, under the Commonwealth, "not merely neglected, 
 but it is hardly too much to say, abolished.*' The ruling classes' views 
 of poverty had changed. "The victory of Puritanism brought with it 
 the apotheosis of work," and want of work meant want of grace (see 
 Econor.iic Liberalism, ch. vi., esp. pp. 73, 77, and p. 86 n.). 
 
 I dissent almost entirely from this plausible presentation of the facts, 
 on the following grounds :^ — 
 
 (1) The Puritans did not dislike the Poor Law policy of the Privy 
 Council. Miss Leonard [cyp. cit. p. 297), referring to the Privy Coun- 
 cil orders in the time of Charles L, says: "The substance of the orders, 
 however, does not appear to have created opposition. Men of both 
 sides sent in their reports to the Privy Council, and Tnore energetic 
 medsures to execute the Poor Law were taJc&tv in the Puritan counties 
 \of the east than in any other part of England." 
 
 (2) Whatever happened tp administrative machinery during the 
 Commonwealth, the general aim adopted by the Privy Council was not 
 only not abandoned; it was expressly realSrmed. "Aii Act for Advanc- 
 ing and Regulating the Trade of this Commonwealth" was passed in 
 August 1650, and according to the preamble, passed "to the end that 
 ye poore people of this land may he set on vyork and their Familiiea 
 preserved from Beggary and Ruine . . . and no occasion left either for 
 Idleness or Poverty." The phrase "to set the poore on work" is the 
 regular phrase for the relief of the unemployed, and it links the aim 
 of the Commonwealth government with the best traditions of the Privy 
 Council. If work was no longer provided officially, it was either be- 
 cause the Government lacked the energy and machinery for the purpose, 
 or because the development of trade after the abolition of monopolies 
 made such direct provision unnecessary., It was certainly not due to 
 an anti- social tendency which denied any responsibility of the State for 
 unemployment. 
 
 (3) Though Defoe is not altogether typical even of later Noncon- 
 formity, it is certainly true that Dissent tended to embrace an extreme 
 form of Individualism. But the identification of the unemployed with 
 the idle was not, even for Defoe, a theoretical deduction from the Puritan 
 emphasis on work; it was grounded on what he actually saw of the 
 demoralization of the people under the later Stuarts. The Puritan cer- 
 tainly took a harsh view of idleness, especially among the upper classes; 
 but he did not confuse idleness, and unemployment as Dr. Levy suggests, 
 until the social conditions of the eighteenth century lent some colour 
 to the confusion. It is a mistake to regard the Puritan doctrine of 
 work as in itself a factor in changing Poor Law administration. 
 
154 PEOPERTY 
 
 Baxter's repudiation of the principle of getting all 
 yon can for yonr goods/* The opposition to artificial 
 monopolies was based on the perception of their eco^ 
 nomic wastefulness. Sir John Eliot takes his stand 
 upon this principle. But in the case of natural monop- 
 olies, the Puritan declared it to be a sin for the indi- 
 vidual to press to the full accidental or circumstantial 
 advantages in bargaining; and they were ready to 
 invoke and use the power of the State to suppress 
 such monopoly gains and punish those who sought 
 them. Thus, in the first year of the Commonwealth, 
 the Government attorney was directed to prosecute a 
 corn monopolist at Ipswich, **so that the poor people ; 
 may see that care is taken of them in time of dearth." 
 Later in the same year, a warrant was issued against 
 Samuel Truelove of Wapping, and Mr. Bucknell, 
 Shipmaster, *Ho attend the Council to answer as to a 
 combination for raising the price of coals. ' ' This step 
 was followed by the appointment of a committee *Ho 
 consider how the price of coal for the poor may be 
 brought down, to confer with the Lord Mayor and 
 prepare an Act. ' ' ^^ The general principle guiding 
 such action is laid down in a memorable sentence in 
 Cromwell's famous despatch to Parliament concerning 
 Dunbar fight: ^^Be pleased to reform the abuses of all 
 professions : and if there be any one that makes many 
 poor to make a few rich, that suits not a Common- j 
 wealth. "^^ Cromwell was probably thinking of law- 
 yers in the first instance, but the Puritan did not. 
 
 14 It is interesting to observe that the protest against monopolies, , 
 combined with a protest against enclosures and bad judicial procedure, , 
 is already voiced in Martin Bucer's De regno Christi. Bucer, who i 
 taught in Cambridge in the time of Edward VI., may be regarded as i 
 the founder of English Calvinism. See Troeltsch, op. cit. p. 776 n. 
 
 15 State Papers, Domestic, 1649. 
 
 16 Carlyle's Letters of Cromwell, ed. Lomas, ii, p. 108. 
 
AND THE EEFOEMATION 155 
 
 intend any trade or profession to ignore the common 
 good. " 
 
 ^- To estimate arigM the character of Eeformed and 
 Puritan teaching, it is necessary to consider some 
 broader aspects of the subject. In developing a doc- 
 trine of property, the Eeformers started from the 
 Eighth Commandment.^^ ^^By this commandment, the 
 proper owning of peculiar substance is lawfully or- 
 dairxed and firmly established. The Lord forbiddeth 
 theft : therefore He ordaineth and confirmeth the 
 proper o^^ming of worldly riches. For what canst 
 thou steal, if all things be common to all men? For 
 tlion hast stolen thine own and not another man's, if 
 thou takest from another that which he hath. But 
 God forbiddeth theft : and therefore, by the making of 
 this law, He confirmeth the proper possession of pecu- 
 liar goods. ' ' This representative statement from Bul- 
 linger may be supplemented by Baxter's discussion of 
 the question, *^ Is it a sin for a man to steal in absolute 
 necessity, when it is merely to save his life?" Baxter 
 cites two opposing doctrines, first that of Dr. Ames 
 who defends the principle ** omnia fieri communia in 
 
 17 The sensitiveness of the Puritan conscience on the subject of monop- 
 olies may be further illustrated from the Memoirs of William KiflSn, a 
 wealthy Baptist merchant in the time of Charles II. In a chapter on 
 his business adventures he is most anxious to remove the aspersion that 
 he raised his estate by obtaining orders to bring in prohibited goods. He 
 had never taken favours from Government! See Orme's Life of Kiffin, 
 pp. 23, 24. 
 
 18 Patristic and mediaeval writers usually begin their discussion of 
 property with an appeal to the concept of natural law, and in the Middle 
 Ages at least opinion varies as to whether ownership is a natural right 
 or not. (See the preceding Essay.) The Eeformers did not altogether 
 lose sight of natural law, and like earlier Christian thinkers, they 
 connected the Decalogue with natural law. But to them the Decalogue 
 is the divine confirmation and interpretation of natural law. From 
 this conviction they derived a readier popular appeal. The law of 
 Nature was always something of an abstraction. In starting from the 
 Decalogue, the Reformers based the institution of property on a direct 
 spoken word of God. 
 
156 PEOPERTY i 
 
 extrema necessitate,"^® and then that of the more rig-- 
 orous legalists who regard the prohibition of theft ass 
 absolute, because no exception is hinted at in the 5 
 Decalogue. Without accepting the latter view in its; 
 entirety, Baxter clearly leans towards it. He holds ; 
 that *' whensoever the preservation of the life of the; 
 taker is not in open probability like to be more ser- 
 viceable to the common good, than the violation of the 
 right of propriety will be hurtful, the taking of another 
 man's goods is sinful, though it be only to save the 
 taker's life." Baxter further maintains that **in ordi- 
 nary cases, the saving of a man's life will not do soi 
 much good, as his stealing will do hurt." He thus; 
 appeals to the principle of the common good to nega- 
 tive the plea **a man must live," and also to modify 
 or supplement the absolute right of ownership which 
 many based on the Decalogue. 
 
 The early Reformers were led to insist on the right 
 of private property the more earnestly, in order to 
 clear their movement of the taint of Anabaptism. The 
 story of Miinster made these revolutionary Commu- 
 nists objects of fear. It was felt to be necessary to 
 disavow their doctrine in the Elizabethan Articles of 
 Religion; and accordingly Article 38 asserts that ^Hhe 
 Riches and Goods of Christians are not common as , 
 touching the right, title, and possession of the same, , 
 as certain Anabaptists do falsely boast." The Puri- 
 tans were obliged to clear themselves of the same 
 suspicion. In the controversies of the time of Eliza- 
 beth, Whitgift and Hooker both attacked their op- 
 ponents' position as tending to the anarchy of the 
 Anabaptists. Later on, the Presbyterians and consti- 
 tutional sectaries had to repudiate the extravagancies 
 of the Levellers. Thus from similar motives English 
 
 19 Cf. preceding Essay, p. 138. 
 
AND THE EEFOEMATION 157 
 
 Eeformers, Anglican and Puritan alike, fonnd it de- 
 sirable to protest their attachment to the principle of 
 private property. They were anxious not to be taken 
 for social revolutionaries. 
 
 Another factor in determining the Reformers' atti- 
 tude towards wealthy was the discrediting of voluntary 
 poverty by the failure of the friar and the monk. The 
 reaction from the conventional praise of poverty led 
 the Reformer and the Puritan after him to insist on 
 the blessing of wealth. Wealth and poverty come of 
 God's gifts, and either is to be accepted as from Him. 
 The seventeenth-century moralists do not ignore the 
 sjjiritual and moral dangers of wealth. Indeed they 
 are most anxious to direct the man of means in the 
 employment of his money. But they do regard the 
 possession of wealth as something ordained of God, 
 and in consequence they take up a conservative atti- 
 tude towards class distinctions and class standards 
 of living. They do not anticipate a filling-in of the 
 chasm between^rich and poor, or even a closer approx- 
 imation between the two sides of the chasm. It is 
 assumed to be a natural and divine order that some are 
 placed in a position to give alms and others in the 
 necessity of receiving them. Differences in wealth are 
 incidental to God's education of mankind. ** Riches 
 be chanceable unto us, but not unto God: for God 
 knoweth w^hen and to whom He will give them, or take 
 them away again." ^^ In this connection it is interest- 
 ing to notice how Baxter, in the midst of many wise 
 cautions against prodigality, yet reserves the expen- 
 diture necessary for the maintenance of class distinc- 
 tions. The answer to the question, **What may be 
 accounted prodigality in the costliness of apparel?" 
 begins with the sentence, **Not that which is only for 
 
 20 Latimer, i. 478, Parker Society. 
 
158 PEOPEETY 
 
 a due distinction of superiors from inferiors, or which 
 is needful to keep up the vulgar's reverence to magis- 
 trates."^^ When, a few pages later, Baxter discusses 
 how far the rich may spend on themselves while the 
 poor suffer want, he again rests on the validity of 
 certain social distinctions, for *4t must be confessed 
 that some persons may be of so much worth and use 
 to the commonwealth (as kings and magistrates) and 
 some of so little that the maintaining of the honour and 
 success of the former may be more necessary than 
 the saving of the lives of the latter. But take heed 
 lest pride or cruelty teach you to misunderstand this 
 or abuse it for yourselves.'' In a sermon on the use^ 
 of wealth, Bullinger had set forth the same principle. 
 * * One state of life and a greater port becometh a magis 
 trate; when another countenance and a lower sail 
 beseemeth a private person. But in these cases let 
 every man consider what necessity requireth, not what 
 lust and rioting will egg him unto. Let him think with 
 himself, what is seemly and unseemly for one of his 
 degree."" 
 
 Starting from the divine sanction attaching to pri- 
 vate property, to differences in the possession of 
 wealth, and to the resultant social order, the main 
 stream of Protestant thought could not avoid the prob- 
 lem of the use of wealth. If men are not to surrender 
 their wealth, how are they to make use of it! Here 
 the Eeformation stressed the religious worth of ordi- 
 nary callings, and sought guidance in the conception 
 of stewardship. Since wealth is God's gift, men are 
 accountable to God for their use of it. They cannot 
 
 21 Baxter, Christian Directory, Pt. IV. chap. xxi. 
 
 22 Bullinger, Decades, iii. p. 55. The Canon law was much less con- 
 siderate towards this kind of expenditure. See the preceding Essay, and 
 the same writer's Mediaeval Political Theory in the West, vol. ii. p. 
 140 f. 
 
AND THE EEFOEMATION 159 
 
 evade their responsibility. They must face it. Differ- 
 ences of wealth and of social vocation are of God's 
 designing, and men mnst live soberly and godly in that 
 state of life to which it shall please God to call them. 
 They must also remember always the strict and soleron 
 account which mnst be rendered in the day of judg- 
 ment. 
 
 However inadequate the idea of stewardship may 
 
 (be as a standard of social obligation, and however 
 readily it may have degenerated into cant later on, it 
 Jis to the credit of Puritanism that it succeeded in per- 
 j'suading many to take their stewardship seriously. In 
 I some instances it resulted in a morbid introspection, 
 jbut more broadly it stimulated a healthy habit of self- 
 j examination, strengthened the power of self-control 
 
 I and the sense of personal responsibility. Men took 
 |more thorough stock of themselves, and the keeping 
 
 of accounts became a religious duty— a not insignifi- 
 cant fact. 
 
 Baxter emphasizes the need of reflection in the dis- 
 |posai of ourselves and our resources. *^ Prudence is 
 exceeding necessary in doing good, that you may dis- 
 cern good from evil, discerning the season and measure 
 and manner and among divers duties, which must be 
 
 II preferred. " And again, *'in doing good prefer the 
 good of many to the good of the few. Prefer a dura- 
 ble good that will extend to posterity, before a short 
 and transitory good.'' This is obvious common sense 
 enough, but it is part of the Puritan's contribution to 
 progress that he sanctified common sense. The sig- 
 nificance of Baxter's position may be seen when he 
 deprecates a close dependence on the momentary in- 
 spiration of the individual conscience, and urges his 
 readers to trust rather to general rules, and adds, 
 ^* Present prudence and sincerity will do most." Puri- 
 
160 PEOPERTY I 
 
 tanism gave a religious impetus to what Sombart calls^, 
 ** Economic Rationalism," by making everything mat-! 
 ter of conscience, and so of calculation.^^ 
 
 In keeping with the central conception of steward- 
 ship, great emphasis was laid on the duty of finding aii 
 useful employment for one's self. ^* Especially be sure^ 
 that you live not out of a calling, that is, such a stated I 
 course of employment in which you may be best ser- 
 viceable to God. Disability is indeed an irresistible; 
 impediment. Otherwise no man must either live idly 
 or content hmself with doing some little charres as aj 
 recreation or on the by; but every one that is able,, 
 must be statedly and ordinarily employed in such work : 
 as is serviceable to God and the common good."^* It. 
 was not only or chiefly in the case of the poor that) 
 Puritanism insisted on the religious duty of hard and 
 regular work. In the choice of work, ^Ht is no sin hut 
 a duty, to labour not only for labour sake, formally 
 resting in the act done, but for that honest increase 
 and provision which is the end of our labour; and 
 therefore to choose a gainful calling rather than an- 
 other, that we may be able to do good and relieve the 
 poor."^^ Here too Baxter sets his seal to economic 
 rationalism! The close connection between the Puri- 
 tan ethic of prudence and the spirit of capitalism is 
 undeniable. A further point of connection is best illus- 
 trated from one of Wesley's sermons. His first coun- 
 sel about riches (which in spirit must be judged by its 
 sequel **give all you can") is: **Gain all you can"; 
 and under that head, he emphasizes the duty of im- 
 proving the methods of industry. '*Gain all you can, 
 by common sense, by using in your business all the 
 
 23 Hobson, Evolution of Capitalism, p. 22. 
 
 24 Baxter, Christio/ti Directory, Pt. I. chap. iii. grand direction x. 
 
 25 Baxter, Christian Directory, Pt. IV. chap. xxi. For this motive in 
 Early Christianity see Essay IV. p. 101. 
 
AND THE REFORMATION 161 
 
 understanding which God has given yon. It is amaz- 
 ing to observe how few do this ; how men rnn on in the 
 same dnll track with their forefathers. But whatever 
 they do who know not God, this is no rule for you. 
 It is a shame for a Christian not to improve upon 
 tJieMy in whatever he takes in hand. You should be 
 continually learning from the experience of others, 
 or from your own experience, reading and reflection, 
 to do everything you have to do better to-day than you 
 did 3^esterday. And see that you practise whatever 
 you learn ; that you make the best of all that is in your 
 hand." ^^ It would be difficult to imagine a more thor- 
 ough endorsement of the temper which has made 
 modern industry. 
 
 This insistence on orderly and enlightened industry 
 in the making of money was naturally combined with 
 the advocacy of carefulness in the spending of it. The 
 austerity of the Puritan has been exaggerated. It is 
 true he did not f uUy share Luther 's faith in the right- 
 eousness of good living, Luther's breezy belief in the 
 spiritual healthiness of banter and wine. Yet I do 
 not think the true Puritan would have quarrelled with 
 BuUinger's view that the necessity which is supplied 
 by worldly goods does not exclude moderate pleasures. 
 ^*For the Lord hath in no place forbidden mirth, joy 
 and the sweet use of wealth, so far forth that nothing 
 be done undecently, unthankfully or unrighteously.''^^ 
 It is sometimes forgotten thsiL^ Allegro was written 
 by a Puritan. Many who scorn Puritanism as strait- 
 laced could hardly deny that the Puritan protests 
 against some of the recreations of the sixteenth or 
 seventeenth centuries were obvious in the interests 
 of decency. In many instances the Puritan was not 
 
 26 Wesley, Sermon 50, On the Use of Money. 
 27 BuUinger, Decades, iii. p. 55. 
 
162 PEOPERTY 
 
 so much a fanatical kill- joy as the champion of good 
 taste. Thus it appears that the **sad" colours in dress 
 associated with Puritans in the States, were not monot- 
 onous browns and greys, but just the sober shades 
 which a sound aesthetic instinct preferred to the louder 
 colours which were then fashionable.^^ For all that, 
 there was a strong ascetic element in the Puritan 
 movement. The Calvinist was more austere than the 
 Lutheran, and the tendency deepened, for the Quaker 
 was more austere than the Calvinist. Baxter laughs 
 at the Quaker simplicity which rejects ribbons and 
 buttons ! And beyond a doubt, when the life-blood of 
 Puritanism poured into the veins of the struggling 
 Nonconformist bodies, there was a narrowing just on 
 this side. The cleft made in English Christianity at 
 the Restoration, by the Act of Uniformity, brought it 
 about that to the heirs of Puritanism certain pleasures 
 seemed irretrievably sinful just because they were 
 characteristic of those classes of society whose world- 
 liness was most apparent to Nonconformist eyes, and 
 with whom Nonconformists came but little into sym- 
 pathetic contact. Still even the original Puritan move-^ 
 ment pruned men's expenditure severely. If it never 
 meant to remove simple pleasures (particularly the 
 pleasures of home, which it manifestly deepened), and 
 if at times it even left the human heart inadequately 
 warned of the snare of creature comforts, at least it 
 cut off careless, luxurious, and dissipating outlay. The 
 Puritan was compelled to think about the way he spent 
 his money, and he was led to seek quieter pleasures 
 and to purchase more enduring objects of delight than 
 the conventional standards of his day suggested. Yet 
 here too we can trace how religion nourished, if it did 
 not originate, the outlook characteristic of capitalism. 
 
 28 See Maurice Low, The American People. 
 
AND THE EEFOEMATION 163 
 
 Karl Marx says somewliere that ^Hhe capitalist brands 
 all consumption as a sin against his function." He 
 would have uttered a simpler and profounder truth 
 if he had omitted the last three words. Indeed the 
 three words in question are only part of the bad habit 
 of regarding men always from their place in the proc- 
 ess of production — the prejudice of supposing men's 
 character to be determined by their economic function, 
 v/hich forms the mainstay of Marxian philosophy. 
 The truth surely is that the capitalist class was largely 
 created by men who branded ail careless consumption 
 as a sin. The Puritan conception of stewardship, and 
 the Puritan condemnation of worldly living, will be 
 found to have contributed more to the morale of capi- 
 talism than either the love of gain or any conscious 
 adaptation of a class to their place in the productive 
 process. 
 
 Before concluding this brief survey, it is necessary 
 to devote a few lines to two other points, viz., the 
 denunciation of oppressive methods of making money, 
 and the obligation to charity and good works. There 
 is nothing very novel in Baxter's treatment of these 
 topics. He has much to say of the relation of land- 
 lord and tenant— not because he has the Puritan bias 
 in favour of traders, but because he knew more about 
 this than about industrial employment. He warns men 
 against imposing oppressive rents, against oppressing 
 labourers by withholding wages, and against imposing 
 oppressive conditions of labour, especially conditions 
 which render men unfit for or careless of their relig- 
 ious duties. Indeed it may safely be assumed that 
 Christian opinion generally in the seventeenth century 
 would have endorsed the principle of the Trades- 
 Boards Act. That principle is stated in so many words 
 by Jeremy Taylor when he accepts as fair price *Hhat 
 
 ^ 
 
164 PROPEKTY 
 
 which is established in the fame and common accounts 
 of the wisest and most merciful men, skilled in that 
 manufacture or commodity. ' ' ^^ If the Puritan did 
 not take adequate steps to protect labour legally, and 
 if he trusted too much to the good-nature of landlord 
 and employer, he was by no means indifferent to moral 
 considerations in relation to wages and conditions of 
 employment. 
 
 On the side of charitable activities and good works, 
 the Eeformers were concerned to urge their necessity 
 and importance, without admitting their merit. Yet 
 perhaps the traditional doctrine of the merit of good 
 works still colours in a measure Protestant discussions 
 of charity. The following are the motives to charity 
 on which Baxter lays stress. Doing good doth make 
 us most like to God : consequently it is an honourable 
 employment ; it makes us pleasing and amiable to God, 
 and profitable to men, not only to others, but also to 
 ourselves, for we are members one of another. There 
 is, moreover, a singular delight in doing good, and 
 good works are a comfortable evidence that faith is 
 sincere. We owe so much to God that it doubles our 
 obligation to do good to others. Then we are depend- 
 ent on others and we should recognize the unity of the 
 body social. Good works are much to the honour of 
 religion, are often commended in the Scripture, and 
 are the standard by which God will judge us. Baxter 's 
 catalogue of desirable works of charity is also of inter- 
 est. He puts first, with an insight beyond his age, 
 the work of advancing the conversion of the heathen. 
 The promotion of church unity, and of a well-educated 
 ministry at home, is urged as next in importance. 
 After these he mentions the establishing of free schools 
 in populous and ignorant places, the providing of 
 
 29 Eohf Living, chap. iii. see. 3, par. 4. 
 
AND THE EEFORMATION 165 
 
 higher education for those who are worth it but too 
 poor to command it, the distribution of sound religious 
 literature among the poor, apprenticing poor children 
 wisely, relieving the necessities of the ejected min- 
 isters, advancing small stocks to set up suitable young 
 tradesmen, the remission of rent by landlords to en- 
 courage their tenants to learn catechisms, and finally 
 general poor relief. Not only in this section but 
 throughout Baxter lays great stress on the service of 
 the State and on the necessity of studying public 
 utility. 
 
 The Puritan position may be summed up as follows : 
 Private property rests on the Decalogue, and the right 
 of this institution possesses an inviolable and divine 
 sanction. Differences in wealth and in social status 
 are of God's ordering, and belong to the permanent 
 structure of society. Riches, being God's gift, are in 
 their nature a blessing, and are not lightly to be aban- 
 doned by the individual, though they bring grave temp- 
 tations and dangers with them. Since riches are God's 
 gift, no man is absolute owner: all men are God's 
 stewards and must render an account of their steward- 
 ship. Economic wastefulness is therefore necessarily 
 sinful. Men must make the most of themselves and 
 their resources. No one has any right to be idle or 
 careless. It is likewise a duty to use and spend money 
 profitably, not wasting it in dicing and worldly pleas- 
 ures of that kind. In making money, a man must 
 beware of oppression : in spending it, he must seek for 
 works of lasting utility to mankind and the Common- 
 wealth. It is sinful for any one to press to the full 
 the economic and social advantages of his position, and 
 it is the recognized duty of the public authority to fix 
 a fair price for necessaries and to restrain monopo- 
 lists. A rightly organized Christian Church would 
 
166 PEOPERTY 
 
 enforce moral considerations on the owners of wealth, 
 by withholding the sacrament from heinous of- 
 fenders. 
 
 The position, so outlined, is not, of course, peculiarly 
 Puritan. An examination of the writings of Jeremy 
 Taylor, or of such a treatise as The Whole Duty of 
 Man, would have provided equally satisfactory illus- 
 trations of the main points. Jeremy Taylor, con- 
 tinuing the great traditions of Hooker, emancipated 
 himself from over-great reverence to the law of Moses, 
 He realized that ** amongst us there are or have been; 
 a good many Old Testament Divines, whose Doctrine 
 and manner of talk and arguments and practices have 1 
 too much squinted towards Moses." This defect of 
 Puritanism the great Anglicans avoided; but so far 
 as the use of wealth was concerned, Puritan and 
 Anglican were practically agreed as to their standards 
 of Christian duty. 
 
 It would scarcely be fair to criticize the Puritan 
 outlook because it failed to anticipate the social evils 
 of the industrial revolution, though it would deserve 
 censure if, by its concentration on individual duty, it 
 rendered men blind to the necessity of common action, 
 and perhaps a little callous towards the evils in ques- 
 tion. Undoubtedly later Puritanism had this latter 
 effect, though other factors of eighteenth-century life 
 also co-operated to produce it. Many good men of the 
 Puritan stock were, and perhaps are to-day, attached 
 obstinately to the principle of laissez-faire, because a 
 rooted trust in individual responsibility and self-help^ 
 is part of their religious inheritance. In this, Puri- 
 tanism displays the defects of its qualities. Such an 
 over-emphasis compels us to ask what modifications 
 have been made in the Puritan outlook by changing 
 
AND THE EEFORMATION 167 
 
 social conditions, and wliat elements of Eeformation 
 teaching have been inadequately represented in it. 
 
 Clearly it was from the first open to any body of 
 Christians who started from the broad principles of j^ 
 the Protestant ethic to advance beyond others by ad- 
 hering to one or two definite applications of those 
 principles. The advance which the Quaker claimed to 
 make on the Puritan was largely of this character. 
 While the Puritan condemned lavish expenditure in 
 general, the Quaker protested against ribbons, but- 
 tonSj and other particular superfluities. While Baxter 
 is nicely balancing the honour of the magistrate against 
 the life of the beggar, Fox is urging magistrates and 
 others to lay aside furs and gold ohains in order to 
 relieve the necessitous who crowd the streets of Lon- 
 don. While the Puritan is commanding honesty in 
 bargaining, and is discussing cases of conscience in 
 regard to the pricing and describing of goods, the 
 Quaker is roundly denouncing all the petty falsehood 
 of business, bidding men have done with all pretended 
 politeness and act on the simple principle of **So say 
 and so do.'' 
 
 There are many attempts, like that of the Quakers, 
 to give a more rigorous and definite application to the 
 coimnon standpoint. Perhaps the chief direction in 
 which later religious teachers modified the tradition 
 of the seventeenth century is to be found in the de- 
 mand for a greater asceticism on the part of the rich. 
 It was felt on the one hand that the earlier moralists 
 had underrated the danger of wealth and good living, 
 and on the other hand, the problem of poverty became 
 more urgent, especially towards the latter half of the 
 eighteenth century. In consequence, some of the most 
 conspicuous teachers of that age no longer display the 
 Puritan tenderness towards class standards of com- 
 
168 PEOPERTY 
 
 fort. Both William Law and John Wesley expected 
 Christian men to reduce their personal expenditure to 
 a minimum, almost to live as do the poor. Law's ideal 
 Christian lady divides her fortune ** betwixt herself 
 and several other poor people, and she has only her 
 part of relief in it. She thinks it the same folly to 
 indulge herself in needless vain expenses, as to give 
 to other people to spend in the «ame way. Therefore 
 as she wiU not give a poor man money to go see a 
 puppet show, neither will she allow herself any to 
 spend in the same manner : thinking it very proper to 
 be as wise herself as she expects poor men should be/^ 
 ** Excepting her victuals, she never spent near ten 
 pound a year upon herself. . . . She has but one rule 
 that she observes in her dress, to be always clean and 
 in the cheapest things.'' ^^ Law's standard of living 
 may be too severe: both Miranda and the poor might 
 be allowed go see the puppet show sometimes! But 
 at least Law does not concede to the rich an indulgence 
 he denies to the poor. The distinctive thing is the 
 assumption that the Christian must practise the self- 
 denial he expects in the poor. John Wesley repeats 
 Law's message. In his Journal he commends a gentle- 
 man who cut down his personal expenditure to twenty- 
 eight pounds a year, so that he had nearly twenty 
 pounds to return to God in the poor.^^ Wesley's own 
 practice approximated to this standard. Of his three 
 directions for the use of money, **Gain all you can," 
 **Save all you can," *^Give all you can," the third was 
 the most important, supplying the motive and justifi- 
 cation for the first two. Wesley urged his followers 
 to imitate Quaker simplicity, while avoiding the snare 
 of Quaker expensiveness. For by that time the prac- 
 
 30 Law, Serious Call, chap. viii. 
 siTlie Journal, vol. iii. pp. 312-13, in Everyman's Library. 
 
AND THE REFORMATION 169 
 
 tice of the simple life had become a costly thing ! **Let 
 me see, before I die, a Methodist congregation full as 
 plain dressed as a Quaker congregation. Only be more 
 consistent with yourselves. Let your dress be cheap 
 as well as plain : otherwise you do but trifle with Grod 
 and me and your own souls. I pray, let there be no 
 costly silks among you, how grave soever they may 
 be." ^^ Wesley was aware of the natural tendency of 
 a rising income to enlarge men ^s ideas of what was due 
 to themselves. He knew and denounced the plea that 
 a larger revenue justifies increased expenditure. ' * Per- 
 haps you say you can now afford the expense. This 
 is the quintessence of nonsense. Who gave you this 
 addition to your fortune, or (to speak properly) who 
 lent it to you? To speak more properly still, who 
 lodged it for a time in your hands as His stewards? 
 . . . This affording to rob God is the very cant of 
 helL"^^ 
 
 Yet Law and Wesley are still dominated by the 
 central interest of Protestantism — the individuaPs 
 relation to God. The disposal of property is primarily 
 a question between the individual owner and God, 
 though God's call has ever in view the wider common 
 good. The effect of one's conduct on one's hope of 
 salvation is the main consideration both in Law's Seri- 
 ous Gall and in Wesley's Sermons, Wesley indeed con- 
 demns unhealthy and hazardous occupations, and also 
 trades which produce social evil. He does not spare 
 the liquor traffic. All who sell spirituous liquors **in 
 the common way to any that will buy, are poisoners 
 general. They murder His Majesty's subjects by 
 wholesale, neither does their eye pity or spare. They 
 drive them to hell, like sheep. . . . And what is their 
 gain! Is it not the blood of these men?"^* But, 
 
 32 Sermon 88. 83 Sermon 126. a* Sermon 60. 
 
170 PEOPERTY 
 
 naturally enough, Wesley is concerned to emphasize 
 the danger to the individual Christian of engaging in 
 such trades. A man imperils his own salvation by 
 selling liquor. This is still the uppermost thought. 
 Wesley has something to say of dangerous trades — a 
 subject on which Baxter had been practically silent, 
 because its significance belongs to the eighteenth cen- 
 tury. But the standpoint from which Wesley comes 
 at the subject is governed by the same central interest 
 as that wiiich guides the Christian Directory. Per- 
 haps, in consequence, Wesley *^ heralds the temperance 
 agitation, but misses the deeper aspects of the prob- 
 lem." 
 
 When we turn our attention to the sects which 
 skirmish on the outskirts of Puritanism — ^its prede- 
 cessors, its critics and its allies — ^we are more certainly 
 in a new atmosphere, an atmosphere with fresh and 
 invigorating elements in it, which are inadequately 
 represented in the main current of Protestant thought. 
 Lollards, Anabaptists, Familists, Levellers, Fifth Mon- 
 archy men and, to some extent, Quakers, have at least . 
 this in common, that they stand for and keep alive an j 
 element of social hope for the kingdom of God on earth | 
 which does not appeal to the more conservative Puri> 
 tan. Sometimes this hope becomes an apocalyptic fa- 
 naticism, as in the case of the Anabaptists at Miinster 
 or of the Fifth Monarchy men at the Restoration. But 
 with all their extravagancies and impracticabilities ; 
 these men preserve the belief in a new social order, 
 the conviction that society is to be remodelled as a 
 Christian brotherhood. The Puritan tended to post- 
 pone the New Jerusalem to another world, regarding 
 this world as a school of probation that offers but, 
 limited possibilities of progress, or at the most hei 
 looked for such an approximation to the ideal as was 3 
 
AND THE EEFOEMATION 171 
 
 apparently possible within the lines of the existing 
 social organization. Progress will lie in a further 
 carrying ont of the voluminous advice contained in the 
 Christian Directory, But perhaps this would hardly 
 build a very satisfactory Jerusalem **in England's 
 green and pleasant land'M There is something want- 
 ing which is at least vaguely present in the followers 
 of Major-Greneral Harrison and John Lilburne, who 
 felt that under the Commonwealth they were not yet 
 at rest, had not yet enjoyed or seen enough to accom- 
 plish the ends of God» Surely **the bitter pangs and 
 throbs [of the Civil War] would make way for that 
 long expected birth of peace, freedom and happiness, 
 both to the souls and bodies of the Lord's people: and 
 although we do not see it fully brought forth, yet we 
 do not despair, but in God's due time, it shall be so." ^^ 
 In different ways, the groups under discussion set out 
 to begin forthwith the new way of living which they 
 felt Christianity demanded. They very imperfectly 
 realized the nature of their quest. The increase both 
 in material resources and in economic knowledge has 
 since rekindled part of their hope in a more sober 
 form. But they deserve to be remembered for bearing 
 witness to the revolutionary character of the Christian 
 ideal of society. 
 
 The Puritan attitude, then, was marked by the ab- 
 sence of any emphatic social hope. Two other defects, 
 or, to use a neutral word, omissions, call for comment. 
 In the first place, the Puritan seldom attached much 
 weight to the claim which the poor can make on the 
 rich in virtue of the social character of all wealth. As 
 we have seen, when Baxter enumerates motives for 
 charity, he dwells on the likeness of the charitable man 
 to God, on the pleasant emotional effects to one's self 
 
 35 Simpkinson, Major-General Harrison, p. 177. 
 
172 PEOPERTY 
 
 of charitable action, on the assurance to faith and so) 
 on. He does indeed touch on our social interdepen-- 
 dence, but he has no clear perception and certainly / 
 no clear statement of any indebtedness of the rich to) 
 the poor. Among the great English Eeformers, Hughi 
 Latimer, so far as I know, stands almost alone ini! 
 recognizing this truth. If he is not solitary in recog--| 
 nizing the truth itself, the quaint way in which he^l 
 establishes it must, I think, be peculiar to him! While ^ 
 denying that the poor man has any right to take money 
 away from the rich man, he «ays, in his fifth sermon i 
 on the Lord's Prayer: **But yet the poor man hathi 
 title to the rich man's goods: so that the rich mam 
 ought to let the poor man have part of his riches to > 
 help and to comfort him withal." Latimer proceeds > 
 to drive this home in the following quaint argument.. 
 ^^But here I must ask you rich men a question. How 
 chanceth it you have your riches? 'We have them of 
 God, ' you will say. But by what means have you them ! ? 
 *By prayer,' you will say. 'We pray for them unto* 
 God and He giveth us the same. ' But I pray you tell I 
 me, what do other men which are not rich? Pray they 
 not as well as you do? *Yes,' you must say; for youi 
 cannot deny it. Then it appeareth that you have your • 
 riches not through your own prayers only, but other 
 men help you to pray for them: for they say as well,, 
 * Our Father, give us this day our daily bread, ' as you i 
 do : and peradventure they be better than you be and 1 
 God heareth their prayer sooner than yours. And so) 
 it appeareth most manifestly that you obtain your* 
 riches of God, not only through your own prayer, but : 
 through other men's too: other men help you to get\ 
 them at God's hand."^^ The Levellers reinforced, or* 
 rather replaced Latimer's argument, by pointing out 
 
 36 Latimer, Sermom, pp. 398, 399, Parker Society. 
 
AND THE EEFOEMATION 173 
 
 the debt of the rich, to other forms of hnman labour 
 than prayer. ^^If a man have no help from his neigh- 
 bors, he shall never get an estate of hundreds and 
 thousands a year. If other men help him to work, then 
 are those riches his neighbors ' as well as his : for they 
 be the fruits of other men's labors as well as his own. 
 But all rich men live at ease, feeding and clothing 
 themselves by the labors of other men, not by their 
 own, which is their shame and not their nobility: for 
 it is a more blessed thing to give than to receive. But 
 rich men receive all they have from the laborer's 
 hand, and w^hat they give, they give away other men's 
 labors, not their own. Therefore they are not right- 
 eous actors in the Earth. "^^ Latimer uses the in- 
 debtedness of the rich to enforce the obligation of 
 charity, the Levellers to deny the moral worth of char- 
 ity. In either case, we have here a line of thought 
 which is little considered in the main stream of Eef or- 
 mation teaching. 
 
 Secondly, the Puritan did not press any strong moral 
 criticism of ownership. He did not regard misuse as 
 impairing a man's right to property. The teaching of 
 Wyclif found no immediate echo in the Eeformation. 
 Wyclif claimed that ownership depended on a man's 
 standing in grace. The sinful man would not truly 
 own anything. As soon as a man fell into sin, his 
 ownership became usurpation.^^ This was no abstract 
 principle for Wyclif. He was prepared to enforce it 
 legally. He would have justified the temporal power 
 in taking away tithe from a church which misused it. 
 His whole general argument leads up to this practical 
 
 37 Berens, The Digger Movement, p. 173. 
 
 3s A similar conception appears in the Canon Law. See Carlyle, 
 Mediaeval Political Theory in the West, ii. p. 141. Wyclif s application 
 of the principle to the Church wag. the revolutionary element in his 
 teaching. 
 
174 PEOPEETY 
 
 1 
 conclusion. However, it was in relation to the Church \ 
 
 that he was prepared to apply his principle rigorously, ■ 
 as the Church, he held, was originally meant to be poor. 
 Some of his followers went further and criticized lords 
 temporal as well as lords ecclesiastical. As the main- > 
 spring of a legal system Wyclif 's doctrine of property \ 
 may seem fantastic ; yet undeniably it is a healthy 
 stimulant to the conscience. It would not be a mistake 
 to urge it on the attention of the individual, after the 
 manner of John Woolman in his Word of Remem- 
 brance to the Rich. In essentials, and yet I suppose in 
 complete independence, this most loving of revolution- 
 aries this late eighteenth-century Quaker, reproduces 
 Wyclif ^s position, as is clear from such passages as 
 these : * * Though the poor occupy our estate by a bar- 
 gain, to which they in their poor circumstances agree, 
 and we may even ask less than a punctual fulfilling of 
 their agreement, yet if our views are to lay up riches : 
 or to live in conformity to customs which have not ; 
 their foundation in the truth, and our demands are ' 
 such as require from them greater toil or application 
 to business than is consistent with pure love, we invade 
 their rights as inhabitants of a world of which a good 
 and gracious God is the proprietor, and under whom 
 we are tenants. As He who first founded the earth 
 was then the true proprietor of it, so He still remains ; 
 and though He hath given it to the children of men, 
 so that multitudes of people have had their sustenance 
 from it while they continued here, yet He hath never 
 alienated it, but His right is as good as at first: nor 
 can any apply the increase of their possessions con- 
 trary to universal love, nor dispose of lands in a way 
 which they know tends to exalt some by oppressing 
 others, without being justly chargeable with usurpa- 
 tion." Wyclif and Woolman are at one in holding 
 
AND THE KEFORMATION 175 
 
 that only a good use of property confers a moral right 
 to itj and that this moral right is deeper than any legal 
 rightj is indeed the standard by which any legal right 
 may be questioned or revised. The Puritan in effect 
 did not go behind the legal right. He did not press the 
 moral criticism of private ownership which reveals the 
 otience against love so often and so deeply involved in 
 it. Consequently the Puritan did not see, and those 
 who follow the Puritan tradition closely do not often 
 see what John Woolman saw; that *Ho labour for a 
 perfect redemption from this spirit of oppression is 
 the great business of the whole family of Christ Jesus 
 in this world.'' 
 
 This essay must not close without some reference, 
 however brief, to the influence of the Evangelical Ee- 
 vival. So far as the Evangelical attitude towards 
 wealth is concerned, the term ^'revival" is strictly 
 apposite. The whole movement tended to infuse a 
 new spirit of absolute consecration into the old thought 
 of stewardship. It viewed property not so much in 
 the light of the Decalogue as in the far more searching 
 light of the Gospel of the Cross, and of the sacred 
 obligations it imposes on the Christian conscience. 
 Thus Wilberforce is unsparing in his criticism of the 
 average Christian who wishes to fence off the sphere 
 of religion: **Eeligion can claim only a stated propor- 
 tion of their thoughts, their time, their fortune and 
 influence: and of these or perhaps of any of them if 
 they make her anything of a liberal allowance, she may 
 well be satisfied : the rest is now their own to do what 
 they will with ; they have paid their tithes— say rather 
 their composition—the demands of the church are sat- 
 isfied : and they may surely be permitted to enjoy what 
 she has left without molestation or interference."^® 
 
 39 Wilberforce, Practical View of Christianity (1797), chap. iv. sec. 2. 
 
176 PEOPEKTY 
 
 He proceeds to note how the idea of possession as a | 
 trust from God fades from men's minds. This con- [ 
 ception he proposes to revive. 
 
 This fuller consecration of wealth was demanded 
 by the many causes which called for philanthropic! 
 effort. The Evangelicals whom Wilberforce and' 
 Shaftesbury led were alive to the social evils of their j 
 time, and eager to stem them chiefly by voluntary or> i 
 ganization. In the numerous philanthropic societies i 
 of the nineteenth century, a vast outlet was discovered 
 for the expenditure of wealth and energy. ** Bibles, 
 schools, missionaries, the circulation of evangelical 
 books, and the training of evangelical clergy, the pos- 
 session of well-attended pulpits, war through the press, 
 and war in parliament against every form of injustice 
 which either law or custom sanctioned,— -such were the j 
 forces by which they hoped to extend the kingdom of 
 light. ' ' *° The many-sided character of the philan- 1 
 thropic appeal made Lord Shaftesbury conscious of ; 
 the apathy of England, and of the condemnation for | 
 sins of omission to which harmless people of all classes 
 were liable. This ** innocent'' world could not face the 
 question, **Have you laboured for the physical and 
 spiritual welfare of your fellow-sinners ? " *^ i 
 
 The great Evangelicals were not averse from State 
 action, nor did they fall into the mistake of sharply 
 separating the physical from the spiritual needs of 
 men — a delusive antithesis which often haunts the : 
 speech and snares the thought of Evangelicals, though , 
 it is perhaps as often ignored by them in practice ! *^ 
 But undoubtedly voluntary organizations, especially 1 
 for the purpose of religious education, formed the out- 
 
 40 Sir Jamea Stephen, Essay on The Olapham Sect. ' 
 
 41 See Shaftesbury's Life by Hodder, pop. ed., p. 626. 
 
 42 See especially a striking quotation in Shaftesbury's Ldfe, pp. 554-5. 
 
AND THE EEFOEMATION 177 
 
 standing feature of the Evangelical movement. One 
 characteristic of this religions and philanthropic ac- 
 tivity has an important bearing on onr subject. It has 
 been noted by Dr. T. C. Hall *^ that there was a demo- 
 cratic, a levelling tendency in Evangelicalism. **To 
 be even tainted with Evangelicalism was in the early 
 years certainly, to be socially suspicions. It meant 
 knowing * queer people' and going *out of one's sphere 
 in life,' as the romance literature of the period abun- 
 dantly shows us. ' ' Evangelical philanthropy over- 
 leapt class-barriers, and* paved the way for a more 
 searching criticism of class- standards of living. 
 
 It i^ill thus be apparent that Evangelicalism not 
 only revived the Puritan tradition of stewardship, and 
 insisted on the responsibility of wealth in view of the 
 nimiberless calls for philanthropic effort, but also 
 stimulated that practical sense of brotherhood between 
 men of different classes by which all use of wealth 
 should be judged and guided. 
 
 *3 In his essay on the Evangelical E^vival in Christ and Civilisation, 
 p. 385. 
 
vn 
 
 PEOPERTY AND PERSONALITY 
 
 BY 
 
 The Eev. HENRY SCOTT HOLLAND, D.D. 
 
 BEGIUS PBOFESSOE OF DIVINITY, OXFORD, AND CANON OF CHEIST CHURCH 
 
 179 
 
SUMMARY 
 
 The prolonged vitality of the elemental definitions of property taken 
 over from Stoical philosophers by Roman lawyers; passed on through 
 scholastic tradition; to reappear in schemes of social contract by Hobbea 
 and Rousseau, So long as this tradition held its ground, all existing 
 legal enactments were limited by ideal of Natural Order. Private right 
 of property could never make itself absolute,^ Existing law tested by 
 its power to secure right; the claim of the poor made in the interests 
 of justice, and not of charity. The tradition was summed up in the 
 phrase "Property a trust." Over against this, at the Reformation, the 
 rise in value of individual conscience and freedom. Private judgment 
 sacred in religion. Individual initiative invoked by new world of 
 thought, imagination, and adventure. So, in the order of Nature, the 
 individual was regarded as absolutely free and unchecked; only to be 
 limited by contract. Thus, through Locke and Rousseau, the tradition 
 of the Order of Nature reached the French Revolution in an exaggerated 
 individualistic form. 
 
 Then again, the change and development of industry laid all the 
 emphasis on the individual. Man free to put out his full force on his 
 own account, released from external shackles. The result of this indi- 
 vidualism was a tendency to push aside the tradition that private prop- 
 erty was conditional and secondary, and to base it on absolute and 
 primal right of individual to claim the fruit of his labours. The claim 
 of others upon him is more and more rested on charity alone. So the 
 fatal transition came about, which assumed the right of private property 
 to be final and absolute. This reinforced by Hegel through teaching that 
 personality requires private property for its full development; and again 
 by British practical assumption that property is essential to full citi- 
 zenship. The true citizen is a man with a stake in the country. Yet the 
 resultant society, which grounds itself on the fundamental character of 
 private property, and finds in ownership the spring of social virtues, 
 has as a matter of fact so developed as to exclude the great mass of 
 people from the possibilities of private ownership. Ownership of tools 
 or trade by workers has been practically obliterated; and "the people" 
 live on wages. That is, it has no permanent property of its own. In 
 consequence, the workers are without self-direction, without assured 
 
 180 
 
PEOPEETY AND PEESONALITY 181 
 
 stability, and without independence, all of which are essential conditions 
 for the development of individual character. Therefore individuals 
 wither under a system governed by individualism. 
 
 Our problem is to correct this unhappy issue. It has been brought 
 about largely by false logic of personality. Personality has been assumed 
 to be isolated and self-contained. In reality, personality is never soli- 
 
 1 tary ; incapable of isolation ; exists only in fellowship, through inter- 
 
 I communion of person w^th person. So if personality only can exist in 
 a community, fellowship belongs to the inner essence of personality ; and 
 every rise in significance of personality intensifies the significance of 
 
 j society. The personality that acquires social rights is a personality 
 which is collective and representative. So in holding private property, 
 it acts as organ of Community. Thus, once again, private property is 
 
 I ghown to be conditional and not absolute, for it means property privately 
 held and administered in the name and interest of the community. 
 Again, if personality is essentially collective, then it can develop through 
 exercise of collective ownership. The community at large may become 
 an owner ; and each Individual in the community will, as member of the 
 community, exercise the rights and acquire the virtues of an owner. 
 So property can be regarded as a trust administered by the whole com- 
 munity, or, if by the individual, then not by him in his own right, but 
 in' his organic, representative character, as identical, in interest and in 
 will, with the society of which he is a member, and by virtue of which 
 he exists as an individual. This ideal identification of individual and 
 society only possible if God be the one supreme authority over both. 
 Himself the only absolute justification of all rights of ownership. 
 
VII 
 
 PEOPEETY AND PEESONALITY 
 
 Looking back, after this prolonged Historical Eeview,, 
 it is impossible not to be struck by the insistent vitality^ 
 of the elemental conceptions as to the nature and! 
 ground of property, which the Eoman lawyers took: 
 over from the Stoic philosophy. From the day ini 
 which the familiar expression given to them by the 
 writings of Cicero had made them the possession of i 
 every cultivated man, they have never ceased to work; 
 within the mind with which we determine man's natu- 
 ral right to possess what he can claim to be his own, 
 and the degree and limits to which Society should en- 
 force this claim. The particular philosophical theory 
 by which the language was to be interpreted might 
 drop out of the world's memory; but the language 
 remained imbedded in law and custom, in formula andi 
 proverb; and, still, there was left on the corporate) 
 imagination the vague impression of a law of Nature' 
 which could be found within and behind all particular 
 laws, and of a natural right which was the inalienable ' 
 possession of every individual man. These ruling 
 ideals governed the existence and justification of Prop- 
 erty. They passed into the very structure of human i 
 thought through the Casuists and the Scholastics whoi 
 did the work of thinking for the mediaeval world. 
 They took a new lease of life in the schemes of Social ' 
 Contract which held the intellectual field from Hobbes ' 
 to Eousseau. They were often driven back out of the ' 
 
 182 
 
PEOPERTY AND PERSONALITY 183 
 
 ireiia of practical business by the industrial develop- 
 nents of the last three centuries, which took their own 
 stormy way regardless of speculative theories about 
 ights and duties; and had to confine themselves to 
 he domain of academic and forensic disputation. But 
 hey were never dislodged. They could still make 
 hemseives felt at critical moments of legislative deci- 
 sion, and could still quicken into effective reality high- 
 ounding parliamentary perorations. 
 Thus, however vague might be the meaning attached 
 |o the historic phrases, they always served to sustain 
 In life a sense that any existent legal enactment on 
 property had to justify itself at a higher bar. It was 
 never, in itself, ultimate. Behind it and above it stood 
 a supreme law grounded in some ideal natural order 
 ^of things. Sin and evil might prohibit the perfect 
 ^display of this high law. There might be necessities 
 which justified recourse to lower methods and expe- 
 diencies. But, nevertheless, some echo of this loftier 
 code %vas the secret of all the authority claimed by the 
 actual legalities enforced by Society upon its members. 
 Something of the primal condition survived, which no 
 after-work could wholly blot out. 
 
 There was, therefore, an ideal standard to be recog- 
 nized by which all existing legislation must be judged. 
 The force which a Society could rightly use to repress 
 wrong-doing and to assert private rights was not un- 
 limited. Man's outlook travelled beyond it, and his 
 conscience took in ideal conditions which had a natural 
 and inalienable authority. In face of all the violence 
 of War and Conquest, and in defiance of all the fetters 
 that servile lawyers might be induced to forge, it was 
 a splendid achievement to have transmitted this invisi- 
 ble claim of all humanity to a right and a liberty of 
 which no man-made law could ever dispossess it. 
 
 ,/ 
 
i]. 
 
 184 PEOPERTY 
 
 This tradition overhung the whole structural fabric f 
 of Society, and it applied, with special emphasis, to 
 the subject which this book has in hand. Private prop- 
 erty, according to this view of life, obviously belonged 
 to the secondary, and not to the primal, condition of 
 human affairs. In the state of our Innocence it would 
 not be needed or authorized. All would have been inj 
 common. This is the constant refrain of the Fathers. ^ 
 It is true that, by the Christian Doctrine of the Fall, 
 they managed to get a more impassable barrier be-j 
 tween then and now than the earlier philosophy had 
 defined. For them, the condition of Innocence was 
 gone beyond recall ; and the necessity for restraint, i 
 limitation, repression, coercion was far more precisely 
 determined through their recognition of universal sin. 
 In this way Christianity supplied a stronger ground ' 
 for the existence of the State, and for the legislation 
 of private property, than had been possible before. 
 Still it remained that private property, however inevi- 
 table and justifiable under the condition of an evil I 
 world, was nevertheless only a social expedient, not 
 an absolute right; and it was bound, therefore, to be 
 subject to the possibilities of a higher expediency. It 
 was justified, but only as the most available method 
 of attaining the common good in view of present perils ; 
 and it has always to show that this, its proper end, is "jj 
 being attained. 
 
 This requirement led to two positions which could 
 be supported by quotations from Fathers and Casuists. 
 
 (1) Since, as Cicero had long ago proved, Law ex- 
 ists to secure the Right, if it fail in this, its original 
 purpose, it has lost its claim to be obeyed. Bad rulers 
 and bad laws destroy their own authority. Wyclif had 
 something behind him when he re-asserted this verdict. 
 He could quote Augustine. 
 
PEOPEETY AND PEESONALITY 185 
 
 (2) But there was another position more widely 
 
 eld, and more effectual; and this was that the poor, 
 
 I their need, were appealing not to charity but to 
 
 istice. The owners of property were, after all, hold- 
 
 ig what was due to all; and in giving to those in 
 
 jecessity they were but giving them what was their 
 
 Iwn. Father after Father had laid this down, often 
 
 lith emphasis and passion. And the greatest of all 
 
 pe Schoolmen had endorsed it by his declaration that 
 
 ll which was over and above our practical wants was 
 
 p. debt to those who needed its help. 
 
 I The result of such a tradition might be summed up 
 
 II the historic phrase that all property was held in 
 irust. Those who used it had to answer to God, as 
 lood stewards, for its use. There was no moral or 
 pgai possibility of standing on the bare claim of pos- 
 lession. The possession of private property was con- 
 itional, not absolute. And its public utility must be 
 iistiiied, and answered for, at the bar of divine judg- 
 |ient* This was the underlying assumption which has 
 lassed into our normal historical heritage, and can 
 lever again be wholly lost, 
 
 I But, in the meantime, during the centuries which 
 Ipened with the Eenaissance, a vigorous intellectual 
 ieveloprnent had been taking place, which partly 
 Ibscured, and partly countered, this ancient tradition. 
 lian had set himself to disclose and to discover the full 
 iigniiicance of personality. He was himself, in his 
 Individual character, the seat and focus of all that 
 lould interest or affect him. He was no mere speci- 
 pen of a type, no mere item in a class, no mere unit 
 p a society. Type, class, society, must interpret and 
 iUstify themselves to him directly, in his personal and 
 i)rivate conscience. He is at the centre of his own 
 life, not on the circumference of some one else's. He 
 
186 PEOPERTY 
 
 I 
 
 knows himself, he answers for himself, he controls and 
 directs himself — face to face with the God who is hi£ 
 God. So the outbreak of the Reformation had de-i 
 clared. The individual conscience, the private jiidg-: 
 ment, had shaken themselves free from externai; 
 shackles. Luther had pitted his solitary soul against 
 the weight of system and tradition. The emphasis wag 
 bound to be given to the sanctity of individual rightr 
 and to the inviolability of individual freedom. The 
 claim triumphantly asserted in the domain of the spirii 
 could not but react over the whole area of active life* 
 wherever personality was at work. And it was at worM 
 everywhere. The earth had been laid bare to it; new 
 horizons widened the range of its possibilities; new 
 worlds awaited its conquest; its windows opened ob 
 to the foam of untravelled seas beyond which la^ij 
 *^faery lands forlorn." Life was for the adventurou^ 
 for the independent, for those who could launch oui 
 alone and tempt the perilous flood. Everything con-' 
 spired to invoke into play the vigour and daring o, 
 individual initiative. A man was asked to fling behinc 
 him the worn-out familiar customs of social activity 
 on which lay already the dust of death, and to let him: 
 self go, out of sheer trust in his own soul, to discovei 
 what novel experiences might unfold their secret.^ 
 under the conquering force of his own personal attack 
 Individuality came inevitably to the front. The dramij 
 atists laid hold of the theme by artistic instinct. They 
 saw the poetic value of dynamic' or even demonic per-: 
 sonalities, impelled into solitary significance by thti 
 tragic irony of adverse circumstances. They loved t(( 
 think of that infinite variability which gives to humari 
 character its bewildering fascination. 
 
 The day of individuality had come as long ago in 
 the Hellas of Socrates and the Sophists. And sociaa 
 
PROPERTY AND PERSONALITY 187 
 
 eories were inevitably affected by its invading pres- 
 
 nce. To men of peaceful and timid rationality like 
 
 Phomas Hobbes, it wore the form of menace. He 
 
 ihuddered at the thought of a condition of primitive 
 
 ature in which he, and those of his kidney, wonld lie 
 
 t the mercy of these exuberant, boisterous, aggressive 
 
 ersonalities, all bent on self-assertion. Such a life 
 
 Iras terrible to contemplate — it would be *^ short, bru- 
 
 Ijish and nasty." Mankind must, perforce, buttress 
 
 itself against this clash and crash of militant individ- 
 
 |alities by concerted action, by drawing together to 
 
 Ireate a community, which could come to its own rescue 
 
 |nder the obligations of a social contract. So the mass 
 
 ft weaker men might be strong enough to hold their 
 
 hwi against the overwhelming appetites of masterful 
 
 [Individuals. Under such a contract, they might secure 
 
 jheir right over private possessions. 
 
 I Or again, as we have seen in the earlier essays, 
 
 Locke and the School of English Rationalists gave an 
 
 Intensely individual turn to the natural rights with 
 
 i^^hich man was endowed, and laid it down that a man 
 
 jnight claim a right of possession over any material 
 
 .nto which he had put his own individual labour. It 
 
 was through this English philosopher that the ancient 
 
 loctrine of a state of Nature as a natural law reached 
 
 Rousseau; and it was in this individualistic form that 
 
 .t created the jflaming watchword of the French Revo- 
 
 ntion. 
 
 It was true that Rousseau's own theory of social 
 contract led him to an admirable organization of a 
 Social Self, a **Moi Commun" into which the mere 
 self-centred, self-seeking Ego of Nature passed by a 
 )aptism of the Spirit. The old self was gone, with its 
 larrow individuality; and a new individuality had 
 5ome into play, corporate and representative by its 
 
188 PEOPEETY 
 
 inner character, embodying and focussing in itself the 
 mind and will of the commnnityj finding its own exist- 
 ence in identification with the universal desire. This 
 is the true individual who can take up the duties of 
 citizenship. He is moralized by his universalism. He 
 lives in others, and they live in him. The right over 
 private property which he possesses comes to him 
 through this identification. It is by the will of the 
 community that he can exercise freely a will of his own. 
 
 Here is a noble social philosophy. Only it depends 
 for its authority on an historical contract by which 
 men have bound themselves to die to their natural soli- ^ 
 tude of being. Yet they could never have come to-i 
 gether to enter into such a contract unless they had 
 already possessed the corporate and social character 
 which the contract was invented to account for. That ; 
 is the difficulty of all theories of that kind. The social j 
 contract presupposes the qualities which it is supposed 
 to originate. 
 
 But, anyhow, this was not the side of Eousseau gos« \ 
 pel on which the Eevolution seized. It flared out with 
 the bare news that Nature had made man free, and, 
 yet, that he had made himself everywhere a slave. He 
 could regain his true self only by throwing himself 
 back upon his original and primal claim to Liberty, 
 Equality, Fraternity. Here, again, the liberty phrases 
 wore the air which had been characteristic of the Eef- 
 ormation. There might be qualifications to be made; 
 but, still, the heart of the matter lay in the free right 
 of the individual man to break with all authority im- 
 posed from without, and to go his own way, and boj 
 his own master. All men equally had this right to be 
 themselves; and in exercising this equality of free 
 development they will find their brotherhood with one 
 another. Their natural right was the right to live, to 
 
* PEOPEETY AND PEESONALITY 189 
 
 rovk out tlieir own destiny, to find food enough and 
 oom enough, in reward for their own labours, on the 
 Ijlroad bosom of a mother-earth which was full and fer- 
 lliie in response to the demands of her children. Society 
 /liight have to collect its coercive or militant forces in 
 Irder to assert the liberty of man against foreign foe 
 \|r internal oppressor; and the Eevolution was pre- 
 f)ared to commit even extreme power to the State 
 ?■ )rganization in emergencies. But still the dream, the 
 ipsion of the Age of reason and freedom and benevo- 
 lence, was one out of which State necessities had 
 mropped, and every one was his own law and his own 
 piaster, safe in his possessions, assured of his own 
 l^oods, glad and at peace under his own vine and fig 
 free, fraternally interested in knowing and seeing that 
 |kli his brothers had their own individual joy. 
 I Yet, over all this social and theoretic emphasis laid 
 |)n the reality of the individual at the Eef ormation and 
 |)nwards, there still hovered the corrective and haunt- 
 fing memory of that authoritative tradition which went 
 behind all institutional legalization of private prop- 
 erty, and, from the standpoint of primitive humanity, 
 refused to attribute to it any absolute value.^ It was 
 otherwise in the other departments of human affairs, 
 hich had already in the eighteenth century begun to 
 ssume the form which was to develop so amazing an 
 expansion. Industry had undergone its own revolu- 
 ^tion ; and, under its moral conditions, it gave free rein 
 jto this liberty which, from so many sides and for varied 
 reasons, individuality had learned to claim. Here, in 
 
 1 It could still shape our prayers. Cf. Prayer in Queen Elizabeth's 
 Primer: "Thou, O Lord, providest enough for all men with Thy most 
 liberal and bountiful hand. But wherever Thy gifts are, in respect of 
 Thy goodness and free favour, made free unto all men, we (through our 
 haughtiness and niggardliness and distrust) do make them private and 
 peculiar. Correct Thou the things which our iniquity hath put out of 
 order: let Thy goodness supply that which our niggardliness hath 
 plucked away." 
 
190 PEOPEETY I 
 
 i 
 
 commerce, there was opportunity indeed for tlirowin^^ 
 off external and prescriptive obstacles, and for staking; 
 all your confidence on individual initiative. Hera" 
 indeed, each man counts simply for what he is, anc 
 for what he can make of himself. Here he has a righi^ 
 to put out his energy in any direction that he can makci 
 good, and to hold in his personal possession anything 
 that he can win in the open market. Trade is open 
 and free, and all may take their chance in it. What 
 he can get, he has. He holds it by virtue of his owj][ 
 strength and courage and knowledge. In doing thei 
 best for himself, he is accumulating the general wealtlij 
 Let him go ahead, he needs no other authority than hisi 
 own superior skill to justify his grip on his oa^ti win- 
 nings. 
 
 This was the judgment of the new commercial con- 
 science. And as a logical result, it tended to treat the 
 claim to hold private property as final. It gave no 
 reason for going behind it. There were certain State 
 necessities which must be provided for; and individ- 
 uals, in return for police protection and public security 
 and a secured opportunity for doing business, might 
 rightly be taxed to supply their social needs. But it 
 was the concern of the State to reduce these to the 
 minimum by policies of peace, retrenchment, and re- 
 form; and so to leave the largest possible liberty to 
 the private owner to do what he willed with his own. 
 Or, again, it was seemly for those who were well fa- 
 voured in their ventures to exhibit a high standard 
 of public beneficence and to aid those less fortunate 
 than themselves. It was right to rate very high the 
 virtues of charity. But the very earnestness of the 
 personal appeals made to the conscience of the rich 
 on behalf of the poor was itself a mtness to the abso- 
 luteness of their command over their property. It 
 
PEOPEETY AND PEESONALITY 191 
 
 iij, ,epende(i wholly on their goodwill whether they wonld 
 bspond, and the appeal to their generosity could never 
 ise above the level of an emotional motive. 
 
 This appeal to charity, whenever it is greatly in 
 Vidence, is a snre signal that things have got wrong, 
 t always means that the individual right is treated as 
 hsolute in itself, and has escaped out of its proper 
 ubordination to the demands of justice. The stress 
 n the duty of beneficence and almsgiving, which Mr. 
 N'ood notes as so emphatic in Puritan addresses and 
 ,|nanualSj is rather an ominous sign. The earlier the- 
 )logy laid the like stress to a somewhat dangerous 
 Ixtent; but, then, it grounded its pleas for charity 
 jilways on the supreme justice which claimed the gift 
 IS a debt. But the idea of the debt faded wholly away 
 ut of the industrial world of the nineteenth century, 
 t had forgotten that there was any question as to the 
 ight of private property to exist, or as to the condi- 
 itions of its origin. It had ceased to doubt its ultimate 
 lvalue. It had its origin, plainly enough, in the exer- 
 tions and the capacity of the individual man who earned 
 it or made it. His right to it was to be found in his 
 right to be himself. What more could you wanf? 
 
 It is this intellectual passage from the conception 
 bf private property as secondary and contingent to the 
 conception of it as ultimate and absolute, which has 
 caused all the trouble. And this passage was made, 
 almost insensibly, through the intense realization of 
 the value to be set on the liberty of the individual to 
 live his own life. 
 
 Prom another side, again, the position reached under 
 
 the influence of practical commercialism, with its em- 
 
 iphasis on the freedom of the individual to put out his 
 
 own powers to full exercise, was reinforced by the 
 
 higher Idealism of Germany. Hegel saw in private 
 
192 PEOPERTY 
 
 property the full opportunity for the development of: 
 the true ideal individual to which all his logic had led! 
 him. Through ownership, personality realized its; 
 power of self -direction and self-control. Personality 
 is trained, through the discipline of property, to make^ 
 its own self -disclosure as a ruling and active agent im 
 the world of affairs. It comes to itself, thus realizing; 
 its power to manipulate and govern and use and direct ; 
 a permanent stock of effective force. Its own actuality ' 
 is revealed to it through this identification of itself 
 with the real. It shows itself to be essentially an end,^, 
 and not a means. It acquires a sense of self-centred, 
 sufficiency. It establishes its right to independence. , 
 It wins a footing of its own, a pivot for its action, by 
 virtue of which it can assert itself as a unit of force i 
 in the correlated activities and services and functions i 
 of the organic community. It is moralized and spir- 
 itualized by being secured in this recognized position! 
 of self-dependent and authentic reality. 
 
 So the big German philosophy works out that intel- 
 lectual justification of private property which the prac- 
 tical English man of business expresses by the phrase, 
 '*A man of property is one who has a stake in the 
 country. ' ' He is a qualified citizen whose interests are , 
 bound up with the interests of the whole community. 
 He has committed himself, he has taken his place, he 
 has become a focus and seat and centre of civic obli- 
 gation. He has a personality that counts in the sum 
 of the whole. He has rights as weU as obligations. He 
 is a true ethical unit. For he owns property. 
 
 So we all say, and everybody cheers. Thus ** per- 
 sonalty" nearly spells personality. Only the strange 
 thing is that the very Society which, in theory, has so 
 emphatically grounded itself on the fundamental basis 
 of private property, and has found in the sense of 
 
PEOPERTY AND PERSONALITY 193 
 
 ownership the spring and source of these moral excel- 
 lencies on which it builds its own security, nevertheless 
 allows itself to develop in a direction which is con- 
 stantly reducing the number of people who can have 
 a chance of experiencing what ownership means. Our 
 industrial organization has found it essential to its 
 success to wipe out the multitude of small owners, 
 who once found their place in our trade. It has 
 stripped the agricultural labourer of all that gave him 
 a hold on the land. The vast mass of workers in our 
 towns have long ago ceased to have any right of pos- 
 session over the tools or materials of their occupation. 
 They have dropped to the position of pure w^age-earn- 
 ers, and that means that they have no secure footing 
 of their own, no self-dependent area on which to fall 
 back, no reserved resources which are under their own 
 control and direction. Their existence is never in their 
 own hands; nor are they responsible for their own 
 maintenance. The stability, the power to look before 
 and after, the assured hold on reality, the embodiment 
 of their own w4Us in a material fact, which we philo- 
 sophically recognize to be the moral and spiritual value 
 of private o'wnership,™all this is denied them. They 
 enjoy no sense of backgroimd such as would endow 
 their individual lives with a certain dignity. They 
 exist on the surface; they cannot strike roots, and 
 establish permanency. The forces on which their very 
 being depends are wholly out of their ken or power. 
 They are regulated by others, who are out of sight. 
 They themselves live by the day or the week, and are 
 liable to every sort of accidental or unanticipated dis- 
 placement. It is just the moral discipline of respon- 
 sible ownership which they are bound to lack. This 
 is the class which our system of industry sets itself 
 to create and use, both in town and country. Its work 
 
194 PEOPEETY 
 
 is rested entirely on the wage, and the wage means 
 the absence of ownership. 
 
 And not only so, bnt the permanent claim made for 
 the right and valne of private property is so nsed as 
 to make the many the practical property of the few. 
 Property is not valued for its use, but for its power, 
 as Professor Hobhouse has shown. The o^\Tier does 
 not claim what is his own for the sake of using it. 
 For, indeed, he owns far more than he can ever dream 
 of using. The unhappy multi-millionaire cannot con- 
 sume, through his own efforts, more than £10,000 a 
 year, as one of them dolefully confessed. If his income 
 is over a million, then all this surplusage goes to en- 
 large his domination. What he does is to exercise 
 power over others. He can prescribe for them what 
 their life shall be ; what opportunity they will have for 
 gaining a livelihood; where they shall live, and under 
 what conditions. He has thousands upon thousands 
 dependent on him for their existence. He utilizes 
 their labour, and turns it to efficient exercise and profit. 
 His private property gives him the power by which 
 others are deprived of their possession of themselves. 
 Thus the great capitalist, by the exercise of his own 
 right of ownership, limits and cancels the self-owner- 
 ship which others might enjoy. Himself the great 
 illustration of the capacities of private property, he 
 is also, by that very fact, the great example of its 
 destruction. By enlarging his own immense stake in 
 the country, he creates a multitude of individual work- 
 ers who have no permanent stake to speak of. The 
 property which gives him such efficient power, does 
 so by depriving others of the very power which he 
 possesses — the power to be their own master and to 
 control their own destiny. Thus it has come about that 
 the Society which boasts of its reliance on the freedom 
 
PROPERTY AND PERSONALITY 195 
 
 of individual self -development nevertheless allows only 
 a limited proportion of its individual members to pos- 
 sess the freedom. It appeals to the moralizing in- 
 fluence of ownership; and then denies the possibilities 
 of any real ownership to the main mass of its members. 
 
 Individualism, then, finds its worst opportunity in 
 an individualistic society. The law of competition, 
 working under our present capitalism, while offering 
 scope and fulfilment to the very few, wrecks and under- 
 mines the individuality of the many. And this it does 
 just because it gives to so very few the chance of em- 
 bodying the permanent worth of the personality in 
 any enduring right of possession. It leaves the vast 
 multitude of workers to become mere items on the 
 surface, without any secured future, without any sure 
 grip on facts, without any stored reserve, without any 
 established status. Personal value finds no public 
 witness. Character has no firm pivot round which it 
 can build up its fabric. The inner life misses its outer 
 support. It obtains no substantial recognition; it can- 
 not give public or visible evidence why it should be 
 acknowledged and honoured. It has no pledge to prof- 
 fer of its own permanence. It has no fixed centre round 
 which associations and relations and obligations may 
 coalesce. It lacks the basis out of which it can educate 
 itself into structural coherence, or through which it 
 can respond and react in counter-play to all the forces 
 that tell upon it from without. 
 
 All this the human personality requires, if it is to 
 discover its strength and to develop its capacities. All 
 this it could gain out of the exercise of ownership, in 
 a community of owners. All this it is bound to miss 
 in a community in which real ownership is the excep- 
 tion, and only the few can attain to the full liberty and 
 independence of self-possession. 
 
196 PEOPEETY 
 
 By forcing Individualism, then, we have^ somehow, 
 , evicted individualities. By over-assertion of the abso- 
 lute right of the individual man to have what is his 
 own, we have landed ourselves in a situation in which 
 the majority of men are not their own masters, and 
 have a minimum of what they can call their own. Ob- 
 viously, our logic has gone wrong somehow. 
 
 Shall we try to see how the trouble began? And, 
 reviewing the last three centuries of our social evolu- 
 tion, (Shall we not be justified in suspecting that it is 
 our philosophy of personality which has been at fault? 
 
 We laid hold, at the Eef ormation and the Eevolution, 
 on the supreme value of personality; and we found 
 the secret of this value to lie in the sanctity and free- 
 dom of the individual man. We isolated this core of 
 individuality; and we attributed to it, in its isolation, 
 all its high privileges and prerogatives, all its sacred 
 rights and inveterate claims. The individual man jus- 
 tified himself. He constituted his own natural right 
 to live, to grow, to put out his powers. He was the 
 spring of his own liberty, and the owner of his own 
 activity. He, in his solitary dignity of being, answered 
 for himself to God alone. He owned no other lordship. 
 To Him alone was he bound to give account of his 
 stewardship over His goods. 
 
 But can an individuality ever be isolated? Was this 
 not a false start? What is individuality? And where 
 is it to be found? Can it appear, can it exist, except 
 in a community of which it is the representative organ? 
 The individual man draws all his significance out of 
 the fact that he is the expression of some social body 
 to which he belongs. He is a member of his race, of 
 his nation ; on that depends in fact his individual worth. 
 This is why he counts. He is a sample of what his 
 nationality means. Every claim that he makes for 
 
PEOPEETY AND PEESONALITY 197 
 
 himself can be made in pressing the same terms for 
 others. He cannot give himself any value that he 
 denies to others. As he rises into free self-assertion, 
 so these others rise all round him with identical rights. 
 He and they are created by the same act and under 
 the same law. He can never be intelligible except in 
 terms which include and involve others. Individuality, 
 then, is really representative, is corporate, is social, 
 by the very principle of its like. It can only be under- 
 stood as the unit of a society. 
 
 And this only leads us down deeper into the root- 
 conception of personality wliich finds expression in 
 individuality. Personality lies in the relation of per- 
 son to person. A personality is what it is only by 
 virtue of its power to transcend itself and to enter into 
 the life of another. It lives by interpenetration, by 
 intercourse, by communion. Its power of life is love. 
 There is no such thing as a solitary, isolated person. 
 A self-contained personality is a contradiction in 
 terms. What we mean by personality is a capacity 
 for intercourse, a capacit^^ for retaining self-identity 
 by and through identification with others — a capacity 
 for friendship, for communion, for fellowship. Hence 
 the true logic of personality compels us to discover 
 the man's personal worth in the inherent necessity of 
 a society in which it is realized. Society is, simply, 
 the expression of the social inter-commmiion of spirit 
 yvitlx spirit which constitutes what we mean by per- 
 sonality. Fellowship and Individuality are correlative 
 terms. 
 
 It is therefore impossible to emphasize the reality 
 of personal existence and personal claims, or personal 
 liberty, without in the very same breath asserting the 
 emphatic reality of social obligation, the paramount 
 authority of social order, the sanctity of social law. 
 
 y' 
 
198 PEOPEETY 
 
 Every rise in the value of the State involves a corre- 
 vi spending rise in the value of the individual that incor- 
 porates it. Every increase in the personal freedom 
 witnesses to the supreme significance of the common 
 life of which that liberty is the witness and the expres- 
 sion. 
 
 Personality, then, is always collective in basis. In 
 every individual act and word it is putting out power 
 which comes to it through its place in the community. 
 The *'moi" which asserts its free individuality is still 
 the **moi commun" of Eousseau. It may legitimately 
 claim the right to personal possession : but the claim so 
 made will belong to it by virtue of its corporate and 
 representative qualification; so that the individual 
 right to own private property is an expression of the 
 community's right to have and to hold its own, put 
 out through the person of one of its members. It can 
 never be an absolute right inherent in the man himself ; 
 for he, as a personality, is inseparable from the fellow- 
 ship which constitutes his personal existence. He 
 holds what he can call his own by virtue of his status 
 inside the fellowship; and, if so, the justification of 
 his private ownership must always be found in the 
 welfare and the will of the community. He must be 
 expressing the will of the State in having personal 
 authority to administer this or that possession. He 
 can never claim to be outside or beyond the range of 
 this general will, for only through it can he be what 
 he is. 
 
 Once again, then, we have renewed the supremacy 
 of justice over all conditions under which private prop- 
 erty is held. It is as a member of the Body that he 
 has right of possession; and, therefore, all his right 
 of possession is governed by the good of the Body, 
 which is his own good. Any demands on his private 
 
PEOPERTY AND PERSONALITY 199 
 
 purse, which the general welfare renders expedient, 
 are not invasions of his personal wealth, nor drafts 
 upon his charity; they are the acts of that identical 
 justice by which he is qualified to be an owner. His 
 personality is not repressed or curtailed by being sub- 
 ject to those social demands ; for the existence of those 
 social demands is involved in his personality. It is 
 not a conflict between his private interest and that of 
 the State ; for he is himself a citizen in the State, and 
 its interests are his. If he disputes any demand made 
 upon him, it will be on the ground that the interest of 
 tlie State will be injured by its insistence. The State 
 itself is interested for its own sake in seeing to it that 
 his interests are not injured. 
 
 Nor is it only private property that is thus brought 
 into ethical subordination to the needs of social justice, 
 but also new possibilities of ownership are laid open 
 through the recognition of the collective element in 
 personality. For if personality be representative and 
 collective, then it may find its field of exercise and 
 realization through collective ownership. Men may 
 win the moral qualities which the sense of property 
 evokes, by owning things in common. 
 
 We have, indeed, seen this happen to the wage- 
 earners bv virtue of their Trade Unions. For while 
 the wage system tends to reduce actual ownership to 
 a minimum, and deprives the main mass of the in- 
 dustrial population of that sense of permanent private 
 property which, economically, it rates so highly, never- 
 theless the workers have contrived, through massing 
 their small subscriptions, to build up Unions with big 
 funds in reserve; and, with the help of this accumu- 
 lated support, they have recaptured much of the moral 
 force which is embodied in ownership. They gain 
 stability, for instance ; they can look before and after. 
 
200 PEOPEETY 
 
 They can secure some control over their own life- 
 conditions. They can get their own will expressed and 
 realized. They can exercise self-responsibility. They 
 have reserves on which to draw; and are not at the 
 mercy of temporary emergencies, or casual accidents. 
 They can feel ground under them. They stand on their 
 own feet. They are conscious of some independence. 
 They have a recognized place in the world of affairs, 
 and can make good their claims on existence. They 
 are themselves established and rooted amidst the the- 
 ory of things, through their corporate organization, 
 and their certified holding. All this is the condition 
 that we associate with the status of ownership; and 
 every individual member of a strong Union thus ac- 
 quires something of the worth and the dignity with 
 which a man of property is endowed. Collectively, he 
 has the moral stability of ownership; and if he has 
 become aware of the true character of his personality, 
 then he will gladly find for it its adequate expression 
 by means of this collective ownership. He will not 
 want his consciousness of property to be more defi- 
 nitely individualized. He wiU enjoy the sense of own- 
 ership as much in its public as in its private form. 
 For his inner personal life is expressed as fully in the 
 one as in the other. Thus the privilege of ownership 
 may be expanded over all those workers who are 
 organized into permanent and effective Trade Unions. 
 And the principle might be carried much further. 
 Through all the volume of factory legislation the Na- 
 tion is exerting her right of self-ownership. Through 
 it she directs her own destiny ; she brings herself into 
 possession of her own affairs ; she exercises her right 
 of self -responsibility; she makes her will felt through 
 material expression; she embodies in solid fact her 
 sovereign self-control ; for, as she thus governs her life 
 
PEOPERTY AND PERSONALITY 201 
 
 intention, she makes this earth her own. The entire 
 lody, then, collectively asserts its power of ownership 
 irongh the Legislature. The moral stability and in- 
 ependence wliich property legitimately secures are 
 onstituted national possessions; while every individ- 
 al citizen, who is conscious of what his citizenship 
 leans, gains, so far, the ethical value of a collective 
 wner. He is moralized by such self-possession, medi- 
 fted for him through his membership in the State. 
 
 It is beyond the purpose of this essay to discuss 
 |0W far this collective ownership will carry us. It is 
 fnough to have shown that, in it, lies the most avail- 
 able correction of that ironical paradox by which an 
 kaggerated notion of the absolute value of private 
 |roperty has led a Society based on individualism to 
 onfine the range of this value within a limited circle. 
 Ob^dously, if ownership has the virtues ascribed to 
 then it ought to be extended to all. It ought to be 
 included in the universal conditions of citizenship. 
 This is only possible if collective ownership can come 
 nto play over and beyond the area which private own- 
 lirship can cover, and so can spread out, for the many, 
 he opportunity which our present system confines 
 |:o the few. And this will depend on how far collective 
 ownership can work upon the individual conscience 
 Ipd imagination with the same force as we now attrib- 
 ute to private proprietorship. The confidence with 
 pi^ich we meet this last inquiry wiU depend entirely 
 \m our psychological estimate of personality. If any- 
 thing of what we have said be true, then personality, 
 IwMch is inherently representative, will find its real 
 knd rich and effective realization under the terms of 
 l^ollective life. Collective ownership will be an ade- 
 buate and joyful expression of its inner character and 
 jibeing. We shall be able to translate the old phrase. 
 
V 
 
 202 PEOPEETY | 
 
 which declared private property to be a trust for wMch 
 we shall give account to God, in a new sense. We had 
 haggled over the apparent individualism of such aj 
 conception. It omitted all reference to a community. I 
 It left the individual alone with God, to answer simply ^ 
 
 I for himself. His fellows had no direct authority to 
 review or decide what his exercise of his trust should 
 be. But, now, we see that the trust that we speak of 
 is a corporate trust. He holds it in and with his fel- 
 lows. The personality which is answerable to God 
 for its proper exercise of the trust, has its inherent 
 existence in a fellowship, and, out of the fellowship, it 
 ^ has no authority to act. The trust is a common act. 
 
 ^ The fellowship is in trust for all that it holds ; and the 
 individual, only as organ and instrument of the fellow- i 
 ship. He can be called upon to fulfil the charges for | 
 which the community makes itself responsible in the 
 discharge of its trust. It is not a secret affair between 
 him and his God, how he administers his goods. The 
 
 yj community can thus require of him whatever it needs 
 in order to justify its own administration of its re- 
 sources before the bar of God. His right of possession, 
 his use of his own, are always relative to the larger 
 trust within which he acts. 
 
 And, yet further, if he is to identify his personal 
 claim with the claim of the fellowship he must have! 
 
 ^' the assurance that the fellowship is not arbitrary or 
 absolute in the demands that it makes upon him. And 
 this assurance he can only have if the exercise of its 
 ownership by the fellowship, within which his o^vn 
 right of ownership is exercised, be itself the expression 
 of that absolute ownership which is the sole preroga- 
 , tive of the God Who made the earth and all that is in 
 
 ^ it. Back to God all rights run. Back in Him, the 
 ultimate Creator, producing and sustaining and justi- 
 
PROPEKTY AND PERSONALITY 203 
 
 ^ying every capacity and energy that His will has set 
 in action, all ownership stands. All claims are made 
 by Him, through Him, to Him. His righteousness is 
 the bond of all hnman fellowship. And this is so, just 
 because property in outward goods is but the outcome 
 of personality ; and all human personality is the issue 
 and image of the personality of God. In the Divine 
 Fellowship in which God realizes Himself lies the 
 source and justification of every fellowship into which 
 rnan can enter. Man's authority to say of anythmg 
 '^That is mine'' rests, finally, on his power to say ^*I 
 am God's," 
 
vin 
 
 SOME ASPECTS OP THE LAW OF 
 PEOPEETY IN ENGLAND 
 
 BY 
 
 Professor W. M, GELBART 
 
SUMMARY 
 
 The place of the lawyer in this volume. Property is, on one side a? 
 least, a legal conception. Absence of any legal definition of propert^t 
 which will hold good for all purposes. The aim of this essay is descrip] 
 tion rather than definition. Law as an embodiment of ethics or publicij 
 policy. The three aspects of our law of property which will be her(r| 
 considered. 
 
 I. Property and interference by the State. Blackstone and the l&w 
 of nature: can an Act of Parliament be void? His theory of property 
 as a natural right. His treatment of the question of expropriation. 
 
 Expropriation by Act of Parliament in England : delegation to admin-i 
 istrative authorities in recent times: recent tendency to reduce the scalel. 
 of compensation. 
 
 The power to expropriate is with us merely an instance of the sove- 
 reignty of Parliament: in America property is protected by the constitu-i 
 tion, and interferences with it must be justified by specific powers:: 
 eminent domain, the taxing power, the police power. English freedomo 
 from any legal restrictions on these powers. 
 
 n. The content of the right of property, and its relation to otheri 
 rights. "A man may do as he wills with his own": sic utere tuo ut 
 aUen,urti non laedas. Little assistance to be got from such maxims. 
 The solidity or elasticity of the right of property in relation to other 
 interests. Duties of the owner towards neighbours. The legal protec- 
 tion of the owner's rights by criminal and civil law. Limited duties of 
 the o\vner towards the public. Limited character and protection of 
 public rights such as rights of way. Improved security of the public 
 enjoyment of common landsw 
 
 III. Property cannot be forced into the dichotomy, public or private. 
 Influence of Roman Law traditions in presenting the problem as one of 
 the Individual v. the State. Recog-nition in Roman Law of family claims. 
 Freedom of disposition in English law set off by the facilities for settle- 
 ment, which has made land in effect the property of family groups. 
 
 The English law of corporations: Corporations in the Church of 
 England. Universities and Colleges. Corporations with government 
 functions, corporations serving the purposes of private profit. The 
 dedication of property to a purpose by means of a trust. Charitable 
 trusts. The trust as a device which enables unincorporated associa- 
 tions to own property. 
 
 206 
 
VIII 
 
 SOME ASPECTS OF THE LAW OF 
 PEOPEETY IN ENGLAND 
 
 Ckglish institutions are commonly supposed to be, or 
 
 have been till recently, peculiarly individualist in 
 
 pirit, and this spirit is commonly supposed to be pre- 
 
 jminently exhibited in English law. It may be said 
 
 Jihat if this is a fact, it is irrelevant to the subject with 
 
 ^liich under various aspects the present volume is 
 
 boncerned, **The thesis,'^ it may be said, *'is not one 
 
 )f law, but of social ethics; the rights of property 
 
 tv^hich, it is contended, should give way to social well- 
 
 3eing, are or claim to be moral rights, not legal rights. 
 
 [f law permits them to be sacrificed, this will not make 
 
 it just to sacrifice them: if law invests them with iii- 
 
 v'iolability, this will not avail for their defence before a 
 
 higher than the legal tribunal." 
 
 It is just as well for a lawyer to bear in mind such 
 considerations as these when he is invited to con- 
 tribute to the present volume. Ne sutor supra crepi- 
 dam; and he ought to be thankful for the Austinian 
 drill which has taught him to distinguish the positive 
 flaw with which jurisprudence is conversant from those 
 [other kinds of law, whether properly or improperly so 
 called, which may be the subject-matter of philosophi- 
 cal or theological speculation. And yet it may be that 
 
 207 
 
208 PKOPEETY 
 
 some words on certain aspects of modern Englisli law 
 will not be out of place among the historical, philo- 
 sophical, and religions considerations which are the 
 main theme of this collection. Whether property as 
 an institution conld be conceived as existing at all 
 apart from law is a question hardly worth considering 
 at a time when the legal aspect bulks so largely as it 
 does in modern civilization. Whatever else property 
 is, it is a legal conception, and, in its broad outlines, 
 one of the elementary legal facts of which every one, 
 without legal training, is aware from his experience 
 of the society in which he lives, just as every one is 
 aware of elementary facts of physics or physiology 
 without having studied these sciences or even knowing 
 their names. 
 
 It is not by way of abstract definition that the law- 
 yer, at any rate the English lawyer, can hope to make 
 the conception of property more serviceable for non- 
 legal discussion. He would be hard put to it to find a 
 definition which would hold water for all, even legal, 
 purposes. At one time he will distinguish property 
 and possession, at another he will speak of the pos- 
 sessor as having a *^ special property" in the thing of 
 which another is the ol^mer. He will deny that the 
 subject can have a true property in English land, and 
 the next moment he will find that a man's fee-simple 
 or leasehold estate is described in a Statute imposing 
 death duties as ** property of which the deceased was 
 competent to dispose." He will contrast the coins in 
 my pocket, which are my property, with the £100 which 
 my debtor owes me but which is not my property, and 
 yet this debt, if I should become bankrupt, will figure 
 among the property divisible among my creditors. 
 Karely if ever has the lawyer occasion to say anything 
 of property which shall hold good of all property and 
 
LAW OF PEOPERTY IN ENGLAND 209 
 
 for all purposes. If ever he has, he might do a good 
 deal worse than read what Professor Hobhonae has to 
 say of the notion of property. 
 
 What I have to say is rather by way of description 
 than of definition. Widely sundered as are law and 
 ethics, law yet embodies much of the ethics or public 
 policy of the time in which it has grown up. An ac- 
 count of some of the features of our law as it is to-day, 
 or has been in the recent past, may be of some service 
 if it calls attention to conceptions of public and private 
 right which have been for the time being fixed in its 
 structure, or which have been rejected or gradually 
 eliminated, or which are in process of securin^iT accep- 
 tance. I shall not attempt to answer the question sug- 
 gested at the outset, whether the spirit of our law can 
 be called mainly individualist or mainly coUectivist. 
 No society and no law can be wholly one or the other, 
 nor have we any known standard of either by which 
 the institutions of a country could be measured. But 
 as I shall try to suggest in the last part of this paper, 
 there are at any rate some features in our law which 
 cannot well be classed under either head. The sub- 
 jects with which I propose to deal are, first, expropria- 
 tion and other direct interferences by the State with 
 private property ; secondly, the content of the right of 
 property and its relation to other rights and interests ; 
 and thirdly, forms of property which are private in the 
 sense of not being State property, and yet are not in- 
 dividual property. 
 
 If anywhere, we might expect to find in Blackstone 
 a doctrine which would entrench the rights of property 
 within the domain of natural law, safe from the en- 
 croachments of political power. **The law of nature," 
 
210 PEOPEKTY 
 
 he says/ ** being coeval with mankind and dictated by 
 God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any 
 other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, 
 at all times ; no human laws are of any validity if con- 
 trary to this ; and such of these as are valid derive all 
 their force and all their authority, mediately or imme- 
 diately from this original." From this we might 
 expect that he would tell us something in detail of the 
 invalidity of human laws which are at variance with 
 the law of nature, but we find nothing of the sort. 
 With regard to Acts of Parliament he gives a numbe^f 
 of rules for their construction, and among others a 
 rule that **if there arise out of them collaterally any 
 absurd consequence manifestly contrary to common 
 reason, they are with regard to these collateral con- 
 sequences, void," but he expressly denies that Acts 
 of Parliament contrary to reason are void. *'If the 
 parliament will positively enact a thing to be done 
 which is unreasonable, I know of no power in the ordi- 
 nary forms of the constitution that is vested with 
 authority to control it, and the examples usually al- 
 leged in support of this sense of the rule do none of 
 them prove that where the main object of a statute is 
 unreasonable, judges are at liberty to reject it; for 
 that were to set the judicial power above that of the 
 legislature, which would be subversive of all govern- 
 ment."^ It is not clear whether he would treat an Act 
 which contradicted natural law as included in the case 
 of an unreasonable Act, but it is at least noteworthy 
 that he nowhere says that such an Act would be void ; 
 the truth seems to be that he refuses to face the possi- 
 bility of such a conflict. As to the right of property 
 he is equally unwilling to bring the question to a defi- 
 nite issue. He includes property among ** absolute 
 
 1 Commentaries, i. 41. 2 Commentaries, i, 91. 
 
LAW OF PEOPERTY IN ENGLAND 211 
 
 rights" of individuals, by which he means '* those . 
 which are so in their primary and strictest sense ; such 
 as would belong to their persons merely in a state of 
 nature, and v/hich every man is entitled to enjoy j^ 
 whether out of society or in it, " ^ yet with no great 
 [assurance and with great limitations; *Hhe original of 
 [private property is probably founded in nature, as will 
 I be more fully explained in the second book of the en- 
 suing commentaries; but certainly the modifications 
 iof it under which we at present find it, the method of 
 conserving it in the present owner, and of translating 
 it from man to man, are entirely derived from society, 
 and are some of those civil advantages in exchange for 
 wliicli every individual has resigned a part of his 
 natural liberty.-'* From the later passage to which 
 he refers it is clear that he regards the natural right 
 of property as being merely the right of possession 
 which ^* continued for the same time only that the act 
 of possession lasted,''^ whereas the permanent right 
 of property^ and with it the rights of inheritance and 
 bequest, is **no natural, but merely a civil right.''® 
 Nevertheless the natural origin, such as it is, of prop- 
 erty is sufficient to make the laws of England, ' * in point 
 of honour and justice, extremely watchful in ascertain- 
 ing and protecting this right. " ^ After referring to 
 Magna Charta and other statutes which protect the 
 subject against arbitrary dispossession by the execu- 
 tive, he proceeds as follows : 
 
 So greatj moreover, is the regard of the law for private 
 property, that it will not authorize the least violation of it; 
 no, not even for the general good of the whole community. If 
 a new road, for instance, were to be made through the grounds 
 of a private person, it might perhaps be extremely beneficial to 
 
 3 Commentaries, i. 123. 5 Commentaries, ii. 3. 
 
 4 Commentaries, i. 138. 6 Comm.entaries, ii. 11. 
 
 7 Commentaries, i. 138. 
 
212 PKOPEETY 
 
 the public; but the law permits no man, or set of men, to do) 
 this without consent of the owner of the land. In vain it may ' 
 be urged, that the good of the individual ought to yield to that : 
 of the community; for it would be dangerous to allow any 
 private man, or even any public tribunal, to be the judge of ! 
 this common good, and to decide whether it be expedient or no. . 
 Besides the public good is in nothing more essentially inter- ■ 
 ested, than in the protection of every individual's private i 
 rights, as modelled by the municipal law. In this and similar • 
 cases, the legislature alone can, and indeed frequently does, , 
 interpose, and compel the individual to acquiesce. But how 
 does it interpose and compel? Not hy absolutely stripping 
 the subject of his property in an arbitrary manner; but by 
 giving him a full indemnification and equivalent for the injury 
 thereby sustained. The public is now considered as an indi- 
 vidual, treating with an individual for an exchange. All that 
 the legislature does, is to oblige the owner to alienate his 
 possessions for a reasonable price; and even this is an exer- 
 tion of power which the legislature indulges with caution, 
 and which nothing but the legislature can perform.® 
 
 I have set out at length this characteristic passage 
 because it would be impossible to summarize it so as 
 fairly to represent the adroit combination which it 
 contains of different points of view. In spite of his 
 sweeping assertion elsewhere of the supreme author- 
 ity of the law of nature, he had no less doubt of the 
 sovereignty of Parliament/ but he shrinks from bring- 
 ing these two authorities into conflict. But reading 
 between the lines one can feel sure that if the question 
 had been forced on him, * * Can the legislature take away 
 the right of property, founded in the law of nature, 
 as in some sense you say it is I'' he would at any rate 
 have admitted that there was no tribunal in the land 
 
 8 Commientaries, i. 139. 
 
 9 Commentaries, i. 186: "An Act of Parliament, thus made, is the 
 exercise of the highest authority that this kingdom acknowledges upon 
 earth. It hath power to bind every subject in the land, and the domin- 
 ions thereunto belonging; nay, even the King himself, if particularly 
 named therein." 
 
LAW OF PEOPERTY IN ENGLAND 213 
 
 A^Meh could call in question such an exercise of its 
 power. He will not allow himself to nse so crude a 
 .Yord as ^'expropriation/' but when the legislature 
 )bliges the owner ^*to alienate his possessions for a 
 .reasonable price '^ this is nothing but expropriation 
 i^ith due compensation. It is a misrepresentation to 
 (speak in this connexion of the public ** treating with 
 |in individual for an exchange." 
 k The practice of expropriation by Act of Parliament 
 >f/here land was needed for the construction of works 
 >f public utility, such as roads and canals, was already 
 weR established in Blackstone's day, and received an 
 enormous extension in the period of railway building. 
 rhe process of private bill legislation gradually as- 
 sumed a judicial character, intended to secure that 
 compulsory powers should not be granted unnecessa- 
 rily nor be more extensive than the needs of the case 
 required. In course of time the clauses in private 
 bills conferring and defining these powers and the 
 procedure for determining the compensation, assumed 
 a common form, which was ultimately stereotyped in 
 the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act, 1845. This Act 
 forms a code to be adopted wherever compulsory 
 powers of taking land are sought, but it does not do 
 away with the necessity of a special Act in order to 
 confer these powers on the promoters of any under- 
 taking, who are still called upon to prove to a Par- 
 liamentary committee the utility of the proposed 
 undertaking and the necessity of taking particular 
 lands for the purposes of it. The more modern method 
 of proceeding by provisional order (an order made by 
 the authority of some Government such as the Local 
 Government Board or the Board of Trade) does not 
 m general dispense with the need of Parliamentary 
 sanction ; for the provisional order is of no force until 
 
214 PKOPEETY 
 
 confirmed by Act of Parliament/^ It is a new depar- 
 ture that in more recent years the power of compulsory 
 taking has been conferred by Statute without the neces- 
 sity of Parliamentary sanction in each particular case. 
 Thus under the Light Eailways Act, 1896, s. 10, an 
 order of the Light Railway Commissioners confirmed 
 by the Board of Trade is to ^*have effect as if enacted 
 by Parliament, and shall be conclusive evidence that 
 all requirements of this Act in respect of proceedings 
 required to be taken before the making of the Order 
 have been complied with.''^^ 
 
 The compensation allowed to the expropriated owner 
 has been on no ungenerous scale. Not only is he al- 
 lowed the fair market value of what is taken, but he 
 receives a further allowance for the prejudice which 
 may be caused by severance, and by the injurious 
 effect which the working of the undertaking may have 
 on the land which he retains. Against this, except in 
 one or two cases, no set-off is to be made for the bene- 
 fit which his remaining lands may get.^^ Under the 
 Act of 1845 the owner can in most cases insist on hav- 
 ing the amount determined by a jury, a tribunal not 
 likely to put too low a value on proprietary rights, 
 but in many instances this is excluded by more recent 
 legislation. Under that Act too, though without any 
 
 10 See, for instance, Public Health Act, 1875, ss. 176, 297. 
 
 11 See also Local Government Act, 1894, s. 9 ; Small Holdings Act, 
 1908, s. 39; Housing and Town Planning Act, 1909, 1st Schedule, clause 
 
 2 (where statutory force is given to an order made by the local authority 1 
 and confirmed by the Local Grovernment Board, and it is provided that I 
 the confirmation by the Board shall be conclusive evidence that the order i 
 has been duly made and is within the powers of the Act). ' 
 
 12 Light Railways Act, 1896, s. 13: "In determining the amount of 
 compensation, the arbitrator shall have regard to the extent to which 
 the remaining and contiguous lands and hereditaments belonging to the 
 same proprietor may be benefited by the proposed railway." The Hous- 
 ing of the Working Classes Act, 1890, s. 38 (8) and the Housing and 
 Town Planning Act, 1909, s. 58 (3) embody to some extent the "better 
 ment" principle. 
 
LAW OF PEOPERTY IN ENGLAND 215 
 
 utliority expressed in it, the practice grew up of 
 liowing an addition of 10 per cent to the assessed 
 aluej as a solatinm for the compulsory expropriation, 
 ut this addition has been excluded in a number of 
 ecent Acts.^^ 
 
 Bentham and Austin have banished natural rights 
 rom our text-books, and to an English lawyer at the 
 resent day the taldng of private property for public 
 urposes is not founded on any special right of the 
 jltate, but is regarded as merely one consequence of 
 %ie sovereignty of Parliament, nor is there any rule 
 If law which binds Parliament to require compensa- 
 |ion to be given. It is given because it is just and expe- 
 |ient that it should be given. If Parliament should 
 lass an expropriating Act without providing for com- 
 pensation, no English Court could call its validity in 
 |uestion. 
 Very different has been the case in the United States 
 f America. Nowhere w^as Blackstone 's work received 
 vith greater respect ; and his doctrine of natural 
 ights, which hovered on the borderland of law and 
 jthics, was crystallized in the Federal Constitution, 
 IS well as in the Constitutions of most of the States, 
 nto a rule of law limiting the competence of the legis- 
 atures. Thus the fifth of the Amendments of the 
 J'ederal Constitution adopted in 1791 (commonly called 
 in America *Hhe Bill of Rights") provided that **No 
 person shall be . . . deprived of life, liberty, or prop- 
 erty without due process of law; nor shall private 
 property be taken for public use without just compen- 
 jsation/'-* The result is that in the United States ex- 
 
 I 13 Local Government Act, 1894, 9. 9; Small Holdings Act, 1908, s. 39; 
 [Bfousing and Town Planning Act, 1909, l8t Schedule, clause 3. 
 [ i*Cf. Ely, Property and Contract (Macmillan, 1914). Personal 
 security, personal liberty, and the right of private property are the 
 shree "absolute rights" of individuals enumerated by Blackstone {Com- 
 'nentaries^ L 123-140). 
 
216 PEOPEETY 
 
 propriation for public purposes is regarded as made 
 under a specific power of the Union or the State, the 
 right of ** eminent domain," and the conditions under 
 which this power can be exercised have formed the sub- 
 ject of judicial decision in the Federal and State 
 Courts. An Act of the Legislature depriving a citizen 
 of his property which failed to comply with these con- 
 ditions would be held void unless it fell within some 
 other recognized power such as the taxing power or the 
 ** police power." The existence of these powders neces- 
 sarily prevents the constitutional guarantees given to 
 private property from being construed literally: no 
 State could exist without a power to take part of the 
 property of individuals by way of taxation for public 
 purposes, or without a power of regulating to some 
 extent the use of private property in the public interest, 
 although such regulation must inevitably interfere with 
 the liberty of private use, and thus diminish the profits 
 of private enjoyment. But where, as in the United 
 States, the Legislature is confined to acting within the 
 scope of specific powers, the Courts are called upon to 
 define and limit that scope in such a way as not to 
 render nugatory the safeguard which the Constitution 
 affords to private property. The American law re- 
 ports are full of decisions (not always easy to recon-. 
 cile) on the constitutionality of all manner of legis- 
 lation on such subjects as the regulation of buildings, 
 the prohibition of truck, hours of labour in factories, 
 and workmen's compensation. A Federal income tax 
 has been made possible only by an amendment of the 
 T^'eder^ Constitution, and an amendment of the Con- 
 stitution^"^ the State of New York was necessary in 
 order to^^^^^ valid a law compelling employers to 
 insure t}r^'' workmen. ^ ^ ^ 
 
 "With 1® ^^^ power of Parliament to tax has, it is 
 
LAW OF PEOPERTY IN ENGLAND 217 
 
 Tie, been to some extent differentiated from its gen- 
 
 :al legislative power by the constitutional convention 
 
 liich subordinated the powers of the House of Lords 
 
 ) those of the House of Commons in the matter of 
 
 loney bills. The Parliament Act, 1911, has made the 
 
 [ouse of Conunons the sole authority in this respect, 
 
 fas made its authority a part of the law of the Con- 
 
 litution, and has attempted to give a legal definition 
 
 |f a money bill, which is probably narrower than the 
 
 [inception which governed the constitutional conven- 
 
 |on. But the decision whether a Bill passed by the 
 
 |onimons is a money bill within the meaning of the 
 
 iLct is left not to the Law Courts but to the Speaker ; 
 
 |nd no tests have been imposed similar to that of 
 
 Iquality of burden, in virtue of which some American 
 
 fyourts have held invalid an Act imposing death duties 
 
 nly on estates above a certain amoimt. The steep 
 
 raduations of death duties and income tax which we 
 
 ave seen in recent years are hampered by no con- 
 
 titutional convention or rule of law. 
 
 The ^* police power ^' as a separate department of 
 legislation is even more unfamiliar to us than that of 
 !* eminent domain. '* Yet legislation of this type is 
 familiar and increasing. The whole of our factory 
 legislation, for instance, is an interference (mainly 
 pth freedom of contract and partly with property) 
 ^iiich under a Constitution which guarantees the in- 
 ^-iolability of property and contract, would need justi- 
 fication, if it could be justified at all, as an exercise 
 JL the ** police power" in the interests of public wel- 
 fare. Obvious instances of interference with purely 
 proprietary rights are the provisions of the Public 
 Health Acts, which require persons building on their 
 3wn land to submit plans for approval to a local 
 authority, and to conform to regulations intended to 
 
218 PROPERTY 
 
 secure sanitary conditions. The Housing and Town i 
 Planning Act, 1909, gives drastic powers to the local 1 
 authority to close and demolish dwellings dangerous.^ 
 to health, subject to an appeal to the Local Govern- - 
 ment Board, but without allowing the owner recourse i 
 to the Law Courts. As against the tendency of this 
 and much other similar legislation, we may note the 
 jjrovisions of the Licensing Act, 1904,^^ which give ai 
 right of compensation to the owner of licensed prem- 
 ises who is refused a renewal. In this case, if we used I 
 the American classification, we might say that the 
 right of eminent domain has been substituted for the 
 police power. 
 
 n 1 
 
 If we ask what is included in the rights of property,! 
 we shall get little guidance from general maxims, 
 whether of a merely popular kind, such as **A man 
 may do as he wills with his own,'' or of a more legal 
 stamp, like the Roman law tag, sic utere tuo ut alienum 
 non laedas. For it is not in truth the material object 
 which is a man's own, but the rights which the law 
 gives him in respect of it; nor is it every damage to 
 the interests of another which the law forbids, but 
 only the violation of another's legal rights. To say 
 that he may do as he wills with his own is therefore 
 no more than to say that he may do what the law per- 
 mits ; and to say that he must not harm that which is 
 another's, is merely to say that he must not infringe 
 the legally protected interests of another. 
 
 Some legal wrongs are so well defined that it would 
 not occur to any one to excuse them by a jjlea of the 
 
 15 Now embodied in the Licensing (ConBolidation) Act, 1910, ss. 20, 
 21. Ilie compensation is provided by a charge levied on licensed prem- 
 itiea in the area. 
 
LAW OF PROPERTY IN ENGLAND 219 
 
 ercise of the rights of property: it would be childish 
 
 argue that a murder was more excusable when com- 
 
 Ltted wdth the murderer's own pistol than mth 
 
 stolen one. On the other hand, where it is clear that 
 
 > legal wrong is done, it is superfluous to rely on 
 
 oprietary right as a defence. Our law, in the ab- 
 
 nce of special circumstances, imposes no duty of 
 
 tive assistance, however great the harm which will 
 
 me to another from its refusal. It is no crime to 
 
 ive a man to drown, where one is in no way respon- 
 
 ble for the danger in which he is placed. But if in 
 
 ?lch circumstances it was sought to make a man liable 
 
 • ^- his neglect, it would be unnecessary for him to 
 
 lid himself on the ground that he was concerned 
 
 protect his clothes from injury, or that he was 
 
 ititled to retain exclusive possession of the rope 
 
 hich he had at hand. 
 
 Yet the English maxim has a certain significance, 
 lasmuch as in the clash of interests, the rights of 
 roperty have a certain solidity, or even elasticity, 
 hich will enable them to carrv the dav against claims 
 ,^ss well defined. Wliile the law holds some acts 
 learly wrongful, others clearly innocent, it seems to 
 Bcognize an intermediate class of conduct, which will 
 ivolve liability in the absence of a just cause or 
 xcuse, and some judges have gone so far as to lay 
 : down that all conduct by which harm is intentionally 
 aused to another, though it falls within none of the 
 tereotyped categories of wrongdoing, will prima facie 
 ivolve such liability. It is not material to consider 
 ere how far this doctrine is sufficiently foimded on 
 recedent, or Avhether it is likely to be finally accepted. 
 >ut it is worth noting that the exercise of proprietary 
 ights seems to be one case of the just cause or excuse, 
 ^hich will avail against such a prima facie liability, 
 
220 PEOPEETY t 
 
 and thus forms a limit in one direction to the exten- 
 sion of the doctrine. Neighbouring owners, by the.^ 
 mere fact of their ownership, have certain limitedl 
 rights and duties towards each other. Thus, while my^| 
 neighbour is entitled to such support from my soil ass 
 is necessary to keep his land in its natural state from^ 
 subsidence,^® he is not entitled (in the absence of granti 
 or prescription) to such further support as may bes 
 necessary to the safety of any buildings which he^ 
 may choose to erect. If, then, I excavate on my own: 
 ground, with the result (and even, it would seem, withi 
 the object) of causing his buildings to collapse, I have 
 done nothing to interfere with any defined right of his,, 
 and if he should seek to hold me liable for wilfully 
 or negligently causing him damage, it is a complete 
 answer that I was merely exercising my own proprie- 
 tary rights. Similarly, since English law recognizes i 
 no such right (apart from contract) as that of mere; 
 amenity, I may intercept my neighbour's view by, 
 erecting a hideous building. Unless he has acquired; 
 (by grant or by lapse of time) a right to the light nec- 
 essary for comfort or convenience of his dwelling- 
 house or business premises, I may even cut off his 
 light. The right of owners to the flow of a natural 
 stream in a defined channel is well recognized, but 
 there is no corresponding right to receive water perco- 
 lating beneath the surface, so that an owner was held 
 free from liability who made borings on his land with 
 the result of interfering with the water-supply of a 
 large city, and the allegation that his conduct was 
 
 16 This is an instance of what is technically known to English lawyers 
 as a natural right, in the sense of a right which attaches to property 
 under normal conditions, as opposed to a right such as an easement 
 which can be acquired only by grant or prescription. This has of course 
 nothing to do with the "natural rights" of legal-philosophical specula- 
 tion. 
 
LAW OF PEOPEETY IN ENGLAND 221 
 
 intended to compel the local authority to purchase his 
 property was held to be irrelevant. 
 
 Interference with the rights of the owner, apart 
 from the punishment for misappropriation (still dis- 
 Iproportionately severe in comparison with the penal- 
 ities for all except the most serious offences against 
 |the person), and for wilful and substantial damage, is 
 not a criminal offence, and it is not creditable to the 
 pandowners of this country that they should still seek 
 Ito intimidate the public by what Professor Maitland 
 jwel] called the ^^ wooden falsehood,'' ** Trespassers 
 fwili be prosecuted." On the other hand, our civil law 
 !of trespass is singularly sweeping in its recognition 
 of the owner's right to exclude. Every entry on land 
 without authority is a trespass, for which the Courts 
 will give at any rate the remedy of nominal damages, 
 and which the owner and his servants may resist or 
 put an end to by the forcible removal of the trespasser. 
 In point of fact the acquiescence or good feeling of 
 waers of uncultivated land, except where the claims of 
 sport have been treated as paramount, have prevented 
 the existence of these legal rights from being alto- 
 gether intolerable. It is significant that in recent 
 years the Courts have refused, in more than one case, 
 to give to the owner the discretionary remedy of an 
 injunction to restrain innocent trespass. 
 
 Towards the public at large the owner of land and 
 buildings owes at common law the duty of seeing that 
 they do not become a source of danger to persons 
 lawfully passing on the highway by reason of want of 
 repair, obstruction, unfenced excavations, or the like. 
 He must avoid pollution of the air or running water. 
 But apart from restrictions such as these, he is under 
 no general duty to the public, which has no right to 
 have the countryside preserved free from disfigure- 
 
222 PEOPEETY ^ 
 
 ment, if we except the recent legislation which has 
 conferred on local bodies the power to restrain the^> 
 exhibition of disfiguring advertisements." Even onjj 
 public ways the rights of the public are very limited. y?; 
 In general the soil of the highway remains the prop-^; 
 erty of the adjacent owner, though in urban districts,! i 
 it has been vested in the local authority by Statute, t' 
 to such limited extent as is necessary in order to3 
 enable it to perform its duties of repair, sewering, and,^ ■ 
 the like. The public right is a right of passage onlyyn 
 and a person may be a trespasser on the highway ifnj 
 he uses it for some other purpose, such as watching^, 
 the operations of the adjacent owner or his servants ? 
 upon his land. In this respect the rights of the public y -I 
 stand on a lower level than those of an owner, f orj 
 there is no ** right of privacy" which entitles one 
 OA\mer to complain of being overlooked by his neigh- 
 bour. In point of security the rights of the public to , , 
 footpaths leave much to be desired. It is true that 
 they are not liable to be extinguished by non-user for 
 any length of time. But the evidence of their exist- j 
 ence depends in most cases on the fact of user, so |; 
 that disuse for any considerable time may make the V 
 proof of their existence difficult or impossible. Thel 
 posting of threatening notices by an influential owner, ■( 
 interference by his keepers, and actual blocking up 
 may interrupt the public enjoyment so long, that when; 
 at last some individual undertakes the assertion of the ■ i 
 public right, the evidence of it may be too doubtful to 
 support his case. It is only in quite recent times that > 
 local authorities have been entrusted with the duty of 
 upholding public rights of way. Further, while the 
 mere enjoyment of a private *' easement" of way for, 
 
 17 Advertisements Regulation Act, 1907; Ancient Monuments Act, 
 1913, s. 18. 
 
LAW OF PEOPERTY IN ENGLAND 223 
 
 I certain time, and nnder certain conditions, renders 
 ;he right indefeasible, the enjoyment by the pnblic for 
 Jmy length of time in itself gives no right, bnt merely 
 jiffords a presumption that the owner has ** dedicated" 
 'he way to the pnblic, a presumption which may be 
 rebutted by showing that the land was so settled as 
 to be in the hands of a limited owner who had no 
 Jpower to make the dedication.^^ Lastly, it may be 
 iaoticed that a public way may be closed by an order 
 ibf the competent authority, not only in consideration 
 Ipf a substituted way, but even on the mere ground 
 'that it is unnecessary, and that in such a case no com- 
 Ipensation is paid by the private owner, who obtains a 
 jvaluable accession to his property. In this respect 
 ithe public right is less favourably regarded than the 
 right of the expropriated owner in case of compulsory 
 purchase. 
 
 I The lands knoA^m as ^^ Commons'' are called so not 
 because they are in law common to the public, or even 
 to the members of any community, but because a num- 
 ber of persons enjoy in common certain rights, usually 
 rights of pasture, over them. Whether or not there 
 ever was in England such a thing as a village com- 
 munity, it is at any rate certain that since English 
 law took definite shape, rights of common have been 
 not communal rights but groups of individual rights. 
 The land itself was in most cases regarded as belonging 
 to one person, the lord of the manor, while the tenants 
 of the manor, or some class of tenants, shared with 
 him certain rights over the land. In other cases the 
 land was owned and cultivated in severalty by nu- 
 merous owners, sometimes with periodical re-allot- 
 
 18 A Bill Intended to put public rights of way in respect of their 
 creation by long enjoyment on a footing similar to that of private rights 
 of way, has been introduced in Parliament more than once in the last 
 few years, but has not so far found its way to the Statute Book, 
 
224 PKOPEETY d 
 
 M 
 
 ment, and all enjoyed rights of pasture over so mnclii! 
 of the land as in accordance with the agricnltnre systemii 
 of the time was lying fallow. The enclosure of the?! 
 waste land of a manor, on condition that enough wa^ 
 left for the exercise of the common rights, had beemj 
 allowed by the Statute of Merton, 1235,^^ but this con- j 
 dition became more and more difficult to fulfil, and ini 
 the eighteenth century the policy of enclosure by Actt 
 of Parliament converted a large proportion of the com- 
 mon lands of the country into land held iii severalty. 
 In the course of the nineteenth century it came to be 
 seen that, though the rights of the owners of the soill 
 and of the commoners were the only rights known to) 
 the law, yet the public living in the neighbourhood were, , 
 in fact, largely interested in the maintenance of the un- 
 enclosed commons. Some recognition of this principle 
 is already to be found in the Enclosure Act, 1845, but 
 it received full effect only in the Commons Act, 1876,.! 
 which recited that **it is expedient that enclosure ini! 
 severalty, as opposed to regulation of Commons, should! 
 not hereafter be made, unless it can be proved to thei 
 satisfaction of the said Enclosure Commissioners and^ 
 of Parliament that such inclosure will be of benefit to 
 the neighbourhood, as well as to private interests and 
 to those who are legally interested in any such Com- 
 mons.'' The effect of this and succeeding enactments 
 has been practically to stop the policy of enclosure, and 
 to substitute that of regulation, which, while respecting 
 existing private rights, has preserved and improved 
 the public enjoyment.^" 
 
 19 The provision was practically repealed by the Commons Act, 1898, 
 which forbids enclosure under the Statute of Merton except with the 
 consent of the Board of Agriculture, and makes it subject to the same 
 conditions under which enclosure under the Enclosure Acts can take place. 
 
 20 Commons within the Metropolitan Police Area had already been 
 exempted from the ordinary Enclosure Acts, by the Metropolitan Com- 
 mons Act, 1866, and their regulation and preservation is provided for 
 by the Metropolitan Commons Act, 1866 to 1898. 
 
LAW OF PEOPERTY IN ENGLAND 225 
 
 ni 
 
 In most discussions of the rights of property an 
 assumption is commonly made that the only parties to 
 the contest are the State (sometimes called Society) 
 and the individual, who are supposed to stand facing 
 one another with nothing between. It is assumed too 
 that private property means individual property, and 
 that such cases as we may find of property vested in or 
 held for the benefit of groups, or appropriated to pur- 
 poses rather than destined for the use of individuals, 
 may be disregarded as exceptional, or may be brought 
 into line as being in ultimate analysis mere instances 
 either of individual or of State property. Yet the 
 truth seems to be that at no time has this clear 
 dichotomy been possible; and though in most modern 
 countries there have been strong tendencies towards 
 the individualisation of private property, at the same 
 time and especially in the most recent times in England, 
 there have been countercurrents no less strong. 
 
 That the dilemma. State or individual! should have 
 been so prominent is due above all to two causes. In 
 the first place, it afforded what seemed strong ground 
 to either side in the controversy. The individualist 
 could oppose the natural rights of the individual to the 
 conventional and artificial character of the State: the 
 upholder of State rights could point to the insignifi- 
 cance of merely individual interests as against the 
 claims of ^^ Society,'' while the claims of all smaller 
 societies were ignored. In the second place, our politi- 
 cal thinking has proceeded too much in terms taken 
 from the City State, in which societies between the 
 State and the individual were suppressed or ignored, 
 
226 PEOPEETY 
 
 and from Eoman law, itself a prodnct of the City State, 
 with its clear-cut divisions between jus publicum and 
 jus privatum, and its sharply outlined theory of 
 property. 
 
 Yet even Eoman law retained or developed rules 
 which prevented property from being regarded as a 
 merely individual right. True, the shadowy rights of 
 the gentiles had disappeared by the classical period: 
 the agnati might be excluded by will, and even sons and 
 daughters might be disinherited, if the appropriate 
 formulae were employed. But by the fiction, which the 
 tribunals were successfully invited to adopt, that a 
 testator who had entirely excluded his nearest relations 
 from all share in his property had shown himself to be 
 insane by making so undutiful a will, their right to at 
 least a share — legitima pars — of the succession was 
 re-established. The newer form of marriage which 
 became normal by the end of the Eepublic deprived the 
 husband of the control over the wife's property which 
 he had at an earlier period, and excluded her from suc- 
 cession to his estate among the sui heredes ; but the in- 
 stitution of the dos gave the husband an interest in, 
 and power of administering, property coming from her 
 or her family, while safeguarding it against his dis- 
 positions and the claims of his creditors; and the 
 donatio propter nuptias made it possible to subject 
 property of the husband to a similar regime. Lastly, 
 a man's relatives were able by the appointment of a 
 curator to prevent the dissipation of his property, not 
 only in case of his insanity but also if he became a 
 spendthrift. 
 
 In countries not subject to the English com^mon law, 
 the family character of property has been emphasised 
 by institutions similar to these, whether based on the 
 
LAW OF PKOPERTY IN ENGLAND 227 
 
 traditions of Roman, or derived from native law.^^ In 
 England, the whole conrse of development has, at least 
 on the surface, been in the direction of freeing the 
 individual in dealing with his property from all family 
 claims. We have never adopted the institution of the 
 spendthrift's curator, and the right of wife and chil- 
 dren to a ^treasonable part'' of the goods of the de- 
 ceased, which was probably once universal but had 
 conie to be regarded as a custom of particular localities, 
 w^as entirely abolished before the end of the first quar- 
 ter of the eighteenth century. The power of making a 
 will was extended to owners of land, partially in the 
 sixteenth, and completely in the seventeenth century. 
 But marriage had important effects on proprietary 
 rights, which survived till a much later date. On the 
 one hand, the wife became entitled on the husband's 
 death to one-third of his freehold land, and this right 
 of dower could not be defeated by him without her 
 consent, not even by his selling the land. On the other 
 hand, the husband became absolute owner of her per- 
 sonal property; he became entitled to her real estate 
 during the marriage, and to a further right during his 
 life, if issue vv^as born ; and the wife was deprived of all 
 power of disposition except with his consent as long 
 as the marriage lasted. These rules of the matrimonial 
 regime were attributed to the *^ unity of person" of 
 husband and wife. They have been in substance swept 
 away by the reforms of the nineteenth century ; by the 
 Dower Act, 1833, the husband was enabled to destroy 
 the wife's right of dower by any disposition in his life- 
 time, or by his will ; half a century later, by the Married 
 Women's Property Act, 1882, the whole of a married 
 
 21 Scotland still recognises the indefeasible rights of widow and chil- 
 dren ( jus relictae and legition ) , as well as the cura prodigi, and some 
 provisions of the same kind have been introduced in some of the United 
 
 States. 
 
228 PEOPERTY 
 
 woman's property was made her ** separate estate/' 
 with full power of disposition inter vivos or by will 
 Thus we seem to have arrived at an extremely indi- 
 vidualistic form of private property, recognising no 
 claims of the family except in the rules of intestate 
 succession, which can always be overridden by the 
 owner's dispositions. This is, however, only to look 
 at one side of the matter. It assumes that the indi- 
 vidual is what is called an absolute owner, including 
 under that term the tenant of land in fee- simple. As a 
 matter of fact English law has always been extraor- 
 dinarily favourable to the recognition of limited own- 
 ership or limited interests in property, real or personal,^ 
 It is true that the attempt of the legislature made by 
 the Statute de Donisi in 1285 to protect estates tail, i.e, 
 freehold estates given so as to pass in a strict line of 
 descent, was defeated by legal fictions before the end of 
 the Middle Ages, but the ingenuity of conveyancers gave 
 renewed effect to the wishes of the land-owning class 
 by the device of the ** strict settlement," under which, 
 so far as possible, the actual possession and enjoyment 
 of land was given to persons who had no more than a 
 life tenancy, while the power of disposing of the inheri- 
 tance depended on the concurrence of the life-tenant 
 and the tenant in tail in remainder (usually his eldest 
 son), when the latter reached the age of twenty-one. 
 In practice this power has usually been exercised not 
 for the purpose of freeing the land from the fetters of 
 the settlement, but in order to tie it up by a fresh settle- 
 ment for another generation. Thus the land of the 
 country has been for the most part converted into a 
 number of family domains, each under the government 
 of a limited monarchy, and serving social and politi- 
 cal no less than economic purposes. ** Property for 
 power" was strengthened by a system which protected 
 
LAW OF PEOPERTY IN ENGLAND 229 
 
 the domain from the folly or improvidence of its tem- 
 porary holder, and which excluded younger children 
 from succession to anything more than a sum of money 
 charged on the property. 
 
 The system was left untouched by the legislation 
 which followed the Reform Act of 1832, and indeed was 
 if anything facilitated by reforms of procedure in that 
 period. Only a partial satisfaction of the individualist 
 demand for *^free land" was given by the Settled Land 
 ActSy 1882-1890, which permitted the sale of settled 
 land upon condition that the purchase money was 
 brought into settlement, and it needed the stimulus of 
 heavy death duties (first made approximately equal in 
 1894 for land and personal property) and of the special 
 land taxation of 1909-1910 to induce any considerable 
 break-up of estates. "Whether in the future the system 
 of family estates can still be made to serve purposes 
 of sufficient public advantage to secure its survival 
 for an indefinite time, in view of its obvious evils, is a 
 question beyond the scope of this essay; it is at any 
 rate noteworthy that the coljectivist tendencies of 
 recent times have taken away the strength of merely 
 individualist attacks on the law of primogeniture and 
 the custom of settlement, and have aimed rather at 
 securing rights other than ownership to occupiers and 
 would-be occupiers of land; as, for instance, by the 
 Agricultural Holdings Acts and Small Holdings Acts. 
 
 Settlements of money and property other than land, 
 effected by a different legal mechanism, have served a 
 smilar purpose in protecting the family against the 
 individual, but except so far as they have been ancillary 
 to land settlements are of less importance in the struc- 
 ture of society as a whole. Yet such a settlement, when 
 it comprises a great business, and especially with the 
 assistance of the institution of the ^'private company," 
 
230 PEOPERTY 
 
 may be of considerable importance in securing the con- 
 tinuity and permanence of commercial and industrial 
 power. 
 
 Turning aside from these cases of property which 
 belong rather to kinship groups than to individuals, 
 we may take note of the extent to which property 
 under devices ancient or modern has been and is being 
 permanently assigned to public ends without being 
 State property. Our common law of corporations took 
 shape in times no longer modern, and enabled groups 
 of men, and those who from time to time should succeed 
 them, or the series of successive holders of an office, 
 to be regarded as immortal persons capable of o^vn- 
 ing property. The Church of England is not such a 
 corporation, but within it are numerous corporations 
 (either ** aggregate" such as a Dean and Chapter, or 
 *^sole" such as a Bishop or incumbent) who are the 
 holders of the property commonly called Church 
 property. Our ancient Universities and the Colleges 
 within them are equally the holders of property which 
 is not the property of the individuals who compose 
 those bodies. Yet none of this is State property, how- 
 ever much modern legislation may have imposed regu- 
 lations and restrictions in order to safeguard it from 
 mismanagement or diversion. These may be regarded 
 as the purest types of property-holding bodies whose 
 functions are public in the sense that they do not exist 
 fo'r purposes of private gain, and who nevertheless can 
 in no sense be treated as mere delegates or agents of 
 the State authority. It is beside the mark to say they 
 furnish the livelihood of their members, or some of 
 them, for the State too provides the salaries of the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer and of the village post- 
 man; or that the State has power by legislation to 
 control or take away their property, for it can do as 
 
LAW OF PEOPERTY IN ENGLAND 231 
 
 aucli for the most private property of any individual. 
 No doubt a Corporation may be nothing more than 
 L cog-wheel in the Government machinery, like the 
 
 ommissioners of Woods and Forests or the Post- 
 naster-General, or it may be a mere device for the 
 ."urtherance of individual profit, like the majority of 
 he modern Companies incorporated with limited lia- 
 ;.}iiity. Yet we must guard on the one hand against 
 j;hinking that Government functions necessarily mean 
 State functions, or if we insist on identifying Govern- 
 3 lent and State, we must be prepared to see the State 
 making many bodily forms which seem to have an inde- 
 pendent existence. We may see a municipal Corpora- 
 Mon at law with the Crown as to the extent of its 
 Ipowers, or opposing a Bill promoted by a neighbouring 
 iCorporation ; or a ** State" litigating a boundary dis- 
 Ipute with another ^ ^ State '^ in the same Dominion, or 
 ithe Trustees of the British Museum disputing with the 
 iCrown the title to a prehistoric hoard. On the other 
 ihand, bodies which pay, or hope to pay, dividends to 
 jtheir shareholders may exist for the furtherance of 
 public purposes, like Eailway Companies or the 
 Water Board, and be subject to regulations intended to 
 secure their adequate subservience to the public inter- 
 est. The Bank of England, by virtue alike of the 
 privileges conferred and the restrictions imposed by 
 j Statute, fills a unique place in the national economy; 
 ithe Chartered Company of British South Africa gov- 
 1 erns a territory far larger than the British Islands ; yet 
 I each is a Company of stock- or shareholders. 
 I Not only may the mechanism devised in the first in- 
 stance for purposes of private gain be employed for 
 the incorporation of societies whose property and 
 activities are directed to public objects, as when a body 
 for the furtherance of education is incorporated under 
 
232 PEOPEETY I 
 
 the Companies Act, 1908, or the Industrial and Provi- ^ 
 dent Societies Act, 1893; but without incorporation,, 
 our law of trusts allows property to be placed by gift or ; 
 bequest in the hands of trustees for the promotion of all 
 manner of purposes. A charitable trust is sometimes 
 called by lawyers a public trust, as opposed to the 
 ** private" trust, which is one for the benefit of individ- 
 uals; yet no co-operation of any organ of the State is 
 necessary for its creation, though when once created it 
 will as a rule come under the supervision and control of 
 the Charity Commissioners, or in the case of an educa« 
 tional charity, of the Board of Education. A char- 
 itable purpose in the legal sense includes not only the 
 relief of poverty, but religious and education purposes, 
 and such other purposes beneficial to the public as are 
 sufficiently analogous to these.^^ Such trusts are treated 
 with special favour by the law; their creation is ex- 
 empted from the rule against perpetuities which for- 
 bids the tying up of property for an indefinite period, 
 and their income is not subject to the payment of 
 income-tax. On the other hand, the conveyance of land 
 for charitable purposes is subject to somewhat trouble- 
 some formalities under special legislation dating from 
 the early eighteenth century f^ but the prohibition 
 against gifts by will for the like purposes has in recent 
 times been converted into a requirement that land so 
 left shall be sold unless it is required for actual occu- 
 pation. 
 
 Hardly separable from the dedication of property to 
 a purpose by means of a trust is the part which the law 
 
 22 A gift by will to the Society for the Abolition of Vivisection has 
 been held to be charitable. 
 
 23 This restriction on conveyances for charitable purposes is at the 
 present day of much greater importance in practice than the old law of 
 mortmain properly so called, which dates from the thirteenth century 
 and forbids conveyance of land to a corporation, but from which there 
 are numerous exemptions by Act of Parliament or licence from the Crown. 
 
LAW OF PEOPEETY IN ENGLAND 233 
 
 of trusts plays in enabling societies which are unincor- 
 porated to hold property. For the carrying out of its 
 : {objects a society can hardly exist without some prop- 
 erty, be it only the periodical contributions of its mem- 
 bers. If the society is debarred from incorporation by 
 law (as is the case with Trade Unions), or does not 
 think it worth while to undergo the expense and formal- 
 ities of incorporation, it is not a body which can directly 
 |hoid property. Whatever is its property (in the popu- 
 llar sense of the word) must then be held by one or 
 fmore individuals who, whether called so or not, will in 
 I fact be its trustees. They will hold the property upon 
 I trust— not sirnply for the members as individuals, for 
 in that case each member could insist on a division — 
 I but upon trust for the members as members of the 
 society, to be used and applied for its objects and in 
 accordance with its rules. In practice the result of this 
 arrangement hardly differs from the holding of prop- 
 |erty by a corporate body; for the society's property in 
 the hands of its trustees will be liable on principle to the" 
 debts and obligations incurred on behalf of the society 
 hj its officers, and will be subject to such control by the 
 society or its governing body as the society's rules may 
 provide. We have here a ** purpose-trust" and some- 
 thing more. A Nonconformist place of worship, and 
 the endowments devoted to its maintenance and the 
 ministrations in it, from one point of view are simply 
 property bound by a trust for a religious purpose ; but 
 from another they form the property of a religious 
 society. In this, as in many other instances, the pur- 
 pose for which the society exists is one which falls 
 under the legal category of charity. But there is 
 nothing to prevent a society formed for any lawful 
 purpose, though not charitable, from holding property 
 in the same way, so long as it is not a case of a gift or 
 
234 PEOPEBTY 
 
 bequest in terms wMch are intended to create a perma- 
 nent endowment and so offend against the rule against 
 perpetuities. Trade Unions, for instance, are not 
 charities, but have enjoyed and extensively exercised 
 the power to hold property through the medium of 
 trustees ever since their purposes were freed from 
 illegality in 1871. 
 
 It may be worth while to attempt to state briefly the 
 results of a somewhat discursive survey of a consider- 
 able mass of detail. In the first place our constitutional 
 law has made no attempt to place rights of property in 
 an exceptional position, as against the sovereignty of 
 Parliament; to that sovereignty they, like all other 
 legal rights, must give way; and the power to expro- 
 priate, to tax, and to regulate are merely manifesta- 
 tions of it, not defined and limited powers which the 
 legislature exceeds at its peril. The extent and manner 
 of their exercise has varied from time to time, in ac- 
 cordance with changing views of policy: even the 
 power of expropriation has in recent years been dele- 
 gated to subordinate authorities, and the liberality with 
 which compensation was formerly given has in some 
 cases been restricted. 
 
 Turning to the consideration of the content of the 
 right of property and its relation to the interests of 
 others, we saw that while little guidance can be ob- 
 tained from general maxims, yet in some ways the 
 right of property occupies a privileged position. Its 
 exercise may serve as a just cause or excuse for con- 
 duct prejudicial to the interests of others. The owner ^s 
 absolute power of exclusion is tempered only by the 
 owner's good feeling, and to some extent by judicial 
 discretion. The duties of the owner towards neigh- 
 bours and the public are of a narrowly limited kind, 
 even if we take into account modern powers of regula- 
 
LAW OF PEOPERTY IN ENGLAND 235 
 
 ion. Tlie legal protection, even of recognised public 
 iglits, is comparatively weak. Yet in the case of 
 fommons, legislation since the middle of the nineteenth 
 ientury has given the protection of the law to public 
 mjoyment, which had previously no legal basis at all. 
 Lastly, we saw that private property is not merely a 
 natter of the rights of individuals, and that our law 
 )ffers remarkable facilities for making it subserve 
 ;)ther than individual interests. No other modern sys- 
 tem has gone so far as ours in permitting ownership to 
 )e so broken up into limited estates or interests as to 
 nake property, for a large part of the owning and 
 jspeciall}^ the land-owning classes, a family rather than 
 |iii individual possession. The ease with which corpo- 
 j:'ate character can be obtained under our modern law, 
 the flexibility of the law of trusts, the freedom of asso- 
 piation, have made possible the dedication of property 
 |to purposes which outlive the individual, and may in a 
 iDroad sense be called *' public,'' and its vesting in or 
 bn behalf of groups bound together for their further- 
 knee. Such property and such groups may stand in 
 fepecial relations to the State, and may form the sub- 
 jjeet of special legislation and regulation ; but we must 
 guard ourselves against thinking that the property is 
 jiState property, or that the groups who control it are 
 jmere departments of the State, 
 
INDEX 
 
 [Acts of Parliament, Blacks tone 
 
 i on, 210 
 
 Advent hope, influence on early 
 
 Christian conceptions, 106, 113 
 jiAgricultnre, influence on owner- 
 1 ship among primitive tribes, 
 
 16 
 Alienation, 17 
 Almsfi^iving. .See Charity 
 "Ambroslaster," 113, 127, 129 
 American Indians, North, 12, 15 
 Ames, Dr. W., 147, 152, 156 
 Amos, 93 
 
 Anabaptists, 156, 170 
 Anglicans, 144, 157, 166 
 Animals, rudimentary property of 
 
 higher, 8 
 Apologists, second century, 104 
 Appropriation, 41, 56, 57, 134 
 Aristotle, xiv, 29 et seq., 37 et seq., 
 
 115, 126, 135 
 Articles of Keligion, Elizabethan, 
 
 156 
 Asceticism, 117, 182, 167, 168 
 Australian tribes, individual and 
 
 communal ownership of land 
 
 among, 4, 13 et seq. 
 
 Bankruptcy, 151 
 
 Baxter, Richard, 145, 150 ei seq., 
 
 167, 172 
 Bennett, Dr. W. H., 93 et seq. 
 Bentham, Jeremy, 52 
 Bequest, liberty of, 47, 82 
 Berens, 173 
 
 "Betterment" principle, 215 n. 
 Biblical ideas, xi, xvii, 89-122; 
 
 Essays V. and VI. passim 
 
 Bishops, Puritan revolt against 
 powers of, 146-148, 152 
 
 Blackstone, 209 et seq. 
 
 Boas, 16 
 
 Bondservice, 94 
 
 Borneo, tribal land systems, 17 
 
 Bosanquet, Professor, 60, 63 et seq. 
 
 Brazil, land tenure, 16 
 
 Brotherhood, xvii, 26, Essay IV. 
 passim, 125 et seq., 133, 139, 
 177, 188 
 
 Browne, J., 14 
 
 Bucer, Martin, 154 
 
 Bucknell, Mr., 154 
 
 Bullinger, 154-156, 158, 161 
 
 Butler, Bishop, xx 
 
 Calvin, 143, 146, 162 
 
 Campbell, D,, 143 
 
 Canon Law, 133 et seq., 136, 146 
 
 et seq., 158, 174 
 Capital. See also Production, 
 
 means of 
 functions, 37 
 
 income, distinction from, 79 
 Capitalist system, 24, 61, 66, 194 
 
 Puritanism, influence of, 146, 162 
 Carlyle, 154, 174 
 Carriers, 16 
 
 Cartwright, Thomas, 150 
 Cecil, Lord Hugh, xix 
 Character, private property and, 
 
 xiv et seq., 37, 62-67, 78, 194. 
 
 See also Personality 
 Charitable trusts, 232 
 Charity, xix, 101, 103, 125, 126 et 
 
 seq., 136, 150, 163, 172, 176, 
 
 185, 190. See also Poor relief 
 
 237 
 
238 
 
 PKOPEETY 
 
 Charity (contd.) — 
 
 early Christian view of, 101, 103 
 Evangelical view of, 176 
 Justice, an act of, xix, 130, 136, 
 
 185, 190 
 mediaeval conceptions of, 126 et 
 
 seq. 
 Puritan conception of, 150, 151, 
 163, 171 
 Charles I., poor relief under, 152 
 Chattel slavery, 21 
 Chilcotin, 15 
 
 Christ. See Jesus Christ 
 Christian conceptions — 
 
 early church, xvii, 39, 97-122 
 mediaeval, 125-139 
 modern, xxiv 
 post-Reformation, 143-177 
 Puritan, 143-174 
 Christian Communism. See Com- 
 munism 
 Church and State, 119, 144, 148 
 failure of early church to co- 
 ordinate religious and civic 
 life, xiv, 121 
 Church of England, property-hold- 
 ing corporations within, 230 
 Cicero, 111, 127, 182, 184 
 Citizenship, 187 et seq., 199 
 Civil wars in England, 148 
 Clarendon, 148 
 
 Clement of Alexandria, 105 et seq. 
 Commandments. See Decalogue 
 Common law, English, develop- 
 ments of, as to property, 226 
 Common pastures, 18, 223 
 
 enclosure of, 20, 21, 223, 224 n. 
 Commons Act, 224 
 Commonwealth administration, 150, 
 
 153, 155 
 Communal ownership, xvii, 4, 12, 
 
 33, 41, 61, 132, 199 
 Communism, 24 et seq., 37, 63, 73, 
 77 et seq., 127 
 Aristotle's objections, 38 
 Christian, early, 25, 127 
 Plato's theory criticized, 25 
 
 Communism (contd.) — 
 
 Socialism, distinction from, 31 
 
 Companies, joint-stock system, 10, . 
 23 
 
 Compensation for expropriation, , 
 213, 214 
 
 Competition, 67, 68, 195 
 
 Control, 6. See also State control 
 
 Conventional theory, patristic, 126 
 et seq., 132, 135 
 
 Co-operation, xviii, 75 et seq., 80, 
 200 
 
 Corporations, ownership of prop- 
 erty by, 229 . 
 
 Court of High Commission, 152 
 
 Creeks, 16, 17 
 
 Cromwell, 150, 155 
 
 Cunningham, Archdeacon, 145 
 
 Curr, 14 
 
 Cyprian, 108 
 
 Dargun, 16 
 
 Darwin's theory, 59 j 
 
 David, 91 | 
 
 Davidson, Dr. A. B., 95 
 Debt-slavery, 19 | 
 
 Decalogue, 155, 165, 166, 175 ' 
 
 Eighth Commandment, Hebrew > 
 view of, 95 ; Puritan view of, , 
 155 
 Death duties, 228, 229 
 Definitions of property, v&.rying, , 
 
 208 
 Defoe, 144, 150, 152 
 Dickinson, Mr. Lowes, 65 
 Dissent, 150, 154 
 Distribution, right of, 134, 137 
 Donatists, 131 
 Dower Act, 227 
 Dress — 
 
 Puritan attitude, 161 
 
 Quaker attitude, 167 
 
 Wesley's attitude, 167 
 Durkheim, 65 
 Dyaks, 17 
 
 "Economic rationalism," 160 
 Eliot, Sir John, 154 
 
INDEX 
 
 239 
 
 JCly, Professor, 215 
 Eminent domain," in the United 
 
 States, 216 
 Eaclosure Act, 224 
 Equity, Laetantius's view of, 110 
 E&tates, break-up of, 229 
 Europe, Western, mediaeval organ- 
 ization, 20 
 Evangelical revival, 175 
 Evolution of property, historical, 
 
 3-33 
 Expropriation, compulsory, 38, 213, 
 214 
 J compensation for, 214, 215 
 j Eyre, 4, 14 
 |i Ezekiel, 95 
 
 Factory legislation, 200, 217 
 
 Famiiists, 170 
 
 Family, 26, 77, 82 
 
 Family ownership, 14 
 
 Family character of property, 226, 
 227 
 
 Fellowship, 198, 202 
 
 Fifth Monarchy men, 169 
 
 Financier, 24 
 
 Forms of property — 
 
 clear division into public and 
 
 private impossible, 225 
 corporation ov^Tiership, 229 
 developments under English com- 
 mon law, 226 
 family claims, 226 
 influence of Roman law, 226 
 ownership by unincorporated so- 
 cieties, 233 
 "strict settlement" of land, 228 
 Trade Union o\^Tiership, 234 
 Trust ownership, 232 
 
 Fox, G,, 167 
 
 Freedom. See Liberty 
 
 French Revolution, 187 et seq. 
 
 Gambling, 83 
 Gavelkind, custom of, 47 
 General will, 31 
 
 Germany, land alienation in medi- 
 aeval, 17 
 
 God, Essays IV., V., and VI. pas- 
 sim 
 biblical idea of, 90 et seq. 
 Divine sanction, xvi, 90 et seq., 
 
 157 et seq. 
 fatherhood of, 98 
 sovereign rights, 90, 202 
 stewardship. See Stewardship 
 
 Good, general. See Well-being 
 
 Good works, Puritan view of, 163 
 
 Government, authority of. See 
 State authority 
 evolution of responsible, 85 
 
 Gratian, 40, 127 et seq. 
 
 Green, Professor Thomas Hill, 60 
 
 Gregory of Nazianzus, 103 
 
 Grey, 4, 14 
 
 Grotius, 149 
 
 Guanas, 19 
 
 Haddon, 16 
 
 Haldane, Lord, xii 
 
 Hall, Dr. T. C, 177 
 
 Hammond, 20, 22 
 
 Harnack, xviii, xxiii, 114 
 
 Harrison, Major-General, 171 
 
 Hebrew ideas, 86-98 
 
 Hegel, 56, 57, 59, 181 
 
 Highways, limited rights of public 
 
 to, 222 
 Hobbes, 42 et seq., 84,, 165, 166, 
 
 182, 187 
 Hobhouse, Professor, 208 
 Hobson, 160 
 Hooker, R., 157 
 Hooper, John, 147 
 Horace, xxiii 
 Hosea, 93 
 
 Houses, communal occupation, 17 
 Housing and Town Planning Act, 
 
 214 n., 218 
 Humanity, religious view of, 90, 
 
 111 
 Hume, 50 et seq. 
 
 Idealism, 32, 183 
 Idealism, German, 59, 191 
 
240 
 
 PEOPERTY 
 
 Illumination, the, 149, 150 
 Income — 
 
 capability, a criterion as to, 81 
 capital, distinction from, 79 
 Independents, 148 
 Individual v. State ownership of 
 
 property, 225 
 Individualism, xix, 23, 29, 37, 49, 
 
 58, 95 ; Essays III., IV., and 
 
 VI. passim, 185 et seq., 196 
 Puritan movement, effect of, xix, 
 
 145 et seq. 
 restriction of ownership due to, 
 
 30, 192, 193 
 Individuality, social side of, 196 
 Industrial system, rise of, 23, 144, 
 
 166, 167, 183, 187 
 Inheritance, 14, 48, 66, 81 
 Initiative, 82, 85, 160 
 Instinct, 6 
 Interest, 66, 146, 149 et seq. See 
 
 also Usury 
 Investments, 23, 24, 146 
 Iroquois, 11, 17 
 Isaiah, 93 
 
 Jeremiah, 95 
 
 Jesus Christ, xvii, 98 et seq. 
 
 Job, 96 
 
 John the Baptist, 97 
 
 Justice — 
 
 early Christian view of, 109 et 
 seq., 121, 130 et seq. 
 
 utilitarian view of, 51 
 Juxon, Bishop, 148 
 
 Kant, 55 et seq., 58 
 
 Karaya tribes, 17 
 
 Kayans, 17 
 
 Kiffin, William, 155 
 
 Kingdom of God, Essay IV. passim. 
 
 170 
 Knox, John, 150 
 
 Labour, 10, 22, 27 et seq., 41 et 
 seq., 74, 131, 160, 163, 187, 
 192, 193 
 
 Labour (contd.) — 
 
 control by means of property, 10 3 
 modern economic conditions, 22,!^ 
 
 23, 192, 193 
 oppressive conditions of, 16^ i 
 Puritan view of, 160 et seq. 
 right to products of labour, ■ 
 
 theory of, 10, 27 et seq., 411 
 
 et seq., 74, 131, 132, 187 
 Lactantius, 109-112 
 Laissez-faire, 59, 145, 149, 152, 166 3 
 Land, 4., 12 et seq., 93 
 Lands Clauses Consolidation Act, 
 
 213 
 Lang, 14 
 Latimer, Hugh, xix, 146, 157, 172 
 Laud, 148 et seq. 
 Law, William, 167 
 Law of Property in England, Es 
 
 say VIII. 
 Legal conceptions of property, 208 
 Legislative interference with pro 
 
 prietary rights, 218 
 Leonard, Miss, 152 
 Levellers, 156, 170, 172 
 Leviticus, 94 
 Levy, Hermann, 144, 152 
 Liberty, xiv, 9, 62 et seq., 183, 187 
 
 et seq. 
 Libraries Act, Free, 58 
 Licensing Act, 218 and n. 
 Light Railways Act, 214, 215 n. 
 Lilburne, 171 
 Liquor traffic, 170 
 
 I^Locke, 27 et seq., 43 et seq., 74, 132, 
 187 
 Lollard movement, 143, 170 
 Lord's Prayer, the, 118, 121 
 Lucian, xvii 
 Luther, 143, 146, 161, 162, 186 
 
 Mackworth, Sir Humphrey, 153 
 
 Maitland, Professor, 21, 221 
 
 Malachi, 97 
 
 Manorial system, 18, 20 
 
 Married Women's Property Act, 227 
 
INDEX 
 
 241 
 
 /l&T&hsiXl, Professor, 144 
 tlarx, Karl, 49, 52, 162 
 tibaya, 19 
 
 ^eajis of production. See Produc- 
 tion, means of 
 Vlediaeval theological theory, xix, 
 
 125-139 
 Vfessianic idea, 97 
 Methodists, 169 
 M[eyer, Dr. Johannes, 149 
 Mieah, 93, 95 
 Milton, 161 
 Monarchy- — 
 
 limitation of powers, 43 
 Piiritau attitude towards, 153 
 Monasteries, suppression of, 144 
 Monastic ideal, 121, 132 
 Money bills, supremacy of House 
 of Commons in regard to, 217 
 Money-lending, 38, 105, 138 
 Monopolies, 79, 80, 83, 154 et seq,, 
 165 
 Parliamentary opposition to 
 Stuart monopolies, 147 
 Morgan, 17 
 Morice, Father, 16 
 Mosaic law, 92, 147, 151, 165 
 Milnster, 156, 170 
 
 Natural law, xix, 25 et seq., 39, 42, 
 75, 126, 130, 133 et seq., 150, 
 165, 182, 188, 209, 215, 216 
 
 Necessaries of life, right of man- 
 kind to, xix, 137, 156 
 
 Nehemiah, 96 
 
 New South Wales, tribal land sys- 
 tem, 5 
 
 Nieboer, 20 
 
 Niewenhuis, 17 
 
 Nobility, origin in tribal military 
 organization, 19 
 
 Nonconformists, 162 
 
 Oecupaiio, 41 
 Oppression, 95, 163 
 Orme's lAfe of Eipn, 155 
 
 Parliament, sovereignty of, 213, 
 
 215 
 Parliament Act, 217 
 Pastoral tribes, conditions among, 
 
 19 
 Patristic theory, 126 et seq., 155, 
 
 184 
 Penn, William, 148 
 Personality, xiv et seq., 29, 56, 57, 
 
 115, 122, 185 et seq., 195 et 
 
 seq. See also Character 
 social character of, xxii, 197 
 Petermann, Dr., 14 
 Philanthropy. See Charity 
 Philosophical theory, 37-68, 126 
 Piety, Lactantius's view of, 110 
 Plato, 25, 37, 133 
 Pleasure — • 
 
 genera,! well-being, distinction 
 
 from, 42, 43, 50, 60, 61 
 Puritan view of, 161 
 "Police power," in the United 
 
 States, 216 
 Political control, 17, 84, 
 Poor relief, 94, 153, 164, 168, 172, 
 
 174, 185, 190. See also Charity 
 Population, effect of over-popula- 
 tion among primitive peoples, 
 
 19 
 Post-Exilic prophets, 96 
 Power, association of property 
 
 with, xiv, 10, 18 et seq., 79 et 
 
 seq., 193 
 Preaching of Peter, The, 103 
 Presbyterians, 157 
 Price, Puritan view of, 151, 163, 
 
 165 
 Primitive peoples, conditions 
 
 among, 4, 13 ef seq. 
 Private bill legislation, 213 
 Private property, regard of the law 
 
 for, 211 
 Privy Council, 148, 153 
 Production, means of, 22, 33, 78 
 
 et seq. See also Capital 
 State control, 33, 84, 85 
 
242 
 
 PEOPEETY 
 
 Proprietary rights, legislative in- 
 terference with, 217, 218 
 
 Protestant Eeformation. See Ref- 
 ormation 
 
 Provisional Orders, procedure, 213, 
 214 
 
 Psychological basis of property, 8 
 
 Puritanism, 144-177 
 
 Public, the, duty of property own- 
 ers to, 221, 235 
 
 Quakers, 162, 167-169 
 Queen Elizabeth's Primer, prayer 
 in, 189 
 
 Rauschenbusch, W., 97 
 Reformation, influence of, xix, 143- 
 
 177, 185 
 Religious ideas of property. Es- 
 says IV., v., and VI. 
 Rent, 147, 165 
 Rights of property — 
 common lands, 223 
 duties of neighbouring owners, 
 
 220 
 highways and rights of way, 222 
 law of trespass, 221 
 meaning of the phrase, 217 
 obligations of owners to the pub- 
 lic, 221, 235 
 privileged position, 234 
 solidity against other claims, 
 219 
 Responsibility, private property 
 and, 23, 77, 84; Essays IV., 
 v., and VI. passim 
 Riches, See Wealth 
 Rights of way, public, 222, 223 n. 
 Ritchie, Professor, 60 
 Roman Empire, difficulties, of early 
 
 Christians under, 114 et seq. 
 Roman law regarding public and 
 
 private property, 225 
 Roth, Ling, 17 
 
 Rousseau, 183, 187, et seq., 197 
 Russian mir, 18 
 
 St. Ambrose, 127 et seq., 136 
 
 St. Augustine, 128, 130 et seq., ISl 
 
 et seq., 184 
 St. Gregory, 130 
 St. Hilary of Poitiers, 128 
 St. Jerome, 136 
 St. Matthew, 99 
 St. Paul, 102, 116 
 St. Peter, 103, 116 
 St. Peter Damian, 135 
 St. Thomas Aquinas, xix, 134 ei 
 
 seq. 
 Salvian, 128 
 Schoolmen, mediaeval, 133 et seq.,,,. 
 
 185 i 
 
 Schroder, 17, 19 1 
 
 Seligmann, Dr. and Mrs., 11 i 
 
 Seneca, 115, 127 ] 
 
 Serfdom, 19 ' 
 
 Settled Land Acts, 229 
 Shaftesbury, Lord, 176 
 Shepherd of Hermas, The, 104 
 Shushwaps, 16 
 Simpkinson, 171 
 Simmel, 65 
 
 Sin, ownership impaired by, 173 
 Slavery, xiv, 19, 20, 93, 114 et seq. 
 early Christian view of, 114 et ' 
 
 seq., 118, 119 
 Social contract, 182 et seq. 
 Social reform, 31, 32, 66, 67, 85, 
 
 93, 98, 121, 171 
 early Christian view of, 118, 119 
 Hebraic tendencies, 92 et seq. 
 Socialism, 30 et seq., 49, 53, 65, 66, 
 
 78 
 Communism, distinction from,, 
 
 30, 31, 78 
 Society, recognition by and protec- 
 tion of, 72 et seq. 
 Socrates, 186 
 Sombart, 159 
 Spencer, Herbert, 58 
 Star Chamber, 152 
 State authority, xvi, xx, 40-43, 55 > 
 
 et seq., 116, 131 et seq., 139, , i 
 
 154, 199 i 
 
INDEX 
 
 243 
 
 tate control, xvi, xxi, 33, 58, 59, 
 84, 130, 176, 188, 200 
 
 3tate endowment 82, 83 
 
 State ownership, 33. See also 
 Communal ownership and So- 
 cialism 
 
 State V. individual ownership of 
 property, 225 
 
 'Statute of Merton, 224 
 
 Stephen, Sir James, 176 
 
 Stewardship to God, xi, 92, 99, 107, 
 158 et seq,, 163, 165, 169, 175, 
 177, 185, 196, 202 
 
 [Stoicism, xix, xxiii, xxiv, 39, 112, 
 
 :i 127 
 
 ^'Strict settlement" of land, 229 
 
 Stuart*, 147 
 
 S wanton, 15 
 
 Tawney, 20 et seq. 
 
 Taxation, 43, 44, 58, 59, 190 
 
 Taylor, Jeremy, 163, 166 
 
 Teaching of the Apostles, The^ 103 
 
 Tertullian, 108 
 
 Testament, Old and New. See Bib- 
 lical ideas 
 
 Theft, xix, 11, 45, 46, 136, 155 
 necessity, theory of extreme, xix, 
 156 
 
 Thlinkeets, 15 
 
 Torres Straits, 16 
 
 Trades, morally doubtful, 104, 170 
 
 Trades Boards Act, 163 
 
 Trade unions, 199 
 
 ownership of property, 234 
 
 Trespass, law of, 221 
 
 IVibal conditions. See Primitive 
 peoples, conditions among 
 
 Troeltsch, 144 
 
 Truelove, Samuel, 154 
 
 Trusts, ownership of property by, 
 232 
 
 Tsimshian, 16 
 
 Tioo Ways, The, 101 
 
 Tyndale, William, 143 
 
 Ulpian, 130 
 
 Unemployment, 154 
 
 Uniformity, Act of, 162 
 
 United States — 
 
 expropriation for public pur- 
 poses, 216 
 protection of property under 
 Constitution, 216 
 
 Use, association of property wdth, 
 xiv, 9, 18, 27, 28, 48, 76 et seq., 
 134, 135, 137 
 
 Usury, 38, 105, 146, 150 
 
 Utilitarianism, 41 et seq.f 48 et 
 seq., 57, 58 
 
 Veddas, 11, 12, 15 
 
 Vinogradoff, 20 
 
 Voluntary associations, 81, 82, 176 
 
 Von Martins, 16 
 
 Wealth- 
 creation of, 74 
 distribution, 37, 50, 61, 62 
 early Christian indifference to, 
 
 111, 113, 116, 117 
 inequalities of, divine sanction 
 
 of, 159 
 inequalities of, general consent 
 
 to, 27, 28 
 inequalities of, origin and de- 
 velopment of, 18 et seq. 
 Puritan View of use of, 106, 145 
 
 et seq., 157, 160 
 responsibilities of, 172, 174 
 spiritual handicap of riches, 105 
 Weber, Max, 144 
 
 Well-being, promotion of, 42, 43, 
 53 et seq., 60, 75, 92, 99, 156, 
 158, 163 
 Wesley, John, 160, 167 
 Whitgift, 156 
 Wilberforce, William, 175 
 Woolman, John, 174 
 Wyclif, John, 143, 173, 184 
 
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