29.— VOL. II. P 210 PRINCIPLES OP PROPERTY.
increase the happiness or conveniences of the poor. They barely subsist at present, and they did as much at the remoter period of which we speak. Those who, by fraud or force, have usurped the power of buying and selling the labour of the great mass of the community, are sufficiently disposed to take care that they should never do more than subsist. An object of industry added to or taken from the general stock, produces a momentary diflfer- ence, but things speedily fall back into their former state. If every labouring inhabitant of Great Britain were able and -vnalling to-day to double the quantity of his industry, for a short time he would derive some advantage from the increased stock of com- modities produced. But the rich would speedily discover the means of monopolising this produce, as they had done the former. A small part of it only, could consist in commodities essential to the subsistence of man, or be fairly distributed through the com- mimity. All that is luxury and superfluity, would increase the accommodations of the rich, and perhaps, by reducing the price of luxuries, augment the number of those to whom such accom- modations were accessible. But it would afford no alleviation to the great mass of the community. Its more favoured members would give their inferiors no greater wages for twenty hours* labour, suppose, than they do for ten.
What reason is there then that this species of property should be respected? Because, ill as the system is, it will perhaps be found, that it is better than any other, which, by any means, ex- cept those of reason, the love of distmction, or the love of justice, can be substituted in its place. It is not easy to say whether misery or absurdity would be most conspicuous, in a plan which should invite every man to seize upon every thing he conceived himself to want. If, by positive institution, the property of every man were equalised to-day, without a contemporary change in men's dispositions and sentiments, it would become unequal to- morrow. The same evils would spring up with a rapid growth; and we should have gained nothing, by a project, which, while it violated every man's habits, and many men's inchnations, would render thousands miserable. We have already shown,* and shall have occasion to show more at large, f how pernicious the consequences would be, if government were to take the whole permanently into their hands, and dispense to every man his daily bread. It may even be suspected that agrai-ian laws, and others of a similar tendency, which have been invented for the purpose of keeping down the spirit of accumxilation, deserve to be regarded, as remedies, more pernicious, than the disease they are intended to cure. J An interesting question suggests itself in this stage of the dis- cussion. How far is the idea of property to be considered as the offspring of positive institutfon? The decision of this question, • Book VI., Chap. VIII., p. 144. t Chap. VIII.
PRINCIPLES OF PROPERTY. 211 may prove extremely essential to the point upon wliich we are engaged. The roguLition of property by positive laws, may be a very exceptionable means of reforming its present inequality, at the same that an equal objection may by no means lie against a proceeding, the object of which shall be merely to supersede positive laws, or such positive laws as are peculiarly exceptionable.
In pursuing this enquiry, it is necessary to institute a distinction, between such positive laws, or established practices (which are often found little less efficacious than laws,) as are peculiar to. certain ages and countries, and such laws or practices, as are common to all civilised communities, and may therefore be per- haps interwoven with tlie existence of society.
The idea of property, or permanent empire, in those things which ought to be applied to our personal use, and still more in the produce of our industry, unavoidably suggests the idea of some species of law or practice by which it is guaranteed. With- out this, property could not exist. Yet we have endeavoured to show, that the maintenance of these two kinds of property, is highly beneficial. Let us consider the consequences that grow- out of this position.
Every man should be urged to the performance of his duty, as much as possible, by the instigations of reason alone.* Com- pulsion to be exercised by one human being over another, whether individually, or in the name of the community, if in any case to be resorted to, is at least to be resorted to only in cases of indis- pensible urgency. It is not therefore to be called in, for the pur- pose of causing one individual to exert a little more, or another a little less, of productive industry. Neither is it to be called in, for the purpose of causing the industrious individual to make the precise distribution of his produce which he ought to make. Hence it follows that, while the present erroneous opinions and prejudices respecting accumulation continue, actual accumulation •will, in some degree, take place.
For, let it be observed that, not only no well informed com- munity will interfere with tlie quantity of any man's industry, or the disposal of its produce, but the members of every such well informed community will exert themselves, to turn aside the pur- pose of any man who shall be inclined to dictate to, or restrain, Lis neighbour in this respect.
The most destructive of all excesses, is that, where one man shall dictate to another, or undertake to compel him to do, or re- frain from doing, anything (except, as was before stated, in cases of the most indispensible urgency,) otherwise than with his ovm consent. Hence it follows that the distribution of wealth in every community, must be left to depend upon the sentiments of the individuals of that community. If, in any society, wealth be estimated at its tiue value, and accumulation and monopoly be regarded as the seals of mischief, injustice and dishonour, instead • Vol I., Book II., Chap. VI.: Book \U., passim.
212 PRINCIPLES OF IltOPERTY.
of being treated as titles to attention and deference, in that society the accommodations of human life -will tend to their level, and the inequality of conditions will be destroyed.* A revolution of opinions is the only means of attaining to this inestimable benefit. Every attempt to effect this purpose by means of regulation, •svill probably be found ill conceived and abortive. Be this as it will, every attempt to correct the distribution of wealth by individual violence, is certainly to be regarded as hostile to the first princi- ples of public security.
If one individual, by means of greater ingenuity or more inde- fatigable industry, obtain a greater proportion of the necessaries or conveniences of life than his neighbour, and, having obtained them, determine to convert them into the means of permanent inequality, this proceeding is not of a sort that it would be just or wise to undertake to repress by means of coercion. If, inequality being thus introduced, the poorer member of the community shall be so depraved as to be willing, or so unfortunately circum- stanced as to be driven, to make himself the hired servant or la- bourer of his richer neighbour, this probably is not an evil to be corrected by the interposition of government. But, when we have gained this step, it will be difficult to set bounds to the extent of accumulation in one man, or of poverty and wretchedness in another.
It has already appeared, that reason requires that no man shall endeavour, by individual violence, to correct this inequality. Reason would probably, in a well ordered community, be suffi- cient to restrain men from the attempt so to correct it. "Where society existed in the simplicity which has formerly been de- scribed,t accumulation itself would be restrained, by the very means that restrained depredation, the good sense of the com- munity, and the inspection of all exercised upon all. Violence therefore would, on the one hand, have little to tempt it, as, on the other, it would be incessantly and irresistibly repressed.
But, if reason prove insufficient for this fundamental purpose, other means must doubtless be employed.;!: It is better that one man should sufi'er, than that the community should be destroyed. General security is one of those indispensible preliminaries, with- out which nothing good or excellent can be accomplished. It is therefore right that property, with all its inequalities, such as it is sanctioned by the general sense of the members of any state, and -60 long as that sanction continues unvaried should be defended, if need be, by means of coercion.
We have already endeavoured to show, that coercion would probably, in no case, be necessary, but for the injudicious magni- tude and complication of political societies. § In a general and absolute sense, therefore, it cannot be vindicated. But there arc duties incumbent upon us, of a temporary and local nature; and PRINCIPLES OF PROPERTY. 213= -vve may occasionally be required, by the pressure of circum- stances, to suspend and contravene principles, the most sound in their general nature.* Till men shall be persuaded to part with the ideas of a complicated government and an extensive territory, coercion will be necessary, as an expedient to counteract the most imminent evils. There are however various reasons, that would incline a just man to confine the province of coercion within the severest limits. It is never to be regarded but as a temporary expedient, the necessity of having recourse to which is deeply to be regretted. It is an expedient, protecting one in- justice, the accumulation of property, for the sake of keeping out another evil, still more formidable and destructive. Lastly, it is to be considered that this injustice, the unequal distribution of property, the grasping and selfish spirit of individuals, is to be regarded as one of the original sources of government, and, as it rises in its excesses, is continually demanding and necessitating new injustice, new penalties, and new slavery.
Thus far then it should seem the system of coercion must be permitted to extend. We should set bounds to no man's accumula- tion. We should repress by wise and effectual, yet moderate and humane, penalties, all forcible invasion to be committed by one man upon the acquisitions of another. But it may be asked, are there not various laws or practices, established among civilised nations, which do not, like these we have described, stop at the toleration of unequal property, but which operate to its immediate encouragement, and to the rendering this inequality still wider and more oppressive?
What are we to conceive in this respect of the protection given to inheritance, and testamentary bequest? " There is no merit in being born the son of a rich man, rather than of a poor one, that should justify us, in raising this man to affluence, and con- demning that to invincible depression. Surely," we might be apt to exclaim, " it is enough to maintain men in their usurpation [for let it never be forgotten that accumulated property is usur- pation,] during the term of their lives. It is the most extrava- gant fiction, which would enlarge the empire of the proprietor beyond his natural existence, and enable him to dispose of events, when he is himself no longer in the world."
The arguments however that may be offered, in favour of the protection given to inheritance and testamentary bequest, are more forcible, than might at first be imagined. We have at- tempted to show, that men ought to be protected, in the disposal of the property they have personally acquired; in expending it, in the necessaries they require, or the luxuries in which they think proper to indulge; in transferring it, in such portions, as justice shall dictate, or their erroneous judgment suggest. To attempt therefore to take the disposal out of their hands, at the period of their decease, would be an abortive and pernicious pro- • Vol. I., Book IV., Chap. VI., App. No. I.
214 PRINCIPLES OF PROPERTY.
ject. If we prevented them from bestowing it in the open and explicit mode of bequest, we could not prevent them from trans- ferring it before the close of their lives, and we should open a door to vexatious and perpetual litigation. Most persons would be inclined to bestow their property, after the period of their lives, upon their children or nearest relatives. Where therefore they have failed to express their sentiments in this respect, it is reasonable to presume what they would have been; and this dis- posal of the property on the part of the community, is the mildest, and therefore the most justifiable, interference. Where they have expressed a capricious pa-rtiality, this iniquity also is, in most cases, to be protected, because, for the reasons above assigned, it cannot be prevented, without exposing us to still greater iniquities.
But, though it may possibly be true, that inheritance, and the privilege of testation, are necessary consequences of the system of property, in a community the members of which are involved in prejudice and ignorance, it will not be difficult to find the instances, in every polished country of Europe, in which civil in- stitution, instead of granting, to the inequalities of accumulation, only what could not prudently be withheld, has exerted itself, for the express purpose of rendering these inequalities greater and more oppressive. Such instances are, the feudal system, and the system of ranks, seignorial duties, fines, conveyances, entails, the distinction in landed property, of freehold, copyhold and manor, the establishment of vassalage, and the claim of primogeniture. We here distinctly recognise the policy of men who, having first gained a superiority, by means of the inevitable openings before cited, having made use of this superiority, for the purpose of con- spiring to monopolise whatever their rapacity could seize, in direct opposition to every dictate of tlie general interest. These articles fall under the distinction, brought forward in the outset,* of laws or practices not common to all civilised communities, but peculiar to certain ages and countries.
It should seem, therefore, that these are institutions, the aboli- tion of which is not to be entirely trusted to the silent hostility of opinion, but that they are to be abrogated by the express and posi- tive decision of the community. For their abrogation, it is not ne- cessary, that any law or regulation should be promulgated, an operation which, to say the least, should always be regarded with extreme jealousy. Property, under every form it can assume, is upheld by the direct interference of institution; and that species which we at present contemplate, must inevitably perish, the moment the protection of the state is withdrawn. Of the intro- duction of new regulations of whatever description, it becomes the friend of man to be jealous; but we may allow ourselves to regard with a more friendly eye, a proceeding which consists merely in their abolition.
The conclusion however in this instance, must not be pushed • P. 211.
PRINCIPLES OF PROPERTY. 215 further, than the premises will justify. The articles enumerated, will perhaps, all of them, be found to tally with the condition annexed; tiiey depend for their existence, upon the positive pro- tection of the state. But tliere are particulars which have grown up under their countenance, that are of a diiferent sort. Such, for instance, are titles, armorial bearings and liveries. If the community refuse to countenance feudal and seignorial claims, and the oUier substantial privileges of an aristocracy, they must inevitably cease. But the case is difierent in the instances last cited. It is one thing to abolish a law, or refuse to persist in a practice that is made the engine of tyranny; and a thing of a totally different sort, by a positive law to prohibit actions, how- ever irrational, by which no man's security is directly invaded. It should seem unjustifiable to endeavour, by penalties, to deter a a man from calling himself by any name, or attiring himself or others, with their own consent, in any manner, he thinks proper. Not that these things are, as they have sometimes been repre- sented, in their own nature trivial. We have endeavoured to prove the reverse of this.* They ought to be assailed with every weapon of argument and ridicule. In an enlightened community, the man who assumes to himself a pompous appellation, will be considered as a fool or a madman. But fulminations and penal- ties are not the proper instruments to repress an ecstacy of this sort.
There is another circumstance necessary to be stated, by way- of qualification to the preceding conclusion. Evils often exist in a community, which, though mere excrescences at first, at length become so incorporated with the principle of social existence, that tliey cannot suddenly be separated, without the risk of in- volving the most dreadful calamities. Feudal rights, and the privileges of rank, are, in themselves considered, entitled to no quarter. The inequalities of property perhaps constituted a state, through which it was at least necessary for us to pass, and which, constituted the true original excitement to the unfolding the powers of the human mind.f But it would be difficult to show, tliat feudality and aristocracy ever produced an overbalance of good. Yet, were they to be suddenly and instantly abolished, two evils would necessarily follow. First, the abrupt reduction of thousands to a condition, the reverse of that to which they had hitherto been accustomed, a condition, perhaps the most auspici- ous to human talent and felicity, but for which habit had wholly unfitted them, and which would be to them a continual source of dejection and suffering. It may be doubted, whether the genuine cause of reform, ever demands, that, in its name, we should sentence whole classes of men to MTCtchedness. Secondly, an at- tempt abruptly to abolish practices, which had originally no apology to plead for their introduction, would be attended with as dreadful convulsions, and as melancholy a series of public • Book v., Chap. XH. i Chap. VII.
216 PRlNCIPLJiS OP PROPERTY.
calamities, as an attack upon the first principles of society itself. All the reasonings therefore, which were formerly adduced under the head of revolutions,* are applicable to the present case.
Having now accomplished what was last proposed,t and en- deavoured to ascertain in what particulars the present system of property is to be considered as the capricious offspring of positive institution, let us retm-n to the point which led us to that enquiry, the question concerning the degree of respect to which property in general is entitled. And here it is only necessary that we should recollect the principle in which the doctrine of property is founded, the sacred and indefeasible right of private judgment. There are but two objects for which government can rationally be conceived to have been originated: first, as a treasury of public wisdom, by which individuals might, in all cases, with advantage be directed, and which might actively lead us, with greater cer- tainty, in the path of happiness: or, secondly, instead of being forward to act itself as an umpire, that the community might fill the humbler office of guardian of the rights of private judgment, and never interpose, but when one man appeared, in this respect, alarmingly to encroach upon another. All the arguments of this work have tended to show that the latter, and not the former, is the true end of civil institution. The first idea of property then, is a deduction from the right of private judgment; the first object of government, is the preservation of this right. Without per- mitting to every man, to a considerable degree, the exercise of his own discretion, there can be no independence, no improve- ment, no virtue and no happiness. This is a privilege in the highest degree sacred; for its maintenance, no exertions and sacrifices can be too great. Thus deep is the foundation of the doctrine of property. It is, in the last resort, the palladium of all that ought to be dear to us, and must never be approached but with awe and veneration. He that seeks to loosen the hold of this principle upon our minds, and that would lead us to sanction any exceptions to it without the most deliberate and impartial consideration, however right may be his intentions, is, in that instance, an enemy to the whole. A condition indispensibly necessary to every species of excellence, is security. Unless I can forsee, in a considerable degree, the treatment I shall receive from my species, and am able to predict, to a certain extent, what will be the limits of their irregularity and caprice, I can engage in no valuable undertaking. Civil society maintains a greater proportion of security among men than can be found in the savage state: this is one of the reasons why, under the shade of civil society, arts have been invented, sciences perfected, and the nature of man, in his individual and relative capacity, gradually developed.
One observation it seems proper to add to the present chapter. We have maintained^ the equal rights of men, that each man PRINCIPLES OP PROPEHTY. 217 has a perfect claim upon every thing, the possession of which will be productive of more benefit to him, than injury to another. "Has he then," it will be asked, "a right to take it? If not, what sort of right is that, which the person in whom it vests, is not entitled to enforce?"
The difficulty here is in appearance, and not in reality. The feature, specified in the present instance, adheres to every depart- ment of right. It is right, that my actions should be governed by the dictates of my own judgment; and every man is an intruder, who endeavours to compel me to act by his judgment, instead of my own. But it does not follow, that I shall always do wisely or well, in undertaking to repel his intrusion by force. Persuasion, and not force, is the legitimate instrument for influencing the human mind j and I shall never be justifiable in having recourse to the latter, while there is any rational hope of succeeding by the former. Add to which, the criterion of morals is utility. When it has once been determined, that my being constituted the possessor of a certain article will be beneficial, it does not follow that my attempting, or even succeeding, violently to put myself in possession of it, will be attended with a beneficial result. If I were quietly installed, it may be unquestionable that that would be an absolute benefit; and yet it may be true, that my endeavours to put myself in possession, whether efiectual or ineffectual, will be attended with worse consequences, than all the good that would follow from right being done as to the object itself. The doctrine of rights, has no rational or legitimate con- nexion with the practice of tumult.