86 ARGUMENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 



its complete establishment by the instrumentality of formal inter- 

 national copyright laws is impatiently awaited. 



These considerations lead up to the particular problem upon which 

 we are engaged, namely, what is capability of oumcrship, that is to say, 

 under what circumstances, and to what extent, will and does society 

 step in and aid the infirmity of individual power by stamping the char- 

 acter of ownership upon things which are out of the actual possession 

 and away from the presence of the owner? The general answer is ob- 

 vious; it will do this whenever social necessities require, and to the 

 extent to which they require it. And this answer is best justified by 

 pointing out what society, through the instrumentality of the law, uni- 

 versally does. We may first look to the instance of land. 



In respect to the earth itself, society will recognize no title which is 

 not directly, or indirectly, acquired from itself. No man is permitted to 

 assert in respect to uninhabited countries, or countries inhabited only 

 by savages, a private title. But nations may assert a title thereto, al- 

 though there is a limit to such assertion. No nation can assert an 

 ownership over such lands to an extent greater than it can reasonably 

 occupy and improve. The limit is found in that principle of the law of 

 nature which declares that the earth was made for mankind, and in 

 order to enable the human race to carry out its destiny, and that to 

 this end civilized nations may supplant barbarous ones; but that every 

 nation in thus appropriating to itself the waste places of the earth, 

 must not take from others what it can not itself improve and apply to 

 the great destiny for which in the order of nature it has been given. 



In respect to individual ownership of lands, the state will recognize 

 and maintain private titles to such lands as it chooses to give. Some, 

 times, as we have already shown, in early and rude social conditions, 

 it prefers to give nothing, but to retain the ownership in itself. In 

 general, however, civilized societies permit and encourage the acquisi- 

 tion of lands by individuals and place no limits upon the extent of ac- 

 quisition. Society acts upon the assumption, for th3 most part undoubt- 

 edly correct, that under individual ownership its territories will be best 

 improved and turned to the purposes intended by nature. That the 

 underlying motive upon which society acts is the intention that the 

 soil should be devoted to those purposes to which the law of nature 

 dictates that it should be applied, is well manifested by the circum- 

 stance that, where the action of the private proprietors tends to count- 

 eract this policy, the state is often moved to revoke its gifts, and make 



