CITATIONS FROM WRITINGS OF JURISTS AND ECONOMISTS. 637 



ous manner, and mankind in general prove gainers by it. Such are the 

 foundations of the general obligations incumbent on nations recipro- 

 cally to cultivate commerce. 



P. Pradier-Fodere, Traite de Droit international public europeen et 

 americain, suivant les progress de la science et de la pratique contem- 

 poraines, vol. II, sec. 598, p. 131 et seq. Paris, 1885. 



It is sufficient to consider the conditions of existence in human soci- 

 ety in order to convince oneself that the right of property is the key- 

 stone of the social edifice. Economists point out to us the idea of 

 property or ownership, connected with the idea of wealth created by 

 man applying his faculties to the production of those tilings which are 

 calculated to meet the wants that are inherent in his nature, and that 

 are not found in profusion, as air, light and water are. Philosophers 

 teach us that the source of the right of property lies in that individual 

 interest which takes care of the preservation of the individual and of 

 his family, and which, maintained by respect for the interest of others, 

 is the universal motor of mankind, and, by its multiplicity, forms the 

 general or common interest, without excluding duty and sympathy, or 

 the sentiment of humanity, which are also, to a certain extent, social 

 bonds among men, and springs of action for them; hence the feeling 

 and the need of property (ownership) are inherent in the nature of every 

 human being. Historians remind us that men, by nature, live in fam- 

 ilies, or in collective or social groups, and that property is found, orig- 

 inally, among all tribes, de facto at first, and soon as an idea, more or 

 less clear perhaps, but always invariably fixed. We everywhere see 

 man appropriate all that he needs and what he produces, at first his 

 bow and arrows, next his hut, and still later his house, his garden, his 

 land, after he has abandoned a nomadic mode of life and become an 

 agriculturist. As man becomes developed, he becomes more attached 

 to what he possesses, and experiences greater need of security in the 

 possession of what belongs to him. It is for the purpose of obtaining 

 this security, as well as for that of satisfying his essentially social 

 instincts, as Aristotle said, that he unites with his fellow- beings to 

 form with them, obeying the impulse of special vocations and the 

 determination of determinate circumstances, associations more or less 

 considerable, communities and states. 



These men, being thus united and grouped, place, of their own 

 accord, a portion of their incomes in the common fund, and accept, or 

 institute, or submit to from the authorities, powers and governments, 

 from which they expect a guaranty of the ownership of the fruits of 

 their labor, to which they give the force necessary to curb those pas- 

 sions which are inspired by cupidity and a desire for control, and the 

 means of maintaining this force, together with the executive pow- 

 ers, the magistracies and other institutions required by their duties. 

 Joseph Gamier, the economist, has drawn a graphic picture of social 

 activity. "The necessity", says he, "to procure food and raiment, 

 shelter, and the means of satisfying the other needs of life, gives rise 

 to the cultivation of fields and to the working of mines and quarries, 

 which occupies a portion of the population, while another portion cul- 

 tivates the soil, and exchanges its labor and services with the first. It 

 is aided in this exchange by a third portion of the population, which 

 serves as an intermediary, busying itself, more particularly, with the 

 conveyance, by means of transportation and exchange, of the agricul- 

 tural productions and manufactured articles from the places of pro- 

 duction to the hands of the consumers. Another large class of workers 



