CITATIONS FROM WRITINGS OF JURISTS AND ECONOMISTS. 639 



view of law, are the result of rational principles to which the right of 

 property and its exercise is subjected. 



The principles which govern socially the right (droit) of property 

 relate to substance and to form. 

 As to substance, the following rules may be established: 

 I. Property exists for a rational purpose and for a rational usage ; it 

 is destined to satisfy the various needs of human life ; consequently, 

 all abuse, all arbitrary destruction, are contrary to right (droit) and 

 should be prohibited by law (loi). But to avoid giving a false exten- 

 sion to this principle it is important to recall to mind that, according 

 to personal rights, that which is committed within the sphere of pri- 

 vate life and of that of the family, does not come under the applica- 

 tion of public law. It is necessary, therefore, that the abuse be public 

 in order thai the law may reach it. It belongs to the legislation regu- 

 lating the various kinds of agricultural, industrial, and commercial 

 property, as well as to penal legislation, to determine the abuses which 

 it is important to protect ; and, in reality, legislation as well as police 

 laws (orders,) have always specified a certain number of cases of 

 abuses 1 . Besides all abusive usage is hurtful to society, because it is 

 for the public interest that the object should give the owner the advan- 

 tages of the services of which it admits. 2 



Vattel, Law of nations, chap, xiii, sees. 281, 282, p. 125. 



Sec. 281. It is manifest that the use of the open sea, which consists 

 in navigation and fishing, is innocent and inexhaustible; that is to say — 

 he who navigates or fishes in the open sea does no injury to any one, 

 and the sea in these two respects is sufficient for all mankind. Now 

 nature does not give to man a right of appropriating to himself things 

 that may be innocently used, and that are inexhaustible and sufficient 

 for all. For, since those things, while common to all, are sufficient to 

 supply the wants of each, whoever should, to the exclusion of all other 

 participants, attempt to render himself sole proprietor of them, would 

 unreasonably wrest the bounteous gifts of nature from the parties 

 excluded. The earth no longer furnishing, without culture, the things 

 necessary or useful to the human race, who were extremely multiplied, 

 it became necessary to introduce the right of property, in order that 

 each might apply himself with more success to the cultivation of what 

 had fallen to his share, and multiply, by his labor, the necessaries and 

 conveniences of life. It is for this reason the law of nature approves 

 the rights of dominion and property, which put an end to the primitive 

 manner of living in common. But this reason cannot apply to things 

 which are in themselves inexhaustible; and, consequently, it cannot 

 furnish any just grounds for seizing the exclusive possession of them. 

 If the free and common use of a thing of this nature was prejudicial or 

 dangerous to a nation, the care of their own safety would authorize 



1 On the occasion of the debate of Art. 544, which defined property, Napoleon 

 expressed energetically, the necessity of suppressing abuses. "The abuse of prop- 

 erty", said he, "should be suppressed every time it becomes hurtful to society. 

 Thus, it is not allowed to cut down unripe grain, to pull up famous grape-vines. I 

 would not suffer that an individual should smite with sterility twenty leagues of 

 ground in a grain-bearing department in order to make for himself a pari: thereof. 

 The right of abuse docs not extend so far as to deprive a people of its sustenance." 



2 Roman law says in this sense, Sec. 2, I, de patr. pot. 1, 8: Expedit enim reipublicce 

 ne sua re quia male utatur. Leibnitz further expands this principle of the Roman 

 law by saying, {lie notionibus juris, etc.) : " Cumnos nostraque Deo debeamus, ut reijiub- 

 licw, ita multo magis universi interest, ne quis re sua male utatur. 



