642 CITATIONS FROM WRITINGS OF JURISTS AND ECONOMISTS. 



1395. I have just now said that the things which are not susceptible 

 of possession or of occupation, that is to say, are not susceptible of a 

 primitive law, are not susceptible of ownership. They are the property 

 of no one, or rather, they are the property of all. These tilings are 

 what the law writers call "res communes". Such are the air, the water 

 which runs in the rivers, the sea, and the sea coasts. "Naturali jure 

 omnium communia sunt haec: aer, aqua prorluens, et mare, et per hoc, 

 littora maris." 



Pradier-Fodere, Principes generaux de Droit, de Politique et de Legis- 

 lation, p. 138. Paris, 1869. 



Objects of property (ownership.) — What may the objects of property be? 

 We appropriate to our own use what we have produced and what we 

 have saved, the soil that we have occupied, and the industrial faculties 

 that we have acquired. These various appropriations constitute sev- 

 eral kinds of property; property in labor, property in capital, landed 

 property and personal property. The sources of these properties are 

 labor, economy, and occupation. As to the industrial faculties, they 

 are either gifts of nature, such as bodily strength, intelligence and natu- 

 ral talent, or they are the fruits of our own care and painstaking, such 

 as instruction and acquired talents. 



The acquisition of property. — These different kinds of property are all 

 entitled to the respect of man; some of them are sacred. How can we 

 refuse to him who has made efforts to produce, the ownership of the 

 result of those efforts? The production which leaves his hands repre- 

 sents the sacrifice of his time, of his labor, oi' his health, nay, of his 

 life. The man has saved; he has imposed upon himself privation of 

 enjoyment, and when he might have rested he has continued his hard 

 labors; how can he be deprived of the ownership of the result of this 

 sacrifice 1 ? lie has applied his physical and moral powers, with his cap- 

 ital, to the clearing of land that belonged to nobody; he has improved 

 that land, has erected a dwelling, and has taken possession. Is it not 

 just that such taking of possession should be protected by the provi- 

 sions of the law 2 The source of his right is called occupation ; he is the 

 first occupant. 



Beatjssire, Freedom in the Intellectual and Moral World. Pt. I, ch. VII. 



Labor is not a creation but a transformation. It needs must borrow 

 of Nature the materials and the instruments. Man devoted to labor by 

 his terrestrial destiny has, therefore, the right to possess himself of all 

 resources that nature furnishes him. He has the right to fertilize the 

 earth, to utilize its products, to subdue even the animals, and make in 

 one way or another docile laborers of them. Beings deprived of reason 

 do not belong to themselves; they cannot dispose of themselves; they 

 follow blindly the laws that are laid down for them; they belong to the 

 intellectual and moral being, who alone, through his labor, can modify, 

 improve, and utilize them. The primitive occupation of the soil and its 

 fruits, either by any individual, any family, any tribe or any association 

 whatsoever is, therefore, perfectly legitimate. "It is a conquest," says 

 Leibnitz, "over our natural enemy, the physical world. Between per- 

 son and person the right of peace exists so long as one of them has not 

 commenced war or caused a damage, between a person and a thing the 

 right of war is perpetual. The lion is permitted to devour a man, the 

 mountain to crush him, and man is permitted to subdue the lion and 

 pierce the mountain. Victory of the person over the thing, and cap 

 tivity of the thing, constitute possession; and, by right of war, posses- 



