CITATIONS FROM WRITINGS OF JURISTS AND ECONOMISTS. 643 



sion grants to the persoii a right over the thing, provided the thing 

 belongs to no one. 1 



Page 396. 



There is a first class of duties which seems to justify the right of prop- 

 erty: these are our duties to ourselves. They impose upon us, in fact, 

 with the care of our life, the obligation of foresight. It is the condition 

 of the savage, as well of the animal, not to be able to use for food more 

 than the fruits that hang on the trees, the plants which the soil pro- 

 duces without cultivation, the animals which the chase or which a happy 

 hazard casts in the way. From our first step into civilized life we do 

 not fulfil our duty as men unless we seek, by intelligent and sustained 

 labor, to overcome nature and to apply all its forces to the service of 

 our needs, present and future. By this we free ourselves from the sub- 

 jection of the physical world and the dependence of our equals; we 

 enter fully upon possession of our moral freedom. But on what condi 

 tion? That our equals as individuals or in society shall not have the 

 right to wrest from us the things which we have appropriated by this 

 preserving labor, that we may rely on permanent possession. Work 

 founds proprietorship, not because it is a free use of our faculties, but 

 because it is a duty. 



Courcelle-Seneiiil, Theoretical and Practical Treatise of Political 

 Economy. Vol. I, liv. II, ch. V, p. 292, 2nd ed. Paris, 1867. 



The desire, the temptation, to consume is a permanent force; its 

 action can only be suspended by controlling it through another force, 

 which also is always lasting. It is clear that each one would consume 

 the greatest possible amount (le plus possible) if it were not for his 

 interest to abstain from consuming. He would cease to abstain as soon 

 as he would cease to have bis interest, which should endure without 

 interruption in order that capital should always be preserved. This is 

 why we say that interest is the remuneration of this labor of saving 

 and preserving, which is a necessary condition of industrial life, because 

 without it capital in whatever form it might be could not be lasting. 



Page 35. 



Three attributes distinguish the objects comprised under the generic 

 name of wealth; they are suited to satisfy human wants, that is to say, 

 useful, material, and appropriate. 



Wealth considered from the standpoint of its origin is natural or 

 artificial. The first is that which nature directly offers to man, and 

 which without previous labor he can appropriate to satisfy his needs; 

 such are the spontaneous fruits of the earth, the earth itself, and mat- 

 ter in general in its primitive forms. The second is that of which its 

 utility is the result of human labor in some sort; and moreover, the 

 objects entitled wealth are not to take this name except they unite the 

 three characteristics indicated above. 



It is not necessary still to insist on utility; all the world agrees that 

 that which is desired by no one cannot be comprised among wealth .... 

 whether considering the earth or the sea; as soon as appropriation and 

 enjoyment of utility commences, there is wealth; as soon as utility or 

 appropriation ceases wealth disappears. 



'Nova inethodus disceiul;i> docemUeque jurisprudentise. Duteus, III, p. 213. 



o 



