186 PUBLIC FINANCE 



be administered, and the success of whose administration depends 

 upon the accuracy of their analysis. 



So important is this relation in the characterization of the science 

 of finance that an illustration may not be out of place. The illus- 

 tration I have chosen is pertinent to a current problem, for it shows 

 how hesitation on the part of jurisprudence to recognize a manifest 

 tendency of the time acts as a hindrance to the further development 

 of the science of finance. 



The philosophy of human relations may be expressed in the form 

 of rights to which responsibilities are attached, or in the form of 

 duties that carry with them certain privileges, and society at any 

 time takes its color, if not its character, from the degree of emphasis 

 which jurisprudence in practice places upon the one or the other 

 of these two ways of expressing fundamental law. At present we 

 find ourselves at a point in the world's history when the theory of 

 personal rights is paramount, but when, also, the results that are 

 observed to follow from the extreme application of this theory are 

 forcing men to consider whether or not property and privilege 

 should not be a little more heavily weighted with responsibility and 

 duty. This observation is not submitted with a view to its dis- 

 cussion, but as preparatory to an illustration of the curb that is 

 put upon the development of finance by the disinclination of juris- 

 prudence to consider the consequent as well as the precedent. 



The theory of property in harmony with the philosophy of per- 

 sonal rights and restricted governmental functions is well expressed 

 by Thiers when he says [in effect] that a man owns what he makes, 

 and that being its owner he can dispose of it as he sees fit. Upon 

 this assumption respecting the nature of property which may, per- 

 haps, be conceded when confined to primitive industry, the financier 

 has built the general property tax, as it is known to the nineteenth 

 century. This tax may be defined as a tax that accepts value as 

 a homogeneous element in property and which imposes a uniform 

 rate on property irrespective of the amount of property held. No 

 matter what injustice may result from the general property tax, it 

 is unfair to hold the financier responsible. The truth is that no other 

 form of taxation is possible as long as the science of jurisprudence 

 asserts the homogeneity of property and distinguishes public 

 property from private property according as its formal title rests 

 in the state or in the private person. The political economist, the 

 financier, and the sociologist have long passed that point in the theo- 

 retical development of their respective sciences. Thus the econo- 

 mist acknowledges frankly that quantity, whether it be of goods to 

 consume or of power in production, is measured by curves of inten- 

 sity; the financier admits that value varies in its personal as well 

 as its social significance according to the purpose and method of its 



