266 THE STATUS OF MAN. 



Then, also, the very environment is transmitted. In animals 

 and plants and the majority of men every individual makes a 

 new start, has to find a place for himself. In the case of man 

 this means finding some suitable occupation, some means of 

 getting his living in the world. Now in man it is possible for 

 an individual who has found a place in the world, who for 

 instance has come to use a certain extent of land on which to 

 grow what he eats, not only to keep possession of that land 

 for his own benefit, but to extend this privilege to his children. 

 The other men will stand around and will not only let these 

 children take possession, but they will help them defend their 

 ownership. In other words they will help to keep other indivi- 

 duals from making this environment theirs. 



This custom of allowing the privilege of use by an individual 

 of a portion of the earth's surface or of materials, animals, to 

 extend to his children is perfectly logical where man is as rare 

 as some of the larger mammals. If the possession of some terri- 

 tory and tools and domestic animals by one family does not 

 hinder anybody else from possessing his own garden and his 

 own pigs, nobody objects to inheritance. But if it does, and un- 

 limited accumulation of property and especially the privilege 

 of holding accumulated property after death seems to produce 

 a state of affairs where great numbers of individuals are with- 

 out gardens and pigs, it is not to be wondered at, that some 

 of these individuals begin to object. And we cannot be sur- 

 prised to hear the statement, that unrestricted privilege of in- 

 heritance can not coexist with democracy. 



There is no reason for objection to a privilege of holding 

 and transmitting property in land and material resources, in 

 places where there is more than enough to go round. In newly 

 settled countries like the United States half a century ago, 

 and New South Wales to-day, there is no objection to land- 

 holding and inheritance of land, because nobody is thereby 

 debarred from going a little further into the woods and taking 

 possession of another patch for himself and his children after 

 him. 



