96 THE COMING OF SOCIALISM 



the same as the means of doing wrong. There must be 

 choice between them, and the choice must be real ; and 

 that is not possible unless personality has its own sphere 

 and inalienable station in the outer world. The remedy 

 does not lie, as the Socialist believes, in removing the 

 occasion of cupidity and the other evils, but in putting the 

 occasion to a better use. The Individualist is right in 

 insisting upon private property as unconditionally necessary 

 both for the individual and the State. 



But to acknowledge this exclusive side of property and 

 even of self-hood, and to acknowledge it in a full and 

 unqualified way, is, after all, to admit only one half of 

 the truth. 



If we examine the conception of private property more 

 closely, we shall find that it means more than mere pos- 

 session by one person to the exclusion of others. Mere 

 possession and exclusion does not exhaust the significance 

 or express the sacredness of private property. It does 

 not account for the right, which is the essential element. 

 A man may possess a thing which he does not own ; he 

 may hold it against others, like a robber his booty. To 

 convert it into property requires more than his private 

 will to own it himself and to exclude others. In the first 

 place, property must be regarded as an instrument of 

 utility. A claim to a thing which a man can never use, 

 either directly or by exchange, is a claim to an encum- 

 brance. In owning such a thing he owns less than nothing. 

 Property incapable of use is really not property but dead 

 matter, and matter out of place. To make it property 

 is to make it the possible instrument of a will ; and any- 

 thing which doubles or halves its use, doubles or halves 

 the property. It is relation to man's desires and will, 



