334 ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN vil 



to be replaced by individual ownership, in conse- 

 quence of the operation of purely industrial 

 causes. That is to say, in consequence of the 

 many commercial advantages of individual owner- 

 ship over communal ownership; which became 

 more and more marked exactly in proportion as 

 territory became more fully occupied, security of 

 possession increased, and the chances of the 

 success of individual enterprise and skill as 

 against routine, in an industrial occupation, 

 became greater and greater. 



The notion that all individual ownership of 

 land is the result of force and fraud appears to im 1 

 to be on a level with the peculiarly short-sighted 

 prejudice that all religions are the results of 

 sacerdotal cunning and imposture. As religions 

 are the inevitable products of the human mind, 

 which generates the priest and the prophet as 

 much as it generates the faithful ; so the inequality 

 of individual ownership has grown out of the 

 relative equality of communal ownership in virtue 

 of those natural inequalities of men, which, if 

 unimpeded by circumstances, cannot fail to give 

 rise quietly and peaceably to corresponding 

 political inequalities. 



The task I have set myself is completed, as t;tr 

 as it can be within reasonable limits. I trust 

 that those who have taken the trouble to follow 



the argument, will agree with me that the _ 



