POWELL] SOCIOLOGY LXXI 



Endoivment. Xwl yet we are to see property and wealth 

 and capital and investment assuine a fifth form; this is endow- 

 ment. Men are not all chiefly interested in the pursuit of 

 physical welfare, and those most deeply interested have other 

 purposes which they hold dear. The farmer may still be 

 interested in his church and may be g-lad to endow his church ; 

 the manufacturer may still be interested in a library and be 

 glad to endow a library; the merchant may still be interested 

 in a college and may be glad to endow a college. So some 

 wealth at last becomes endowment. 



We have different stages of the same thing, and call these 

 stages, severally, (1) property ; (2) wealth; (3) capital; (4) in- 

 vestment, and (5) endowment. It would be convenient if we 

 had a generic term to express these things. Let us call them 

 all possessions. 



In the terminology of jurisprudence the word possession is 

 somewhat ambiguous when it is used to denote a holding as 

 something distinct from ownership. Thus, a horse may be 

 said to be in the possession of a man who has the right to use 

 it because he has hired it, and its more permanent ownership 

 may be in another man. The luan who has hired the horse has 

 a right to its use during the time for which it is hired, but the 

 ownership of the property is said to still remain in the man 

 from whom it is hired. Still further, a thief is said to be found 

 in possession of property when it is discovered in his custody, 

 but the possession is fraudulent or criminal. Taking the term 

 in all its uses, possession seems to be the best generic term to 

 signify property, wealth, capital, investment, and endowment. 

 Here we need terms for a genus and its species, and select the 

 terms as shown. 



It is the nature of property to be consumed, and it becomes 

 property only because it can lie consumed; but ultimate con- 

 sumption may be postponed, and often consumption requires 

 time. In the same manner it requires time for production, and 

 in modern industry it often becomes necessary that the materials 

 of nature should undergo successive stages of production in dif- 

 ferent hands; so property exists in stages of production and in 

 stages of consumption. lOntelic consumption is forever in prog- 



