GARDEN STUDIES 12/ 



living series when an amoeba swallows a particle of food. 

 By the effort put forth in the act of swallowing, the par- 

 ticle becomes the amoeba's property for the sustenance of 

 its life. With man it is the foundation of government 

 and social organization, as well as the chief incentive to 

 labor, invention, and discovery. " From the old stone age 

 upward so far as we can trace the history of man," says 

 Dr. Brinton, "the one efficient motive to his progress 

 has been the acquisition and the preservation of his prop- 

 erty. This has been the immediate aim of all his arts 

 and institutions, and the chief incentive to individual 

 exertion." L. H. Morgan says that " monogamy resulted 

 from increase and variety of property through the estab- 

 lishment of inheritance in the children of its owner ; the 

 influence of property in the civilization of mankind it is 

 impossible to overestimate. It was the real power that 

 brought the Aryan and Semitic nations out of barbarism 

 into civilization." ^ 



Far from being antagonistic to unselfishness and altru- 

 ism, the desire for ownership is their necessary forerunner, 

 their normal preparatory and embryonic phase, for no 

 man can give until he possesses something worth giving. 

 The more he possesses, the greater his power for good. 

 Mental power and acquisition of knowledge and skill in 

 this regard are like material property. Abuses of this 

 power naturally occur, and we find exceptional cases of 

 arrest in this normal process of development. But the 

 miser has stood scarecrow too long. 



1 Linus W. Kline and C. J. France. " The Psychology of Ownership," 

 Pedagogical Seminary, vol. vi, pp. 421-470. 



