jects, as well as that which is the result of human industry, labor, and exertion of every kind, is founded on, and receives its value from, the consent of mankind, which formally or tacitly agreed to create such a right and title. This is the very substance of the opinion of the Compactists. Then what is the inevitable consequence of such a principle? That those who established and set up the right may pull it down; that those who gave value and force to the title may take it away from it. And could any one complain of wrong and injustice? No; because the title to any kind of property has no justice or injustice of its own inherent in nature, resulting from the necessary relation of things, but derives all its force and value and significance from the jus gentium. The jus gentium made it, and the jus gentium can unmake it; and nobody is wronged, no natural relation is contravened, no essential connection is broken. Therefore, if mankind to-day were to agree to abolish individual proprietorship and to substitute Communism in any one of its forms, no intrinsic wrong would be done to any one. Private owners might feel chagrined at it, the thing might be done under circumstances which might make it a sin to do so, but never a wrong and an injustice, and the change would have to stand.

Those who understand the theory of the Compact, and have worked it out to its remotest consequences, do not shrink from aamitting them. We will cite Molina, assuredly one of the best and most strenuous defenders of the theory, and held in such high esteem by the writer himself of the article we are commenting on.

In his great work, “De Just. et de Jure,” Vol. I., Tract. 1, Disp. 5, asking the question whether the jus gentium is subject to dispensation or abrogation, and answering in general in the affirmative for the reason of its having been introduced by the human will, he comes to discuss in particular the jus gentium with regard to the division of goods, and says: "With regard to the division of goods, if it were totally abolished, so many evils would result from it that it would undoubtedly be a mortal sin entirely to abolish it. But if it were done, I have no doubt that the thing would hold. The reason is that, as the human will was the sufficient cause of the division of goods, so must the human will be the sufficient cause for abolishing it."

Our readers will remark that Molina, with deliberation and with complete calculation of the terrible consequences and evils which a total abolition of all private property would entail, calls such an abrogation a mortal sin, but not an injustice, a wrong, and discards all idea of reparation or restitution, as he maintains that, if the thing were done, he has no doubt but it would hold.

However, with regard to the evils and disorders which would result from the abolition of private ownership, and which the afore

said writer endeavors to make capital of to show that it would not be proper for mankind to annul the institution, we would beg to observe that society, and society alone, must be the sole judge of the expediency of the measure and of the amount of good expected from it, even making full allowance for the inevitable evils which must necessarily accompany a change of such vast proportions, and the uprooting of an institution which has sent forth its roots far and wide for so many generations.

In the second place, the evil, to be sure, would fall mostly on those who have experienced the fruit and the result of the first compact, that is, on all property owners who have enjoyed their wealth by the good will of society, and they may well put up with some suffering and privations at the hands of their own benefactor. Thirdly, Socialists and Communists contend that no evil or disorder can compare with the terrible and unutterable woes, misery and wretchedness which have been entailed on mankind by the pernicious and iniquitous compact setting up individual proprietorship and maintaining it against all efforts to the contrary—a compact so infamous, so contrary to the laws of nature and humanity as to allow a few to nestle in the lap of luxury and comfort whilst the great majority of mankind are shivering with cold and hunger and dying of want. What possible reason can prevent these Socialists and Communists, should they ever be in the majority in any nation, from rooting out such a pernicious institution so as to give to their system a thorough and sufficient experiment?

We conclude the argument of modern Catholic authors against the theory of the compact. The alleged compact must be looked upon as a pure and unmitigated fancy and figment of the imagination, because

Ist. A formal convention of mankind, establishing by common. agreement the division of the land and of all other permanent objects, and setting up the right of individual proprietorship, according to all known history, never took place.

2d. Because to account for such a convention unknown to history, it must fall back on a primitive state of man preceding all historical records, when he roamed about like a wild and untamed animal.

3d. Because, for want of historical proof testifying to the fact of any such real convention having taken place, it must suppose a tacit and presumed consent of mankind in the institution of private property on terms and conditions such as would never have been acceded to by the worst idiots.

4th. Because, on the supposition of such a convention, formal or tacit, in setting up the right of private ownership, the contracting parties would have gone beyond their right and their powers.

5th. Because such an agreement would have been in conflict with the natural law as a practical abrogation of the principle that the law of nature neither sanctions the right of holding property in common, nor the right of possessing it in private; and to abolish the former, to set up exclusively the latter, would contravene such law of nature.

6th. Because this presumed agreement, being the sole source and fountain from which the right of individual property is derived, would render stealing an indifferent action, evil if forbidden by human law, good if allowed.

7th. Because such an agreement would have no binding force or authority on the generation that never voted for it.

8th. Finally, because, as the early generation by a common agreement established private ownership, every succeeding generation must be allowed the power and authority to change, to modify, to abrogate, or to annul such agreement, and hence all property is shaken to the very foundation, all confidence gone, and the best possible weapons put in the hands of the enemies of property and social order.

Having explained and rejected the opinion of the Compactists, we come now to unfold and discuss the second opinion.

This has been held, as a rule, by all those writers who came after the French Revolution, and who had their attention forcibly called to the question of the origin of the right of property by the errors of Socialism and Communism. These, whom we have called Naturalists for the sake of brevity, maintain that the right of individual proprietorship originates in the natural law, and springs from the inherent essential, necessary relations of things.

The theory of the natural source of the right of property has been held by the best and the highest among the élite of Catholic writers. Besides St. Thomas' we may mention Cardinal De Lugo, who is facile princeps among moral theologians. "The natural jus," he says, "may be taken in two senses: as that which is common to man and to inferior animals; and in this sense the division of goods and dominions does not spring from the natural jus. In the second sense it is taken to mean a law binding independently of all positive commands which may be added to it. In this sense the division of goods and dominions, taking the latter in a generical signification, appertains to the natural jus. When, therefore, it is said that the division of goods and dominions was introduced by the jus gentium, this must be understood of the division generically considered, and not of this or that particular mode of

1 See our pamphlet: The Doctrine of St. Thomas on the right of Property and of its Use.

acquiring dominion; and then the jus gentium spoken of is that which is distinct from the natural jus in the first sense, inasmuch as this is common to men and brutes, but not from the natural law understood in the second sense. Nay, Justinian expressly says that the jus gentium is that which theologians call the natural jus, that is, that which is independent of all precept added to nature's confines." (De Lugo, De Just. et de Jure, Disp. 6, Sectio Prima, Palmé Edition.)

The next in order are Cardinal Francis Toletus and Cardinal Gaietanus.

"The division of things," says the former," was made by a human jus. But observe that the human jus is two-fold: the first is the jus gentium, which by reasoning and inference is derived from the natural law; the other is the positive, which is established by the human will. This division, therefore, was made by both laws; in general, indeed, by the jus gentium as to its imperativeness, that is, the jus gentium teaches that the division should be made. In particular, however, that this should belong to this one and that to another was done by the human will. And thus the aforesaid doctors' explain, and also Gaietanus, though they call the jus gentium itself natural because it is derived from the natural law." (Toletus, in Summa, 2a 2æ, Quest. 6, Art. 2.)

The next is Soto, who maintains that natural jus and the jus gentium are the same thing; and that the only difference between them is that the natural jus is that which is perceived by the human mind without reasoning or discourse, whereas the jus gentium is that which is elicited by the human reason from natural principles without any human convention and without long consideration. (Soto, De Just. et de Jure, Ques. 5, Art. 4.)

To these must be added the great Bellarmine and all those schoolmen and theologians who hold the doctrine that the jus gentium is a consequence of the natural law.

“Jus gentium est quasi conclusio deducta ex jure naturæ per humanum discursum." (De Controv. de Laicis, Ch. 6.) And in the work "De Bonis Operibus in Particulari," the same Bellarmine, Lib. 3, ch. 10, in refuting the opinion of those who contended that the evangelical law does not permit private property, concludes: "Who can believe that the evangelical law, which is most perfect and which does not destroy but adorns nature, would take away the advantages which accrue from the division of things, and entail all those inconveniencies and absurdities which arise from Communism and confusion?"

Bergier, in his "Droit des Gens," says: "C'est ce qu' une nation

1 Gabriel Medina and others.

peut exiger d' une autre en vertu de la loi naturelle." (Dictionnaire Theologique, art. Droit des Gens.)

Tournely holds the same opinion. "Individual proprietorship of goods, and consequently the division thereof, must be attributed to the natural law." (De Just. et de Jure, Pars Secunda, Art. 4.)

Coming down to recent times, we venture to say that all Catholic writers in every department of science, theologians, canonists, philosophers, publicists, historians, orators, agree in holding the right of private ownership to have originated in the natural law. Among them we will mention, as representative, Dr. Brownson, who says explicitly: "The state does not create the right to property. The right to hold property is prior to civil society, and is one of those rights called the natural rights of man." (Works, Vol. 12, page 361.) And, highest of all, we have the testimony of Leo XIII., who distinctly affirms that the Church commands the right of property originating in the nature of things to be maintained safe and inviolate to all.

The authors we have referred to, in spite of a few accidental differences as to the details of their theory, unanimously agree in maintaining that the right of individual proprietorship in land or all permanent objects originates in the natural law; and, as Portalis expresses it, it is in the very constitution of our being,' and, as Troplong puts it, it is so inseparable from human nature that it is impossible to conceive man living and preserving his life without this inborn consubstantial right.'

As we have done with the theory of the Compactists, we will lay down the salient points of the system of our modern writers.

First Principle.-The earth was created for the good of all, and to be owned by mankind in common, in a negative, but not in a positive sense.

What is meant by a thing being possessed by a collective number of men in common, in a negative, but not in a positive, sense, they explain as follows: A thing is said to be owned in common by a body of men in a positive sense when it is possessed by them exclusively in their collective capacity, and in no sense whatever in their individual capacity, so that, though owned by all collectively, none of them, individually considered, can lay any claim to it, and much less appropriate it. For instance, a public building, say a town hall, is owned in common by the people in a positive sense, because they really and truly own it

Le principe de ce droit est à nous; il n'est pas le résultat d'une convention humaine ou d'une loi positive. Il est dans la constitution même de nôtre être, et dans nos differents relations avec les objets qui nous environnent. Exposé des motifis. De la Proprieté. Ch. III, page 16.