That we may more completely estimate the advantage of the law, let us endeavour to form a clear idea of property. We shall see that there is no natural property---that property is entirely the creature of law.
Property is only a foundation of expectation---the expectation of deriving certain advantages from the thing said to be possessed, in consequence of the relations in which one already stands to it.
There is no form, or colour, or visible trace, by which it is possible to express the relation which constitutes property. It belongs not to physics, but to metaphysics: it is altogether a creature of the mind.
To have the object in one's hand---to keep it, to manufacture it, to sell it, to change its nature, to employ it---all these physical circumstances do not give the idea of property. A piece of cloth which is actually in the Indies may belong to me, whilst the dress which I have on may not be mine. The food which is incorporated with my own substance may belong to another, to whom I must account for its use.
The idea of property consists in an established expectation---in the persuasion of power to derive certain advantages from the object, according to the nature of the case.
But this expectation, this persuasion, can only be the work of the law. I can reckon upon the enjoyment of that which I regard as my own, only according to the promise of the law, which guarantees it to me. It is the law alone which allows me to forget my natural weakness: it is from the law alone that I can enclose a field and give myself to its cultivation, in the distant hope of the harvest.
But it may be said, What has served as a base to the law for the commencement of the operation, when it adopted the objects which it promised to protect under the name of property? In the primitive state, had not men a natural expectation of enjoying certain things---an expectation derived from sources anterior to the law?
Yes: they have had from the beginning, there have always been circumstances in which a man could secure by his own means the enjoyment of certain things- but the catalogue of these cases is very limited. The savage, who has hidden his prey, may hope to keep it for himself so long as his cave is not discovered; so long as he is awake to defend it; whilst he is stronger than his rivals: but this is all. How miserable and precarious is this method of possession!---Suppose, then, the slightest agreement among these savages reciprocally to respect each other's booty: this is the introduction, of a principle, to which you can only give the name of law. A feeble and momentary expectation only results from time to time, from purely physical circumstances; a strong and permanent expectation results from law alone: that which was only a thread in a state of nature, becomes a cable, so to speak, in a state of society.
Property and law are born and must die together. Before the laws, there was no property: take away the laws, all property ceases. With respect to property, security consists in no shock or derangement being given to the expectation which has been founded on the laws, of enjoying a certain portion of good. The legislator owes the greatest respect to these expectations to which he has given birth: when he does not interfere with them, he does all that is essential to the happiness of society; when he injures them, he always produces a proportionate sum of evil.
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