tion. First, comes the consecration of the article; a consecration which makes known to all that they must offer up a suitable sacrifice to the proprietor, whenever they wish, by his permission obtained and signed, to use his article.
Second, comes the anathema, which prohibits—except on the conditions aforesaid—all persons from touching the article, even in the proprietor’s absence; and pronounces every violator of property sacrilegious, infamous, amenable to the secular power, and deserving of being handed over to it.
Finally, the dedication, which enables the proprietor or patron saint—the god chosen to watch over the article—to inhabit it mentally, like a divinity in his sanctuary. By means of this dedication, the substance of the article—so to speak—becomes converted into the person of the proprietor, who is regarded as ever present in its form.
This is exactly the doctrine of the writers on jurisprudence. “Property,” says Toullier, “is a moral quality inherent in a thing; an actual bond which fastens it to the proprietor, and which cannot be broken save by his act.” Locke humbly doubted whether God could make matter intelligent. Toullier asserts that the proprietor renders it moral. How much does he lack of being a God? These are by no means exaggerations.
Property is the right of increase; that is, the power to produce without labor. Now, to produce without labor is to make something from nothing; in short, to create. Surely it is no more difficult to do this than to moralize matter. The jurists are right, then, in applying to proprietors this passage from the Scriptures,—Ego dixi: Dii estis et filii Excelsi omnes,—“I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the Most High.”
Property is the right of increase. To us this axiom shall
