hold it for a year and a day, in order to be regarded as its possessor; and possess it twenty or thirty years, in order to become its proprietor.
These preliminaries established, M. Troplong’s whole structure falls of its own weight, and the inferences, which he attempts to draw, vanish.
“Property once acquired by occupation and labor, it naturally preserves itself, not only by the same means, but also by the refusal of the holder to abdicate; for from the very fact that it has risen to the height of a right, it is its nature to perpetuate itself and to last for an indefinite period.… Rights, considered from an ideal point of view, are imperishable and eternal; and time, which affects only the contingent, can no more disturb them than it can injure God himself.” It is astonishing that our author, in speaking of the ideal, time, and eternity, did not work into his sentence the divine wings of Plato,—so fashionable to-day in philosophical works.
With the exception of falsehood, I hate nonsense more than any thing else in the world. Property once acquired! Good, if it is acquired; but, as it is not acquired, it cannot be preserved. Rights are eternal! Yes, in the sight of God, like the archetypal ideas of the Platonists. But, on the earth, rights exist only in the presence of a subject, an object, and a condition. Take away one of these three things, and rights no longer exist. Thus, individual possession ceases at the death of the subject, upon the destruction of the object, or in case of exchange or abandonment.
Let us admit, however, with M. Troplong, that property is an absolute and eternal right, which cannot be destroyed save by the deed and at the will of the proprietor. What are the consequences which immediately follow from this position?
