PRIVATE PROPERTY

p«rty, fafOQ^t on certain vory definite new forxns ol social life; it destroyad tfae andent System of society based upon the gens, that is, a society of eqnals founded npon blood-rdationship, and intioduced a society of classes founded npon différences of material possession ; it destxoyed tlie ancient System of motfaer-right and in» heritance tfarongh the female line, and tumed tfae woman into tbe property of the man ; it bronght witfa it private ownership of land, and so created a dass of landless aliens, and a whole System of r^it, mortgage* interest ; it introdnced slavery, serfdom, and wage-labonr, which are only varions fonns of the dominance of one dass over another ; and to rivet thèse authorities it created the State and the policeman.^

Civilization may therefore be said to date roughiy from the formation of class-divisions founded on property. This îs " the Fall." Hère disintegration and corruption begin. The tendency of property is to separate ; it séparâtes a man from Nature, by encasing him in an artificial life and creating for him a world from which Nature, the large elemental life, is for the most part excluded; it séparâtes him from his true Self, by concentrating his effort and attention upon the gratification of the sensés and of desires connected therewith, ministering to self-consciousness, and making him forgetful of his true identity ; it séparâtes him from his fellows, by stimulating his more superficial and selfish nature.

For the true Self of man consists in his organic relation with the whole body of his fellows ; and when a

^ Çivifûc^ion : its Çausâ and Cure, p. 4.