NO MAN LIVETH UNTO HIMSELF 2T

unto himself. If a man withdraws, "corners," hoards to himself, artifidaUy exdudes from gênerai availableness, any portion of the life which is his because of his membership in the commuirity, two things happen : the life-levd of the whole is reduced, and he himself becomes, in Mr. Wells' words, " disconnected, without significance." " If a grain abideth alone, it dieth." This is plain enough in a time of war, when the f ood-supplies of a country suddenly become seriously restricted. The selfish hoarder of foodstuffs, the panic-stricken withdrawer of gold from circulation, is recognised as a common enemy. The exceptional circumstance brings the nile to light. The law which, in the spécial war-condition, is seen operating swiftly and efEectively, is always operating, more slowly but none the less surely.

Carpenter illustrâtes this fact by a discussion of the idea and development of the idea, of private property.* There are, he says, two kinds of ownership — ^legal ownership and true ownership. The former is artificial and * 'essentially négative ' ' ; it is " the power to prevent other people from using*'; it is anti-social; it ministers to the selfish and arrogant instincts in a man, and tends to dehumanise him ; his wealth becomes " illth/' On the other hand, if a man makes for himself a tool, let us say a net for fishing or a hoe for working the land, this is recognised by common consent

^ England*s Idéal (sîxtii édition), p. 139.

tm PRIVATE PROPERTY

(aport firom any law) to be his property ; it is, indeed. bis own in a deqier sensé, seeing that in makîng tt he pat hîmself — his mind, his will, his ion, — into iL If, with this UxA, he tills a portion of land. cares for h, enters into personal relation with it, and pn)dnces a cn^ therefrom whereby not himself ooly bat his ndghbonrs also may five, thos enteriqg into osefol, loving, serving relatioo with the cranmonity, then again by common oQosent (and apart from law) his ownership of tfaat land is recognised. It is his property ; aod it is a tmst.

With die incieasiiig complexity of sodety, however, thèse sxnqile arraqgements no longer hold ; bat the law holds. Division of labour anses; and many individuals combine for the production of one thing. The product of this joint labour cannot natorally bdong to one individual ; ideally it bdoDgs to the commnnity, and the individual reoeives wages whidi represent — or should represent — the " average hnman value which he bas pat into the product"

The hnman vaine pnt mto an object does not corne back to tlie man in that object, but it cornes back to him in connten or cfaecks, tbat is in money, tiaiismutable into hnman vaines in aU sorts of objects.^

In this stage of sodety, a man' s wages become fais private property, but his personal rdationship to the product of his labour is weakened. Still, the sensé of mankind recognises his true owner-

*■ Englan^s Idéale p. 148.

TRUE OWNERSHIP 281

ship of this money; and he vindicates that ownership by using it, say, to purchase a tool through which the consdousness of personal relationship with the community in labour is once again restored. Before the Fall, money

is the symbol of a Gain, which a man may attain to ; the symbol of a Power, which lies within him.^

The Fall cornes when money is regarded as an end in itself , and feeds the selfish désire for accumulation and aggrandisement. From this hoarded and exclusive gain ail the characteristics of true ownership vanish ; and the false owner* ship is guaranteed by the law, which gives to a man the légal right to hold as against the rest of the community that which he no longer regards as a trust, to which he has no Uving and personal relation, and does not use to the common advantage. Such ownership reacts upon the possessor. For }ust as food nourishes the body in passing through it, just as a fiame shines brightly by reason of the current of materials passing through it, so it is with possessions : if a man' s gains are gains also for the whole, his membership in the community remains healthy and beautiful ; if they are held selfishly as against the whole, they beget disease and impurity in him ; he becomes a point of irritation, wealoiess, and corruption in the social body. His own life-level is lowered, and with it the life-level of the whole.

^ Englané^s Idéal, p. 158.