ENCYCLICAL LETTER OF POPE LEO XIII. 116
labor should be enjoyed by another? As effects follow their cause, so it is just and right that the results of labor should belong to him who has labored.
11. With reason, therefore, the common opinion of mankind, little affected by the few dissentients who have maintained the opposite view, has found in the study of nature, and in the law of Nature herself, the foundation of the division of property, and has consecrated by the practice of all ages the principle of private ownership, as being preeminently in conformity with human nature, and as conducing in the most unmistakable manner to the peace and tranquillity of human life. The same principle is confirmed and enforced by the civil laws laws which, as long as they are just, derive their binding force from the law of nature. The authority of the Divine Law adds its sanction, forbidding us in the gravest terms even to covet that which is another's: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wfe ; nor his house, nor his field, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything which is his*
12. The rights here spoken of, belonging to each indi- vidual man, are seen in a much stronger light if they are considered in relation to man's social and domestic obli- gations.
13. In choosing a state of life, it is indisputable that all are at full liberty either to follow the counsel of Jesus Christ as to the virginity, or to enter into the bonds of marriage. No human law can abolish the natural and primitive right of marriage, or in any way limit the chief and principal purpose of marriage, ordained by God's authority from the beginning: Increase and multiply. \ Thus we have the Family; the "society" of a man's own household; a society limited indeed in numbers, but a
- Deuteronomy v. 21. t Genesis i. 28.
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