on other matters this month, to repeat instead once more, in the shortest and strongest terms I can find, what I have now stated at least a hundred times respecting the eternal nature and sanctity of 'Property.'
A man's 'Property,' the possession 'proper' to him, his own, rightly so called, and no one else's on any pretence of their's—consists of,
A, The good things,
B, Which he has honestly got,
C, And can skilfully use.
That is the A B C of Property.
A. It must consist of good things—not bad ones. It is rightly called therefore a man's 'Goods,' not a man's 'Bads.'
If you have got a quantity of dung lodged in your drains, a quantity of fleas lodged in your bed, or a quantity of nonsense lodged in your brains,—that is not 'Property,' but the reverse thereof; the value to you of your drains, bed, and brains being thereby diminished, not increased.
Can you understand that much, my practical friend?[1]
B. It must be a good thing, honestly got. Nothing that you have stolen or taken by force, nor anything that your fathers stole or took by force, is your property. Nevertheless, the benignant law of Nature concerning any such holding, has always been quite manifestly
- ↑ I suppose myself, in the rest of this letter, to be addressing a "business man of the nineteenth century."
