ETHICAL.
Private property cannot be justified on the ground that it always has existed, since it was society that first asserted the principle of ownership. Neither can it be justified by its origin, for it did not arise as a reward of personal labor. It began in appropriation by the strongest. Its long existence does not justify it as an institution of nature, for on this ground even slavery could defend itself. It is sometimes justified as the product of one's own labor. Human instinct seems to support this, and it can be accepted subject to one condition. We are entitled to claim as absolutely our own the product of our own labor after we have paid back what we owe to others. To parents and to the community we must acknowledge a debt which we can never pay. Expediency justifies private property. Mankind could not live unless there were a powerful incentive on the part of some individual to the accumulation of property. Apart from this there is another ground of justification. Private owner- ship exists by the tacit consent of all society. The man who says, "This is mine!" of any object whatever, has accepted that principle. The race is the ultimate owner of all wealth, and without the protection of society we could not hold our property for an hour. It alone makes private property possible, and so gives the basis for justification. We hold all that we possess as a trust for society.
In the actions and the theories of men, two widely-differing tendencies manifest themselves, the Stoic and the Epicurean; the one emphasizing law, the other seeking to avoid the pain due to the hard pressure of the law. The opposition to the law assumes two forms; the radical seeking a newer and higher code, and the conservative opposing change. The temperament of the man who fulfils the average standard of his class may possess a certain harmony often lacking in the leader of the moral van. He is in harmony with his own class, and within that class is kind and generous; but if he fail to control his passions, he is cruel to those below him. In itself desirable, harmony cannot be preferred from an ethical point of
