pect that the absolute in the science of law is not as chimerical as is commonly supposed; and this suspicion arose from their comparison of the various relations which legislators have been called upon to regulate.
M. Laboulaye, the laureate of the Institute, begins his “History of Property” with these words:—
“While the law of contract, which regulates only the mutual interests of men, has not varied for centuries (except in certain forms which relate more to the proof than to the character of the obligation), the civil law of property, which regulates the mutual relations of citizens, has undergone several radical changes, and has kept pace in its variations with all the vicissitudes of society. The law of contract, which holds essentially to those principles of eternal justice which are engraven upon the depths of the human heart, is the immutable element of jurisprudence, and, in a certain sense, its philosophy. Property, on the contrary, is the variable element of jurisprudence, its history, its policy.”
Marvellous! There is in law, and consequently in politics, something variable and something invariable. The invariable element is obligation, the bond of justice, duty; the variable element is property,—that is, the external form of law, the subject-matter of the contract. Whence it follows that the law can modify, change, reform, and judge property. Reconcile that, if you can, with the idea of an eternal, absolute, permanent, and indefectible right.
However, M. Laboulaye is in perfect accord with himself when he adds, “Possession of the soil rests solely upon force until society takes it in hand, and espouses the cause of the possessor;”[1] and, a little farther, “The right of property is
- ↑ The same opinion was recently expressed from the tribune by one of our most honorable Deputies, M. Gauguier. “Nature,” said he, “has not endowed man with landed property.” Changing the adjective landed, which designates only a species into capitalistic, which denotes the genus,—M. Gauguier made an égalitaire profession of faith.
