not natural, but social. The laws not only protect property: they give it birth,” &c. Now, that which the law has made the law can unmake; especially since, according to M. Laboulaye,—an avowed partisan of the historical or pantheistic school,—the law is not absolute, is not an idea, but a form.
But why is it that property is variable, and, unlike obligation, incapable of definition and settlement? Before affirming, somewhat boldly without doubt, that in right there are no absolute principles (the most dangerous, most immoral, most tyrannical—in a word, most anti-social—assertion imaginable), it was proper that the right of property should be subjected to a thorough examination, in order to put in evidence its variable, arbitrary, and contingent elements, and those which are eternal, legitimate, and absolute; then, this operation performed, it became easy to account for the laws, and to correct all the codes.
Now, this examination of property I claim to have made, and in the fullest detail; but, either from the public’s lack of interest in an unrecommended and unattractive pamphlet, or—which is more probable—from the weakness of exposition and want of genius which characterize the work, the First Memoir on Property passed unnoticed; scarcely would a few communists, having turned its leaves, deign to brand it with their disapprobation. You alone, sir, in spite of the disfavor which I showed for your economical predecessors in too severe a criticism of them,—you alone have judged me justly; and although I cannot accept, at least literally, your first judgment, yet it is to you alone that I appeal from a decision too equivocal to be regarded as final.
It not being my intention to enter at present into a discussion of principles, I shall content myself with estimating, from the point of view of this simple and intelligible abso-
