De l'appropriation des choses en général.

CHAP. 5: On the appropriation of things in general.

There is no organized being that has an existence independent of all things, or that can live and reproduce in isolation. A plant lives and multiplies only by means of the earth in which it vegetates, of the water that refreshes it, of the light that colors it, of the air that surrounds it, of the heat that penetrates it, and of the plant of the same species that fertilizes it. One could not completely isolate it from one of these things, without causing it to perish, or at least without preventing it from reproducing.

Every animal depends equally, for its preservation, its growth, and its reproduction, on the things in the midst of which nature has placed it. Like the plant, it needs the air in which it is plunged, the water it drinks, or which is mixed with its food, the light that illuminates it, the heat that gives it life, and an animal of the same species with which it unites. It does not draw its subsistence immediately from the earth, like vegetables; but it draws it from it in a mediate manner, by feeding on the objects that the earth prepares for it. In some respects, it appears in a greater dependence on things, since it cannot, without perishing, be separated from them for so long; but, on the other hand, it is endowed with the faculty of going in search of those that are necessary to it.

Men, considered in purely physical respects, are submitted to the same laws; like all other animals, they need, to preserve and reproduce themselves, air, light, heat, food, and the union of the sexes; they need, moreover, clothing and shelter. If vegetables draw their subsistence immediately from the earth, and if most animals draw it from it in a mediate manner by feeding on vegetables, man draws his from the same source, by feeding on both. Animals, needing for their preservation substances more elaborated and more varied than those that plants require, have the faculty of moving about to go in search of them. Likewise men, having more numerous and more varied needs than any other kind of animal, have the faculty of directing vegetable and animal productions in such a way that they are suited to satisfy them.

The action of an organized being that unites to its own substance the things by means of which it grows, strengthens, and reproduces, is what we name appropriation. By this action, in effect, it appropriates them to itself, it transforms them into a part of itself; in such a way that one could not separate them from it without destroying it. It would be equally impossible to diminish in a considerable manner the quantity of things that a man habitually consumes in a given time, without weakening or destroying him, or without causing him more or less keen suffering. To stop or suspend the multiplication of the things by means of which nations exist is to stop or suspend the very multiplication of men; likewise, to multiply these things is to give men the means of increasing in the same proportions.

A man who was deprived of atmospheric air for a few minutes would cease to exist, and a partial deprivation would cause him keen suffering; a partial or complete deprivation of food would produce analogous, though less prompt, effects on him; it would be the same, at least in certain climates, with the deprivation of any kind of clothing or shelter; finally, the isolation in which an individual was placed relative to individuals of his species, if it did not cause his destruction, would at least prevent him from reproducing.To preserve and reproduce himself, man therefore needs to incessantly appropriate things of various kinds; but these things do not exist in the same proportions: some, such as the light of the stars, atmospheric air, the water contained in the basin of the seas, exist in such great quantity that men can cause them to undergo no sensible increase or decrease; each can appropriate as much of them as his needs demand, without in any way harming the enjoyments of others, without causing them the slightest prejudice. The things of this class are, in a way, the common property of the human race; the only duty imposed upon each with regard to them is to in no way disturb the enjoyment of others.

There are other things which, without existing in as great a quantity as those we call common, can satisfy some of the needs of a numerous aggregation of men; of this number are the rivers that traverse the territory of a nation, the great highways that cut it in various directions, the seaports that are part of it, and other objects destined for a common use. These things, being fit to satisfy the general needs of a nation, are called national properties; considered relative to the members of the State, they are common properties; they are particular, when one considers them in the relations that exist from nation to nation.

These great aggregations to which are given the name of nations or peoples are formed of other, less considerable aggregations that are designated by various denominations. These take the names of provinces, states, cities, cantons, communes, or others, according to the languages and institutions of each country. These inferior aggregations also have certain things particularly destined for the common use of the members of which they are composed. These things are designated by the name of communal, cantonal, departmental, or provincial properties, because the fraction of the population by which they are possessed appropriates their enjoyment in common.

Finally, there are things that are destined only to satisfy the needs of those small aggregations designated by the name of families, or purely individual needs: such are the things that serve us as food, clothing, shelter. These are called private or particular properties, because they are divided among the private individuals who preserve themselves only by applying them to the satisfaction of their needs.

The things that jurists designate by the name of common and which form, so to speak, the property of the human race, existing in too great a quantity for the use that men make of them to be able to diminish their mass in a sensible manner, it is little necessary to occupy oneself with them in legislation. As it hardly ever happens that one disputes their enjoyment, a small number of police laws suffices to ensure their free use to each. Men have nothing to do to produce them, to preserve them, or to regulate their transmission from one generation to another.

The things whose quantity is limited, and which are destined to satisfy individual or family needs, generally exist only by means of human labor and by the concurrence of the forces of nature. Each can consume only a certain quantity of them, and it is impossible to uselessly destroy a part of them without causing some harm, or without making the cause of some enjoyments disappear. The increase or decrease of things of this nature is followed by a proportional increase or decrease of population or of well-being.

We have given the name of appropriation to the action by which a person unites to his own substance, or employs in the satisfaction of his needs, the things that serve for his preservation or for the multiplication of his species. We designate by the same name the action by which a person takes possession, with a view to enjoying and disposing of it according to his will, of a thing susceptible of producing mediately or immediately certain enjoyments.

We designate by the name of properties, the things that are destined to satisfy our needs immediately, when we consider them as having to be consumed in the natural order of production; we will therefore say that the wheat obtained by a cultivator from a piece of land he has brought into a state of cultivation, and which he has taken from no one, the fruit picked from a tree he has planted and cared for, are properties; we will say the same thing of the cloth that a man will have manufactured, of the painting that a painter will have made, in short of all that human industry will have produced, without taking anything away from anyone.

It is not only to the things that are destined to satisfy our needs immediately in the natural order of production that one gives the name of properties, such as those that serve us as clothing or food; one also gives it to the things that serve to produce them. Thus, the tools of a worker, the machines and workshops of a manufacturer, are properties, because they concur in producing things fit to satisfy our needs, because they are themselves the products of a past labor, and because they are specially destined to provide for the existence or the well-being of certain determinate persons. We give the same name to lands or to houses, because they equally have for their object to ensure the existence of those to whom they belong. We will see further on how one forms properties of this kind, not only without taking anything away from others, but by contributing to the well-being of one's fellow men.

We cannot apply certain things to the satisfaction of our needs without altering or destroying them. Not only do we destroy by use the objects that serve us as food or clothing, but we also destroy the things by means of which we produce them. The tools of an artisan, the machines of a manufacturer, the houses we inhabit, perish with time. The lands themselves would become unproductive, at least in many countries, if, as they produce harvests, one did not take care to return to them in fertilizer what they give in sustenance. The human race, in a word, can preserve and multiply itself only by means of a continual destruction of those things to which we give the name of properties.

We say, however, that the quantity of these things is limited; how then is it possible to destroy them ceaselessly, without exhausting them? What we destroy in the properties we employ in the satisfaction of our needs is not the matter, it is the qualities that render it fit for our uses. It is in no one's power to reduce something to nothing, or to make something from nothing; our enjoyment over nature is limited to modifying in various ways the objects it presents to us, to combining variously the elements it has placed at our disposal, or to destroying the combinations it has made.

Each of the small particles of which a coat is formed exists when it is completely worn out, as on the day it is put on for the first time, but they are no longer in the same relations; each of the elements whose union forms a fruit exists after one has been nourished by it, as at the moment it was picked, but they are differently combined; the elements whose ensemble composes a house exist the day it falls from decrepitude, as on the day it began to be inhabited, but they are no longer disposed in the same manner.

Matter, therefore, does not perish by the use we make of the things to which we give the name of properties: it is the qualities that make them fit for us. Now, these qualities are products of human industry, seconded by the forces of nature; we recompose them as they are destroyed, and it is they that form one of the principal elements of the things to which we give the name of properties. We would not give this name to things that could satisfy no need, procure no enjoyment: an object completely devoid of utility would be abandoned by everyone.

We must remark here that we esteem the things to which we give the name of properties by reason of the services they can render us; and not by reason of the quantity of matter of which they are formed. Matter, considered in itself, and abstracting from all utility, is of no value to us: no one seeks to appropriate it. If we increase the utility of a thing, if we give it qualities that render it fit to satisfy more needs, the property will become more considerable. If we diminish its utility, if we cause it to lose some of the qualities that rendered it fit to procure certain enjoyments, to satisfy certain needs, the property decreases in the same proportion. Finally, the property vanishes, if the utility of the thing disappears completely: it is abandoned.

These observations, which are incontestable for movable things, are no less so for lands, houses, or for other immovable things. A piece of land that produces ten thousand francs of revenue is a property as considerable as another piece of land that has double the extent, and which cannot produce a greater revenue. To make a field undergo a modification that increases the revenue by a tenth, or to add to it a tenth in extent of equal fertility, is to increase the property in exactly the same proportion. Likewise, to take away a tenth of the extent from the proprietor, or to modify the whole, so that it produces a tenth less, is to diminish the property by the same value.

It follows from this that one could completely deprive a person of a considerable property, without taking from him an atom of matter: it would suffice to destroy its utility; this is what would happen, if one were to break a statue into pieces, if one were to reduce a library to ashes. It follows equally from this that by giving to any matter a utility of which it was deprived; by rendering it fit to satisfy a need, one creates a property, or one increases the importance of a property already formed. This is the result of human industry: it is from this that have come almost all the properties that men possess.

The qualities that render things fit to satisfy our needs, or to procure us certain enjoyments, being among the elements that constitute a property, and these qualities being the result of human industry, combined with the means that nature furnishes to all men, it follows that, to find the true foundations of property, one must admit, firstly, that a man is a free being by the laws of his nature; that his faculties belong only to him, and that the values he creates by them, and without taking anything away from anyone, can belong only to him; secondly, that the importance of a property is measured, not by the greater or lesser amount of matter, but by the qualities fit to satisfy our needs, by the utility it has for men; finally, that the things that jurists designate by the name of common, belong equally to everyone, and that each can appropriate as much of them as his needs demand.

Admitting that every man is master of himself, that he can preserve and reproduce himself only by ceaselessly consuming the utility that is found in certain things, and that every value to which he gives existence is his, it follows that property is but a consequence of the nature of man, and that one cannot attack it without attacking the human species itself; it follows that the most legitimate means of obtaining a property is to produce it, or to receive it, by the effect of a free transmission, from the hands of those who have produced it or received it from the producers.

Labor is therefore the principle that gives birth to properties; almost all come from this source, as will be seen further on. But labor is a pain, and men do not voluntarily impose pains upon themselves unless they hope to reap the fruits of them. If, therefore, the values produced by them were taken from them as they gave them existence, they would cease to work. They would equally cease to preserve already existing properties, if they did not have the certainty of enjoying and disposing of them at their will. There can therefore be no prosperity for a nation except where the liberty of industry is assured, and where each is master of the product of his labors.

We designate here, by the word properties, certain things considered in the relations they have with certain persons, and placed under certain circumstances. Jurists and some philosophers have taken this word in another sense: they have used it to designate certain rights, and not things. When we have clearly determined the various elements that constitute what we designate by the word properties, we will examine what they designate by the same word.

I have shown elsewhere that the moral sciences, like the physical sciences, can be formed only by the exact observation of a certain order of facts or of things. I must, consequently, in my researches on property, bring my observations to bear on things or on facts; I could not proceed otherwise, without renouncing the method I have followed until now. To know the phenomena of political slavery and of domestic slavery, I did not begin by examining whether the state of servitude is or is not contrary to right; I simply observed what are its nature, its causes, and its consequences. The knowledge of the right has emerged from the examination of the facts, with an evidence that one would not have obtained by another procedure. I will follow the same method for property: the observation of the phenomena of nature will lead us to the knowledge of the right.

---