488 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [n. s., i, 1899
Men are not all chiefly interested in the pursuit of physical wel- fare, and those most deeply interested have other purposes which they hold dear. For this purpose the farmer may still be in- terested in his church and may be glad to endow his church ; the manufacturer may still be interested in a library and be glad to endow a library ; the merchant may still be interested in a college and may be glad to endow a college. So some wealth at last becomes endowment.
We have different stages of the same thing, and call these stages, severally, (1) property, (2) wealth, (3) capital, (4) invest- ment, and (5) endowment. It would be convenient if we had a generic term to express these things. Let us call them all possessions.
In the terminology of jurisprudence the word possession is somewhat ambiguous when it is used to denote a holding as something distinct from ownership. Thus, a horse may be said to be in the possession of a man who has the right to use it be- cause he has hired it, and its more permanent ownership may be in another man. The man who has hired the horse has a right to its use during the time for which it is hired, but the ownership of the property is said to still remain in the man from whom it is hired. Still further, a thief is said to be found in possession of property when it is discovered in his custody, but the posses- sion is fraudulent or criminal. Taking the term in all its uses, possession seems to be the best generic term to signify property, wealth, capital, investment, and endowment. Here we need terms for a genus and its species, and select the terms as shown.
It is the nature of property to be consumed, and it becomes property only because it can be consumed ; but ultimate con- sumption may be postponed, and often consumption requires time. In the same manner it requires time for production, and in modern industry it often becomes necessary that the materials of nature should undergo successive stages of production in dif- ferent hands ; so property exists in stages of production and in
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