We see, then, that the interests of property are all interwoven with family sentiments, and that this is the reason for their very great strength; also that they are interwoven, through and by the family sentiments, with the very fiber of civilization. Now comes the question: how is any one to destroy or reconstruct the doctrine of property, and the conception of the right of property, on any a priori or "ethical" grounds? Every one whom it is intended thus to affect will respond that you threaten the interests for which he works and lives. You tell him that he is strong by virtue of his property and that you propose to rob him of it. Why will he not use his strength to defend his interest? You threaten the future of his children, and expect that he will not defend it, although at the same time you denounce him for being so strong that he is dangerous. You assail his patrimony, and expect him to expend it for his own destruction, all out of respect to "ethics." Hitherto in history the family interest has been able to exert ingenuity sufficient not only to defeat every device which the law-makers have invented to restrain it, but also to use those very devices to attain its purposes. Yet we are gravely told now, and, in one breath, that capital never was as strong as it is now, and, in the next, that the most puerile devices are about to fetter capital and deprive it of its power.
Property is dear to men, not only for the sensual pleasure which it can afford, but also because it is the bulwark of all which they hold dearest on earth—above all else because it is the safeguard of those they love most against misery and all physical distress. It is marvelous to hear the attempts which are made to devise a theory of property as a foundation for the state or for social science. Property gives the theory to all the rest.
