law, which confers rights of property independently of the knowledge or acceptance of the owner.
4. Inasmuch as man is a social animal, and develops his faculties in the society of his fellows, whose help he constantly needs, nature herself has given him the right to form private societies, companies, or corporations, for the furtherance of common ends, independently of that larger public society which we call the State, and to which all belong. As Leo XIII teaches: "Private societies, then, although they exist within the State, and are severally part of the State, cannot nevertheless be absolutely and as such prohibited by the State. For to enter into a society of this kind is the natural right of man; and the State is bound to protect natural rights, not to destroy them; and if it forbid its citizens to form associations, it contradicts the very principle of its own existence; for both they and it exist in virtue of the like principle namely, the natural tendency of man to dwell in society." [1]
The State, of course, has the right of control over such societies as are founded for civil purposes, and they are subject to the just laws which the State may make in their regard. English law acknowledges both corporations aggregate, consisting of more than one person united for the purpose of pursuing a common end, and corporations sole, consisting of but one person like the sovereign or the rector of a church. A corporation is a moral entity, a fictitious person, with rights of its own, distinct from the rights of the physical persons who compose it. As far as property is necessary for the attainment of its end, a corporation has the right of ownership, though this right is subject to the control and regulation of the supreme authority. Leo XIII in his encyclical on labour warmly approves of workmen forming their own unions and societies for the defence of their rights and the furtherance of their welfare.
SECTION II
Property Rights of Minors
i. Apart from positive law, a minor is capable of owning property in his own right just as if he were of full age. Considerable rights over a child's property were granted to the father by Roman law. The minor had, indeed, complete ownership of what he earned by military service or by any public office, but the usufruct of what came to the son in other
- ↑ Encyclical on the Condition of Labour, May 15, 1891.
