t place, that the reply is in reality no reply; but, to make
the wrong more apparent, let us change it thus: Is it just to endanger
the lives of one hundred thousand men, when we can save them by
surrendering one hundred heads to the enemy? Reader, decide!

All this is clearly understood by the defenders of the present system.
Yet, nevertheless, sooner or later, the conversion will be effected
and property be violated, because no other course is possible; because
property, regarded as a right, and not being a right, must of right
perish; because the force of events, the laws of conscience, and
physical and mathematical necessity must, in the end, destroy this
illusion of our minds.

To sum up: liberty is an absolute right, because it is to man what
impenetrability is to matter,--a sine qua non of existence; equality
is an absolute right, because without equality there is no society;
security is an absolute right, because in the eyes of every man his own
liberty and life are as precious as another's. These three rights are
absolute; that is, susceptible of neither increase nor diminution;
because in society each associate receives as much as he gives,--liberty
for liberty, equality for equality, security for security, body for
body, soul for soul, in life and in death.

But property, in its derivative sense, and by the definitions of law, is
a right outside of society; for it is clear that, if the wealth of each
was social wealth, the conditions would be equal for all, and it would
be a contradiction to say: PROPERTY IS A MAN'S RIGHT TO DISPOSE AT WILL
OF SOCIAL PROPERTY. Then if we are associated for the sake of liberty,
equality, and security, we are not associated for the sake of property;
then if property is a NATURAL right, this natural right is not SOCIAL,
but ANTI-SOCIAL. Property and society are utterly irreconcilable
institutions. It is as impossible to associate two proprietors as to
join two magnets by their opposite poles. Either society must perish, or
it must destroy property.

If property is a natural, absolute, imprescriptible, and inalienable
right, why, in all ages, has there been so much speculation as to its
origin?--for this is one of its distinguishing characteristics. The
origin of a natural right! Good God! who ever inquired into the origin
of the rights of liberty, security, or equality? They exist by the same
right that we exist; they are born with us, they live and die with us.
With propert