thing were absolutely impossible, it would
be absolutely unjust.

PROPERTY IS PHYSICALLY AND MATHEMATICALLY IMPOSSIBLE.

DEMONSTRATION.

AXIOM.--Property is the Right of Increase claimed by the Proprietor over
any thing which he has stamped as his own.

This proposition is purely an axiom, because,--

1. It is not a definition, since it does not express all that is
included in the right of property--the right of sale, of exchange, of
gift; the right to transform, to alter, to consume, to destroy, to
use and abuse, &c. All these rights are so many different powers of
property, which we may consider separately; but which we disregard here,
that we may devote all our attention to this single one,--the right of
increase.

2. It is universally admitted. No one can deny it without denying the
facts, without being instantly belied by universal custom.

3. It is self-evident, since property is always accompanied (either
actually or potentially) by the fact which this axiom expresses; and
through this fact, mainly, property manifests, establishes, and asserts
itself.

4. Finally, its negation involves a contradiction. The right of increase
is really an inherent right, so essential a part of property, that, in
its absence, property is null and void.

OBSERVATIONS.--Increase receives different names according to the
thing by which it is yielded: if by land, FARM-RENT; if by houses and
furniture, RENT; if by life-investments, REVENUE; if by money, INTEREST;
if by exchange, ADVANTAGE, GAIN, PROFIT (three things which must not be
confounded with the wages or legitimate price of labor).

Increase--a sort of royal prerogative, of tangible and consumable
homage--is due to the proprietor on account of his nominal and
metaphysical occupancy. His seal is set upon the thing; that is enough
to prevent any one else from occupying it without HIS permission.

This permission to use his things the proprietor may, if he chooses,
freely grant. Commonly he sells it. This sale is really a stellionate
and an extortion; but by the legal fiction of the right of property,
this same sale, severely punished, we know not why, in other cases, is a
source of profit and value to the proprietor.

The amount demanded by the proprietor, in payment for this permission,
is expressed in monetary terms by the dividend which the supposed
product yields in nature. So that, by the right of increase, the
proprietor reaps and does not plough; gleans