as that which results from the
simple seizure of things. What kind of a legist is he who declaims when
he ought to reason, who continually mistakes his metaphors for legal
axioms, and who does not so much as know how to obtain a universal by
induction, and form a category?

If labor is identical with occupancy, the only benefit which it secures
to the laborer is the right of individual possession of the object of
his labor; if it differs from occupancy, it gives birth to a right equal
only to itself,--that is, a right which begins, continues, and ends,
with the labor of the occupant. It is for this reason, in the words of
the law, that one cannot acquire a just title to a thing by labor alone.
He must also hold it for a year and a day, in order to be regarded as
its possessor; and possess it twenty or thirty years, in order to become
its proprietor.

These preliminaries established, M. Troplong's whole structure falls of
its own weight, and the inferences, which he attempts to draw, vanish.

"Property once acquired by occupation and labor, it naturally preserves
itself, not only by the same means, but also by the refusal of the
holder to abdicate; for from the very fact that it has risen to the
height of a right, it is its nature to perpetuate itself and to last for
an indefinite period.... Rights, considered from an ideal point of
view, are imperishable and eternal; and time, which affects only the
contingent, can no more disturb them than it can injure God himself."
It is astonishing that our author, in speaking of the IDEAL, TIME, and
ETERNITY, did not work into his sentence the DIVINE WINGS of Plato,--so
fashionable to-day in philosophical works.

With the exception of falsehood, I hate nonsense more than any thing
else in the world. PROPERTY ONCE ACQUIRED! Good, if it is acquired; but,
as it is not acquired, it cannot be preserved. RIGHTS ARE ETERNAL! Yes,
in the sight of God, like the archetypal ideas of the Platonists. But,
on the earth, rights exist only in the presence of a subject, an object,
and a condition. Take away one of these three things, and rights no
longer exist. Thus, individual possession ceases at the death of the
subject, upon the destruction of the object, or in case of exchange or
abandonment.

Let us admit, however, with M. Troplong, that property is an absolute
and eternal right, which cannot be destroyed save by the deed and at
the will of the proprietor. What are the consequences whic