call different things by
different names, if we keep the name "property" for the former, we must
call the latter robbery, rapine, brigandage. If, on the contrary, we
reserve the name "property" for the latter, we must designate the former
by the term POSSESSION, or some other equivalent; otherwise we should be
troubled with an unpleasant synonymy.

What a blessing it would be if philosophers, daring for once to say all
that they think, would speak the language of ordinary mortals! Nations
and rulers would derive much greater profit from their lectures, and,
applying the same names to the same ideas, would come, perhaps, to
understand each other. I boldly declare that, in regard to property, I
hold no other opinion than that of M. Leroux; but, if I should adopt the
style of the philosopher, and repeat after him, "Property is a blessing,
but the property caste--the _statu quo_ of property--is an evil," I
should be extolled as a genius by all the bachelors who write for the
reviews. [70] If, on the contrary, I prefer the classic language of Rome
and the civil code, and say accordingly, "Possession is a blessing, but
property is robbery," immediately the aforesaid bachelors raise a hue
and cry against the monster, and the judge threatens me. Oh, the power
of language!

"Le National," on the other hand, has laughed at M. Leroux and his ideas
on property, charging him with TAUTOLOGY and CHILDISHNESS. "Le National"
does not wish to understand. Is it necessary to remind this journal that
it has no right to deride a dogmatic philosopher, because it is without
a doctrine itself? From its foundation, "Le National" has been a nursery
of intriguers and renegades. From time to time it takes care to warn its
readers. Instead of lamenting over all its defections, the democratic
sheet would do better to lay the blame on itself, and confess the
shallowness of its theories. When will this organ of popular interests
and the electoral reform cease to hire sceptics and spread doubt? I will
wager, without going further, that M. Leon Durocher, the critic of M.
Leroux, is an anonymous or pseudonymous editor of some bourgeois, or
even aristocratic, journal.

The economists, questioned in their turn, propose to associate capital
and labor. You know, sir, what that means. If we follow out the
doctrine, we soon find that it ends in an absorption of property, not by
the community, but by a general and indissoluble commandite, so that
the condit