words LEGITIMATELY POSSESSES signify to the
author's mind is _LEGITIMATE PROPRIETOR;_ otherwise the argument, being
intended to prove the legitimacy of property, would have no meaning. I
might here raise the question of the difference between property and
possession, and call upon M. Considerant, before going further, to
define the one and the other; but I pass on.

This first proposition is doubly false. 1. In that it asserts the act
of CREATION to be the only basis of property. 2. In that it regards this
act as sufficient in all cases to authorize the right of property.

And, in the first place, if man may be proprietor of the game which he
does not create, but which he KILLS; of the fruits which he does not
create, but which he GATHERS; of the vegetables which he does not
create, but which he PLANTS; of the animals which he does not create,
but which he REARS,--it is conceivable that men may in like manner
become proprietors of the land which they do not create, but which they
clear and fertilize. The act of creation, then, is not NECESSARY to the
acquisition of the right of property. I say further, that this act alone
is not always sufficient, and I prove it by the second premise of M.
Considerant:--

Minor Premise.--"Suppose that on an isolated island, on the soil of a
nation, or over the whole face of the earth (the extent of the scene of
action does not affect our judgment of the facts), a generation of
human beings devotes itself for the first time to industry, agriculture,
manufactures, &c. This generation, by its labor, intelligence, and
activity, creates products, develops values which did not exist on the
uncultivated land. Is it not perfectly clear that the property of this
industrious generation will stand on a basis of right, if the value
or wealth produced by the activity of all be distributed among the
producers, according to each one's assistance in the creation of the
general wealth? That is unquestionable."

That is quite questionable. For this value or wealth, PRODUCED BY THE
ACTIVITY OF ALL, is by the very fact of its creation COLLECTIVE wealth,
the use of which, like that of the land, may be divided, but which as
property remains UNDIVIDED. And why this undivided ownership? Because
the society which creates is itself indivisible,--a permanent unit,
incapable of reduction to fractions. And it is this unity of society
which makes the land common property, and which, as M. Considerant
says, r