onverted his right to
personally use the thing into the right to use it by his neighbor's
labor,--then property changed its nature, and its idea became complex.
The legists knew this very well, but instead of opposing, as they ought,
this accumulation of profits, they accepted and sanctioned the whole.
And as the right of farm-rent necessarily implies the right of use,--in
other words, as the right to cultivate land by the labor of a slave
supposes one's power to cultivate it himself, according to the principle
that the greater includes the less,--the name property was reserved
to designate this double right, and that of possession was adopted to
designate the right of use.

Whence property came to be called the perfect right, the right of
domain, the eminent right, the heroic or _quiritaire_ right,--in Latin,
_jus perfectum, jus optimum, jus quiritarium, jus dominii_,--while
possession became assimilated to farm-rent.

Now, that individual possession exists of right, or, better,
from natural necessity, all philosophers admit, and can easily e
demonstrated; but when, in imitation of M. Cousin, we assume it to be
the basis of the domain of property, we fall into the sophism called
_sophisma amphiboliae vel ambiguitatis_, which consists in changing the
meaning by a verbal equivocation.

People often think themselves very profound, because, by the aid of
expressions of extreme generality, they appear to rise to the height
of absolute ideas, and thus deceive inexperienced minds; and, what
is worse, this is commonly called EXAMINING ABSTRACTIONS. But the
abstraction formed by the comparison of identical facts is one thing,
while that which is deduced from different acceptations of the same term
is quite another. The first gives the universal idea, the axiom, the
law; the second indicates the order of generation of ideas. All
our errors arise from the constant confusion of these two kinds of
abstractions. In this particular, languages and philosophies are alike
deficient. The less common an idiom is, and the more obscure its
terms, the more prolific is it as a source of error: a philosopher is
sophistical in proportion to his ignorance of any method of neutralizing
this imperfection in language. If the art of correcting the errors of
speech by scientific methods is ever discovered, then philosophy will
have found its criterion of certainty.

Now, then, the difference between property and possession being well
established