it may equally be an act of some other kind--for instance,
a decree of the law-giver, or the exercise of labour upon one's own
goods. In the latter case, the additional value of the goods becomes
the lawful property of the person who has exerted the labour. Aquinas
therefore pronounced unmistakably in favour of the legitimacy of
private property, and in doing so was in full agreement with the
Fathers of the Church. He was followed without hesitation by all the
later theologians, and it is abundantly evident from their writings
that the right of private property was the keystone of their whole
economic system.[2]

[Footnote 1: II. ii. 57, 3.]

[Footnote 2: A community of goods, more or less complete, and a denial
of the rights of private property was part of the teaching of many
sects which were condemned as heretical--for instance, the Albigenses,
the Vaudois, the Begards, the Apostoli, and the Fratricelli. (See
Brants, _Op. cit._, Appendix II.)]

Communism therefore was no part of the scholastic teaching, but it
must not be concluded from this that the mediaevals approved of the
unregulated individualism which modern opinion allows to the owners of
property. The very strength of the right to own property entailed as a
consequence the duty of making good use of it; and a clear distinction
was drawn between the power 'of procuring and dispensing' property
and the power of using it. We have dealt with the former power in the
present section, and we shall pass to the consideration of the latter
in the next. In a later chapter we shall proceed to discuss the duties
which attached to the owners of property in regard to its exchange.

SECTION 2.--DUTIES REGARDING THE ACQUISITION AND USE OF PROPERTY

We referred at the end of the last section to the very important
distinction which Aquinas draws between the power of procuring and
dispensing[1] exterior things and the power of using them. 'The second
thing that is competent to man with regard to external things is their
use. In this respect man ought to possess external things, not as his
own, but as common, so that, to wit, he is ready to communicate them
to others in their need.'[2] These words wherein St. Thomas lays
down the doctrine of community of user of property were considered
as authoritative by all later writers on the subject, and were
universally quoted with approval by them,[3] and may therefore be
taken as expressing the generally held view of the Mid