ropriates it. This is not an explanation of the property rights
that are arising every moment, nor does it give a logical reason for
the continuance of ancient property rights. It is a statement applying
to a case that has rarely happened, the settlement of an unoccupied
territory.

More adequate to explain many cases is the conquest theory, that
property is based on force; for nearly all lands to-day are occupied
by the descendants of conquering invaders who took the lands and
natural resources from the former inhabitants, who in turn had taken
them from other occupants, many centuries before. The conquest theory
applies, for example, to the invasion of the Roman provinces by
barbarian tribes who divided the country and developed the feudal
system based on land tenure. But it hardly applies to present-day
happenings, and at its best it cannot, to modern minds, "justify"
present property rights.

The labor theory, meeting some queries where others fail, is that
ownership is based on the act of production. It is declared that
every man has a right to that to which his brain and his muscle
have imparted value. It is evident that this test leaves without
explanation or justification a great number of things that do exist
and have existed as property. Usually the basis of the labor theory
of property is declared to be each individual's natural right to the
results of his own labor, which claim is assumed to be an ultimate,
undebatable, axiomatic fact. However, that type of natural-right
doctrine, which makes no appeal to experience and results, is now
quite discredited in political science.

Another form of natural-rights theory is that property is necessary
for the realization of the dignity of human nature and every
individual has the natural right to self-realization. This theory
is, in a way, based on an appeal to experience, as to the effect of
property on human character, and it has the virtue of expressing one
of the ideals of modern democracy. Altho, in common with various other
"natural-rights" theories, it must be deemed too absolute and too
individualistic, it contains a far-reaching truth, of which due
account must be taken in our social philosophy.

The legal theory is that property exists because the law says it
shall. This expresses a truth, but is no more than a truism. The law
determines the limits of property, but what determines the limits of
the law? What practical or social justification is there f