[2 Property and Inheritance. 
the certainty of satisfying wants as they arise from day to 
day. It is the idea that all dealings with the material con- 
ditions of life form part of a connected system, in which our 
conceptions and our abilities express themselves. It binds 
together the necessary care for food and clothing with ideas 
of making the most of our life and of the lives dependent 
upon us. A being which has no will has so far no property— 
a child has in practice, and a slave had by Roman law, 
property in a secondary sense—and a being which has no 
property has so far no actual will.” (*) 
The same explanation of property is implied in a 
current phrase of popular speech. We speak of a 
man who has property enough to be able to live 
on the income it yields without working as being 
“independent.” No one is actually independent 
in the modern world ; the richest of us is the most 
dependent on the economic organisation for a money 
income, and for the supply of goods to spend it on. 
But the person with “independent means ” has a 
wider scope of choice, an opportunity of continuous 
initiative, a freedom, and therefore a responsibility, 
in his economic relations, that the man who has to 
work for his living lacks. 
Property and Independence. 
The justification of property, if it can be justified, 
is to be found in the fact that it affords a basis of 
personal independence in a society the economic 
and political organisation of which tends to crush 
personal independence. 
Consider the present system of wealth production. 
The most obvious characteristic of it is its organic 
character ; every part is dependent on the whole. 
Every person in industry is specialised to a particular 
service, and dependent for the opportunity of render- 
ing that service, and so acquiring a livelihood by 
(*) Philosophical Theory of the State, p. 303. 
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