COLLECTIVISM  AND  LAND  NATIONALIZATION.  247
intelligent  and  free  agent.  In  opposition  to  the  physical
order,  where  necessity  reigns  supreme,  there  is  a  moral  order,
an  order  of  justice  and  freedom.
As  man  is  a  responsible  agent,  his  every  action  must  infallibly ­
  and  inevitably  be  rewarded  or  punished  according  as
it  does  or  does  not  conform  to  the  rules  imposed  by  his  conscience ­
  ;  and  this  sanction,  in  order  to  be  inevitable,  must  take
place  in  a  subsequent  existence.
The  aggregate  of  indisputable  reasonings  constitutes  “  impersonal ­
  reason,”  which,  when  looked  upon  as  prescribing
a  rule  of  action,  may  be  called  “  sovereignty.”
From  the  “  immateriality  of  the  sensibility  ”  flow,  according
to  Colins,  other  consequences  touching  man’s  relations  to  the
material  world,  that  is  to  say,  touching  his  social  economy.
Man  alone,  he  says,  works  ;  man  alone  is  an  agent,  properly  so
Called.  The  material  world  is  the  patient  on  which  man  acts
with  the  aim  of  producing  something.  Originally  there  existed
only  man  and  the  earth  on  which  he  lived  :  on  the  one  hand,
labour  ;  and  on  the  other,  the  soil  or  raw  material,  without
which  all  labour  would  be  impossible.  But  from  the  joint
action  of  these  two  elements  of  production  there  soon  came
into  being  wealth  of  a  peculiar  kind,  in  which  labour  was,  as  it
were,  accumulated,  which  was  movable  and  separate  from  the
soil.  This  was  capital.  It  assists  production  and  is  the  handmaid ­
  of  labour,  but  in  order  to  make  use  of  it,  a  material  to
which  it  can  be  applied  is  indispensable.  From  the  necessity
to  which  man  is  subject  for  a  material  on  which  to  expend  his
labour,  there  results,  according  to  Colins,  the  following  important ­
  consequence  :  Labour  is  free  when  the  raw  material,  the
soil,  belongs  to  it  ;  otherwise  it  is  enslaved.  Man  therefore
can,  in  fact,  only  exercise  his  energy  with  the  permission  of  the
owners  of  the  raw  material  j  and  he  who  requires  the  authority
of  another  before  he  can  act  is  clearly  not  free.  In  order,  then,
that  all  the  members  of  the  community  should  become  permanent ­
  proprietors  of  the  national  soil,  the  soil  must  be
collectively  appropriated.
The  collective  appropriation  of  the  soil  implies,  in  the  first
place,  that  it  should  be  at  the  disposal  of  all  who  wish  to