The Rules Which Determine Property

The Stability of Possession

The establishment of the rule on the stability of possession is useful and absolutely necessary to human society.
    But it can never serve to any purpose while it remains in such general terms.
Some method must be shown how to distinguish what goods are to be assigned to each person, while the rest of mankind are excluded from them.
    We must then discover why this general rule is modified to the common use and practice of the world.

Those reasons are not derived from any utility which the person or the public may reap from the enjoyment of those goods, beyond the utility from their possession by another person.
It would be better if everyone had what is most suitable to him and proper for his use.
    This relation of fitness may be common to many at once.
    But it is liable to so many controversies.
    People are so partial and passionate in judging of these controversies.
        Such a loose and uncertain rule would be absolutely incompatible with the peace of human society.
The convention on the stability of possession is entered into, in order to cut off discord and contention.
    This end would never be attained if we were allowed to apply this rule differently in every case, according to every particular utility.
In her decisions, justice never regards the fitness or unfitness of objects to particular persons.
    She conducts herself by more extensive views.
    She equally receives a man whether he is generous or a miser.
        He obtains a decision in his favours with the same facility, even for what is entirely useless to him.

The general rule is that possession must be stable.
This rule is not applied by particular judgments, but by other general rules which must:
    extend to the whole society, and
    be inflexible by spite or favour.
To illustrate this, I consider men in their savage and solitary condition.
    I suppose:
        that they are sensible of their misery,
        that foreseeing the advantages of society, they seek each other's company and offer mutual protection and assistance, and
        that they can perceive that the chief impediment to this partnership is in the selfishness of their natural temper.
    To remedy this, they enter into a convention for:
        the stability of possession, and
        mutual restraint.
I know that this method of proceeding is unnatural.
    In reality, this progress is slow and insensible.
    It is very possible that persons separated from their original societies might form a new society among themselves.
        In such a case, they are entirely in the situation above-mentioned.

Their first difficulty would be how to:
    separate their possessions, and
    assign to each person his portion.
It must immediately occur to them that the most natural expedient is:
    for everyone to continue to enjoy what each currently possesses, and
    for property or constant possession be conjoined to the immediate possession.
Such is the effect of custom, that it:
    reconciles us to anything we have long enjoyed,
    even gives us an affection for it, and
    makes us prefer it to other objects more valuable but less known to us.
We are always most unwilling to part with what has:
    long lain under our eye, and
    often been used to our advantage.
We can easily live without possessions which we:
    have never enjoyed, and
    are not accustomed to.
Men would easily acquiesce in everyone continuing to enjoy what they presently have.
    This is why they would so naturally agree in preferring it.15

Footnote 15:

The most difficult philosophical questions are those which look for the principal cause of one phenomenon which has many causes.
    There seldom is any very precise argument to fix our choice.
    People must be contented to be guided by:
        a kind of taste or fancy arising from analogy, and
        a comparison of familiar instances.
Thus, there are motives of public interest for most of the rules which determine property.
    But still I suspect, that these rules are principally fixed by the imagination.
    I shall explain these causes, leaving it to the reader to prefer those derived from:
        public utility, or
        the imagination.
We shall begin with the right of the present possessor.
When two objects appear closely related to each other, the mind is apt to ascribe any additional relation to them in order to complete the union.
    This inclination is so strong.
    It often makes us run into errors (such as the error of the conjunction of thought and matter) if we find that they can be united.
Many of our impressions are incapable of place or local position.
    Yet we suppose that our impressions have a local conjunction with the impressions of sight and touch, merely because they are:
        conjoined by causation, and
        already united in the imagination.
We can feign a new relation, even an absurd one, to complete any union.
    Any relations which depend on the mind, will:
        be readily conjoined to any preceding relation, and
        be united, by a new bond, with objects that are already united in the fancy.
    In our arrangement of bodies, we never fail to place those which are resembling in contiguity:
        to each other, or
        at least in correspondent points of view.
    Because we feel a satisfaction in joining:
        the relation of contiguity to the relation of resemblance, or
        the resemblance of situation to the resemblance of qualities.
This is easily accounted for from the known properties of human nature.
    When the mind is determined to join certain objects, but undetermined in its choice of the particular objects, it naturally turns its eye to those that are related.
        They are already united in the mind.
        They present themselves to the conception at the same time.
Instead of requiring any new reason for their conjunction, it would require a very powerful reason to make us overlook this natural affinity.
    We can explain this more when we come to treat of beauty.
We observe that the same love of order and uniformity which arranges library books and parlour chairs contribute to:
    the formation of society, and
    the well-being of mankind.
They modify the general rule on the stability of possession.
    Property forms a relation between a person and an object.
    It is natural to found property on some preceding relation.
Present possession is a relation resembling constant possession.
    Property is nothing but a constant possession secured by the laws of society.
    It is therefore natural to add constant possession to the present possession.
        Because this relation also has its influence.
    If it is natural to conjoin all sorts of relations, then it is more natural to conjoin relations that are resembling and related.