Page:The Complete Works of Henry George Volume 3.djvu/304

 112 THE CONDITION OF LABOR.

goods. The Socialists, therefore, in endeavoring to transfer the possessions of individuals to the community, strike at the interests of every wage-earner, for they deprive him of the liberty of disposing of his wages, and thus of all hope and possibility of increasing his stock and of bettering his condition in life.

6. What is of still greater importance, however, is that the remedy they propose is manifestly against justice. For every man has by nature the right to possess property as his own. This is one of the chief points of distinction between man and the animal creation. For the brute has no power of self -direction, but is governed by two chief instincts, which keep his powers alert, move him to use his strength, and determine him to action without the power of choice. These instincts are self- preservation and the propagation of the species. Both can attain their purpose by means of things which are close at hand ; beyond their surroundings the brute crea- tion cannot go, for they are moved to action by sensi- bility alone, and by the things which sense perceives. But with man it is different indeed. He possesses, on the one hand, the full perfection of animal nature, and therefore he enjoys, at least as much as the rest of the animal race, the fruition of the things of the body. But animality, however perfect, is far from being the whole of humanity, and is indeed humanity's humble handmaid, made to serve and obey. It is the mind, or the reason, which is the chief thing in us who are human beings ; it is this which makes a human being human, and distin- guishes him essentially and completely from the brute. And on this account viz., that man alone among animals possesses reason it must be within his right to have things not merely for temporary and momentary use, as other living beings have them, but in stable and perma- nent possession; he must have not only things which

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