m jurisprudence) is that the right to possess
real estate is a part of a universal right which has never been totally
destroyed even at the most critical periods; and the proletaire, in
order to regain the power to exercise it fully, has only to prove that
he has always exercised it in part.

He, for example, who has the universal right to possess, give, exchange,
loan, let, sell, transform, or destroy a thing, preserves the integrity
of this right by the sole act of loaning, though he has never shown his
authority in any other manner. Likewise we shall see that EQUALITY OF
POSSESSIONS, EQUALITY OF RIGHTS, LIBERTY, WILL, PERSONALITY, are so
many identical expressions of one and the same idea,--the RIGHT OF
PRESERVATION and DEVELOPMENT; in a word, the right of life, against
which there can be no prescription until the human race has vanished
from the face of the earth.

Finally, as to the time required for prescription, it would be
superfluous to show that the right of property in general cannot be
acquired by simple possession for ten, twenty, a hundred, a thousand,
or one hundred thousand years; and that, so long as there exists a human
head capable of understanding and combating the right of property, this
right will never be prescribed. For principles of jurisprudence and
axioms of reason are different from accidental and contingent facts.
One man's possession can prescribe against another man's possession; but
just as the possessor cannot prescribe against himself, so reason has
always the faculty of change and reformation. Past error is not binding
on the future. Reason is always the same eternal force. The institution
of property, the work of ignorant reason, may be abrogated by a more
enlightened reason. Consequently, property cannot be established by
prescription. This is so certain and so true, that on it rests the
maxim that in the matter of prescription a violation of right goes for
nothing.

But I should be recreant to my method, and the reader would have the
right to accuse me of charlatanism and bad faith, if I had nothing
further to advance concerning prescription. I showed, in the first
place, that appropriation of land is illegal; and that, supposing it to
be legal, it must be accompanied by equality of property. I have shown,
in the second place, that universal consent proves nothing in favor
of property; and that, if it proves any thing, it proves equality of
property. I have yet to show that presc