. Now, to make life possible for them, he asserts
that private property is necessary. He is very energetic in his
insistence upon that point. Without private property he thinks that
there will be continual strife in which might, and not right, will have
the greater probability of success. But simultaneously, and as a
corrective to the evils which private property of itself would cause
there should be added to it the condition of common use. That is to say,
that although I own what is mine, yet I should put no obstacle in the
way of its reasonable use by others. This is, of course, really the
ideal of Aristotle in his book of _Politics_, when he makes his reply to
Plato's communism. In Plato's judgment, the republic should be governed
in the reverse way, _Common property and private use_; he would really
make this, which is a feature of monastic life, compulsory on all. But
Aristotle, looking out on the world, an observer of human nature, a
student of the human heart, sets up as more feasible, more practical,
the phrase which the Middle Ages repeat, _Private property and common
use_. The economics of a religious house are hardly of such a kind,
thought the mediaevalists, as to suit the ways and fancies of this
workaday world.

But the Middle Ages do not simply repeat, they Christianise Aristotle.
They are dominated by his categories of thought, but they perfect them
in the light of the New Dispensation. Faith is added to politics, love
of the brotherhood is made to extend the mere brutality of the
economists' teaching. In "common use" they find the philosophic name for
"almsdeeds." "A man ought not to hold exterior things as his own, but as
common to all, that he may portion them out readily to others in time of
need." This sentence, an almost literal translation from the _Book of
Politics_, takes on a fuller meaning and is softened by the
unselfishness of Christ when it is found in the _Summa Theologica_ of
Aquinas.

Let us take boldly the passage from St. Thomas in which he lays down the
law of almsgiving.

(2_a_, 2_ae_, 32, 5.) "Since love of one's neighbour is commanded us, it
follows that everything without which that love cannot be preserved, is
also commanded us. But it is essential to the love of one's neighbour,
not merely to wish him well, but to act well towards him; as says St.
John (1 Ep. 3), 'Let us not love in word nor in tongue, but in deed and
in truth.' But to wish and to act well towards anyone impl