unique intellectual power, and, moreover, his theories on
private property were immediately accepted by all the schoolmen. Each
succeeding writer did little else than make more clear and defined the
outlines of the reasoning here elaborated. We shall, therefore, make no
further apology for an attempt to set out the lines of thought sketched
by Aquinas.

It will be noticed at once that the principles on which private property
are here based are of an entirely different nature from those by which
the need of property itself was defended. For the latter we were led
back to the very nature of man himself and confronted with his right and
duty to preserve his own life. From this necessity of procuring supply
against the needs of the morrow, and the needs of the actual hour, was
deduced immediately the conclusion that property of some kind (_i.e._
the possession of some material things) was demanded by the law of man's
nature. It was intended as an absolute justification of a sacred right.
But in this second article a completely different process is observed.
We are no longer considering man's essential nature in the abstract, but
are becoming involved in arguments of concrete experience. The first was
declared to be a sacred right, as it followed from a law of nature; the
second is merely conditioned by the reasons brought forward to support
it. To repeat the whole problem as it is put in the _Summa_, we can
epitomise the reasoning of St. Thomas in this easier way. The question
of property implies two main propositions: (_a_) the right to property,
_i.e._ to the use of material creation; (_b_) the right to private
property, _i.e._ to the actual division of material things among the
determined individuals of a social group. The former is a sacred,
inalienable right, which can never be destroyed, for it springs from the
roots of man's nature. If man exists, and is responsible for his
existence, then he must necessarily have the right to the means without
which his existence is made impossible. But the second proposition must
be determined quite differently. The kind of property here spoken of is
simply a matter not of right, but of experienced necessity, and is to be
argued for on the distinct grounds that without it worse things would
follow: "it is even necessary for human life, and that for three
reasons." This is a purely conditional necessity, and depends entirely
on the practical effect of the three reasons cited. Were a