order to be free. Beyond this, "among persons differently
endowed inequality must result and equality would be wrong."

Nineteenth-century metaphysical theories of property carry out these
ideas or develop this method. And it is to be noted that they are all
open to attack from the standpoint of the theory of _res extra
commercium_. Thus Hegel's theory comes to this: Personality involves
exercise of the will with respect to things. When one has exercised
his will with respect to a thing and so has acquired a power of
control over it, other wills are excluded from this thing and are to
be directed toward objects with which other personalities have not
been so identified. So long as there are vacant lands to occupy,
undeveloped regions awaiting the pioneer, unexploited natural
resources awaiting the prospector--in short, so long as there are
enough physical objects in reach, if one may so put it, to go
round--this would be consistent with the nineteenth-century theory of
justice. But when, as at the end of the nineteenth century, the world
becomes crowded and its natural resources have been appropriated and
exploited, so that there is a defect in material nature whereby such
exercise of the will by some leaves no objects upon which the wills of
others may be exerted, or a deficiency such as to prevent any
substantial exertion of the will, it is difficult to see how Hegel's
argument may be reconciled with the argument put behind the conception
of _res extra commercium_. Miller, a Scotch Hegelian, seeks to meet
this difficulty. He says that beyond what is needed for the natural
existence and development of the person, property "can only be held as
a trust for the state." In modern times, however, a periodical
redistribution, as in antiquity, is economically inadmissible. Yet if
anyone's holdings were to exceed the bounds of reason, "the
legislature would undoubtedly interfere on behalf of society and
prevent the wrong which would be done by caricaturing an abstract
right." In view of our bills of rights, an American Hegelian could not
invoke the _deus ex machina_ of an Act of Parliament so conveniently.
Perhaps he would fall back on graduated taxation and inheritance
taxes. But does not Miller when hard pressed resort to something very
like social-utilitarianism?

Lorimer connects the metaphysical theory with theories resting on
human nature. To begin with, he deduces the whole system of property
from a fundamental propo