e with
production, distribution, and communication, and the process of taking
possession of the earth for man's use. Its social service is
incalculable. At times, however, when accumulated so as to congest
society, property has been confiscated in enormous amounts, as in
England under Henry VIII, in France at the Revolution, and in Italy in
recent times. The principle of paramount right over it in society has
been established in men's minds, and is modified only by the
social conviction that this right is one to be exercised with the
highest degree of care and on the plainest dictates of a just necessity.
Taxation, nevertheless, though a power to destroy and confiscate in its
extreme exercise, normally takes nothing from property that is not due.
It is not a levy of contributions, but the collection of a just debt;
for property and its owners are the great gainers by society, under
whose bond alone wealth finds security, enjoyment, and increase,
carrying with them untold private advantages. Property is deeply
indebted to society in a thousand ways; and, besides, much of its
material cannot be said to be earned, but was given either from the
great stores of nature, or by the hand of the law, conferring privilege,
or from the overflowing increments of social progress. If it is
naturally selfish, acquisitive, and conservative, if it has to be
subjected to control, if its duties have to be thrust upon it
oftentimes, it has such powers of resistance that there need be little
fear lest it should suffer injustice. Like education, it has great
reserves of influence, and is assured of enormous weight in the life of
the community. Other vested interests stand in a similar relation to the
State. These minorities, which are important and lasting elements in
society, receive consideration, and bounds are set to liberty of dealing
adversely with them in practice, under that principle of fraternity
which seeks the good of one in all and the good of all in one.

Fraternity, following lines whose general sense has been sufficiently
indicated, has, in particular, established out of the common fund public
education as a means of diffusing intellectual gain, which is the great
element of growth even in efficient toil, and also of extending into all
parts of the body politic a comprehension of the governmental scheme and
the organized life of the community, fusing its separate interests in a
mutual understanding and regard. It has establish