include them all, and this general term we shall find in the word PROPERTY. And when we understand the meaning of the word PROPERTY, we shall find that it will throw a flood of light over the whole of Economic Science, and in fact it is wholly impossible to understand the science of Banking without it.

Most persons in modern times, when they speak or hear of Property, think of some material things, such as money, houses, lands, corn, timber, cattle, etc. But that is not the true meaning of the word Property. PROPERTY in its true and original sense is not a material thing, but the RIGHT to something.

In the times of early Roman jurisprudence the absolute ownership in anything, as well as the thing itself, was called Mancipium, because it was supposed to be acquired by the strong hand, and if not kept with a very firm grasp, would probably be lost again.

As civilisation advanced, the ownership of things was held to be centred in the family or Domus; but the head of the house alone exercised all Rights over it; hence this Right was called Dominium; no other member of the family could have any individual Right. Dominium was then adopted in Roman law as the term for the absolute ownership of anything.

Afterwards, in the days of the early emperors, the extreme rigour of the patria potestas was relaxed, and the individual members of the family were allowed to have exclusive Rights to things; and then this right was called PROPRIETAS, because it was restricted to the individual, and excluded every one else. "Dominium id est Proprietas," says Neratius, a jurist of the age of Trajan and Hadrian.

Proprietas in Roman law, therefore, meant Ownership, or a person's Right to something exclusively of any one else. We do not believe that the word Proprietas in Roman law was ever applied to the things themselves.

The word Property was always used exclusively in this sense by early English writers. Thus grand old Wycliffe says: "They made Property of ghostly goods, where no Property may be; and professed to have no Property in worldly goods, where alone Property is lawful." So Bacon invariably uses Property to mean the Right to a thing. He says one of the uses of the

PROPERTY IS A RIGIIT.

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law, "is to dispose of the Property of their goods and lands." He explains the various methods by which "Property in goods and chattels may be acquired." So he speaks of the "Interest or Property of a timber tree."

And we might multiply examples to any extent, which, however, would be superfluous.

Property, therefore, in its true sense, means solely a Right, Interest, or Ownership; and consequently to call goods or material things Property is as great an absurdity as to call them Right, Interest, or Ownership.

To call the goods themselves Property is comparatively speaking a modern corruption, and we cannot say when it began.

Many words in English law which are usually supposed to mean things, in reality mean Rights to things. Thus an Annuity is not the actual money paid, but the Right to demand a series of payments, and is quite separate from the money itself; the Funds are Rights in the persons of the creditors of the nation to demand a series of payments from the government. Tithes are not the actual produce of the earth rendered, but the Right to demand them. Rent is not the sum actually paid for the use of lands, houses, etc., but the Right to demand a payment for their use. A Debt is not the money owed by the debtor, but the Right to demand it from him, and so on in many other cases.

Thus when we speak of landed Property, house Property, real Property, personal Property, literary Property, funded Property, we mean Rights to land, Rights to houses, Rights to realty, Rights to personalty, Rights to payments from the nation, Rights to the profits of literary works, and so on.

6. Many eminent jurists have observed that jurisprudence has nothing to do with the things themselves, but only with the Rights to them. Thus when a person has damaged any goods belonging to another person, it is not for the actual damage done to the goods that an action lies; but for the injury done to the person; that is for the infringement of his legal Right (injuria), to the enjoyment and use of the goods. If the goods belong to no person there is no injury and no Right of action.

It is precisely the same in Economics; it has nothing to do with material substances, but only with the Rights to them, and

with the Exchanges of those Rights. And the object of the science of Economics is to investigate the laws which govern the proportions in which these Rights will exchange for each other.

7. Property, then, being clearly understood to be a Right, there are two classes of Property which are the subject of sale or exchange with which we are concerned in this work :

1. There may be Property in some material physical substance which is already in existence, and which has already come into the possession of the proprietor, such as lands, houses, furniture, money, etc. These things are in a complete state of existence. This species of Property is called in English and Roman law Corporeal Property, because it is the Property, or Right in some specific matter. Hence this species of Property is usually called Corporeal, or Material Property, or Corporeal, or Material Wealth.

2. We may have a Property or Right wholly severed and separated from any specific corpus or matter in possession. It may not even be in existence at the present time; or it may be some one else's Property at the present time, and only come into our possession at some future time.

Thus those who possess lands, cattle, fruit trees, etc., have the Property in their future produce. Now though the produce itself will only come into existence at a future time, the Property or Right to it, when it does come into existence, is present, and may be bought and sold like any material Property.

So we may have the Right or Property to demand a sum of Money from some person at a future time. That sum of Money may no doubt be in existence, but it is not in our possession; it may not even be in the possession of the person bound to pay it. It may pass through any number of hands, and effect any number of exchanges before it is paid to us. But yet our Property to receive it is present and existing, and we may sell and transfer that Property to any one else for Money.

A landlord lets a house to a tenant. In exchange for the Right to use the house the tenant gives the landlord the Right to demand a series of payments every three months. This Right is the Rent. Now though the tenant will only make these pay

DEFINITION OF VALUE.

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ments at definite future intervals, and no one can tell where the actual money is which will be paid, or how many hands it may pass through before it is paid, yet the landlord's Right to demand them is present, and he may sell and transfer that Right to any one else.

So if a merchant sells goods to a trader in exchange for his Promise to pay three months after date, that Promise to pay is a Right or Property which may be bought and sold, though no one can tell where the money is which will pay the debt.

The state requires a sum of money for some public purpose: in exchange for a sum of money paid down, it agrees to give its creditors a perpetual Annuity, or Right to demand a certain sum at fixed times for ever. Now no one can tell where the money is which the state will pay at these future times. It may not even be in existence at the present time, it may be still in the mine. But the Rights of the creditors to demand these payments are present and existing, and may be bought and sold like any other material property. These Rights are called the Funds.

This species of Property, or abstract Right, wholly separated from any specific corpus or matter, is in Roman and English law called Incorporeal Property.

But each species of Property may be bought and sold, transferred or exchanged, and therefore is called Pecunia, Res, Bona, Merx.

8. There are many kinds of Corporeal Property and many kinds of Incorporeal Property, but the only kind of Corporeal Property with which we are concerned in this work is Money, and the only kind of Incorporeal Property we are concerned with is the Right to demand a sum of money from some person. This kind of Incorporeal Property is, as we shall afterwards show, termed CREDIT or DEBT, in Law, Commerce, and Economics. The business of Banking consists exclusively in the exchange of Money for Credit, and of Credit for Credit.

Definition of Value.

9. If at any time any Economic Quantity, A, can be exchanged for any other Economic Quantity, B, then the Quantity A

is termed the VALUE of B, and B is similarly termed the VALUE of A. Now as each of the three species of Economic Quantities may be exchanged for either of the others, any Quantity may have value in terms of the others. Suppose that at any time 1 oz. of gold will exchange for 15 oz. of silver, then it is said 1 oz. of gold is of the VALUE of 15 oz. of silver, which is simply this equation:— 1 oz. gold 15 oz. silver.

=

Hence Value may be said to be the sign of equality between any two Economic Quantities. As Aristotle says:— "Now the term Value is used in reference to EXTERNAL GOODS."

So it is said in Roman law::-- "The VALUE of a thing is what it can be sold for."

We have then this definition

The VALUE of any Economic Quantity is any OTHER Economic Quantity for which it can be exchanged.

Hence any Economic Quantity has as many Values as Quantities it can be exchanged for: and of course, if it can be exchanged for nothing, it has no Value. This shows that there can be no such thing as absolute Value, or universal Value, because there is nothing probably which can be exchanged universally throughout the world.

Value, therefore, by the very definition, like distance or an equation, requires two objects. We cannot speak of absolute or intrinsic distance, or equality. A single object cannot be distant, or be equal. If we are told that an object is distant, or equal, we immediately ask-Distant from what? or equal to what? So it is equally clear, that a single object cannot have value. We must always ask—Value in what? And it is clear that, as it is absurd to speak of a single object having absolute or intrinsic distance, or having absolute or intrinsic equality; so it is equally absurd to speak of an object having absolute or intrinsic Value.

This must suffice here for the definition of Value; we shall have to enter somewhat more fully into the theory of value in the next chapter.