The origin and development of the moral ideas

Besides acquisition by occupation, possession for a certain length of time, labour, voluntary transfer, and inheritance, there are instances in which ownership in a thing directly follows from ownership in another thing. It is a general rule that the owner of an object also owns what develops from or is produced by it.107 The owner of a cow owns her calf, the owner of a tree its fruits, the owner of a piece of land anything growing on it, at least if no labour has been necessary for its production. Ownership in land also gives a certain right to the wild animals which are found there. Among the Fantis, for instance, if anybody kills game on another person’s land, its proprietor is entitled to the shoulder or a quarter of such game.108 In this connection we have further to notice the mode of acquisition which the Roman jurists called accessio. When that which belongs to one person is so intermixed with the property of another, that either it cannot be separated at all, or cannot be separated without inflicting damage out of proportion to the gain, the owner of the principal becomes the owner of the accessory, though, as a rule, he would have to pay compensation for it.109

All these methods of acquisition apply not only to individual property, but to common property as well. Occupation may establish ownership whether there be many occupants or only one; joint labour may lead to joint ownership in the produce; property may be transferred to a body of persons as well as to a single individual. But the custom which prescribes community of goods may also itself be an independent method of acquisition: by belonging to an association of people who hold property in common a person may be part owner of a thing which has been occupied or produced by some other member of the association. Communism of one kind or another is undoubtedly a very ancient institution,110 though its prevalence at the lower stages of civilisation has often been exaggerated.111 But the whole question of common ownership is too complicated and lies too much apart from our special subject to admit of a detailed treatment.

From the statement of facts we shall now proceed to an explanation of these facts. First, why do men recognise proprietary rights at all? Why do the moral feelings of mankind grant to certain persons a right to the exclusive disposal of certain things, in other words, why does the disposal of an object without the consent of the person called its owner give rise to moral disapproval? The “right of property,” it is true, is generally used as a term for a legal right. But in this, as in so many other cases, the legal right is essentially a formulated expression of moral feelings.

As Mr. Spencer observes, the desire to appropriate, and to keep that which has been appropriated, lies deep not only in human but in animal nature, being, indeed, a condition of survival.112 Sticklebacks show obvious signs of anger when their territory is invaded by other sticklebacks.113 Birds defend their nests against the attacks of intruders.114 The dog fights for his kennel or for the prey he has caught. A monkey in the Zoological Gardens of London, which made use of a stone to open nuts, always hid it in the straw after using it, and would not allow any other monkey to touch it.115 We find the same propensity in man from his earliest years. At the age of two, Tiedemann’s son did not let his sister sit on his chair or take any of his clothes, though he had no scruples against appropriating things which belonged to her.116 Owing to this tendency to keep an appropriated object, and to resist its abstraction, it is dangerous for an individual to try to seize anything held by another of about equal strength; and in human societies this naturally led to the habit of leaving each in possession of whatever he had attained, especially in early times when the objects possessed were of little value, and there was no great inequality of wealth.117 This habit was further strengthened by various circumstances, all of which tended to make interference with other persons’ possessions the subject of moral censure.

From both prudential and altruistic motives parents taught their children to abstain from such interference, and this, by itself, would readily give rise to the notion of theft as a moral wrong. Society at large also tried to prevent acts of this kind, partly in order to preserve peace and order, partly out of sympathy with the possessor. Resentment is felt not only by him who is deprived of his possession, but by others on his behalf. This is seen even among some of the lower animals. The Pomeranian dogs of German carters watch the goods of their masters;118 Mr. Romanes’s terrier protected meat from other terriers, his offspring, which lived in the same house with him, and with which he was on the very best of terms;119 Captain Gordon Stables’s cat, which had her place on the table at meals, never allowed any unauthorised interference with the viands.120 In men such sympathetic resentment naturally develops into genuine moral disapproval.

All this applies not only to proprietary rights based on occupation, but also to the principle of continued possession as a ground of ownership. Indeed, the longer a person is in possession of a certain object, the more apt are both he and other individuals to resent its alienation; whereas the loss or abandonment of a thing has a tendency to loosen the connection between the thing and its owner.121 This is undoubtedly the chief source of the rule of prescription, though there may be other circumstances as well which help to justify it. Thus it has been said that it is necessary to the security of rightful possessors that they should not be molested by charges of wrongful acquisition when by the lapse of time witnesses must have perished or been lost sight of, and the real character of the transaction can no longer be cleared up;122 whilst another argument adduced in favour of prescription is, that long possession generally implies labour and that labour gives ownership.123 The reason why property is gained by labour is obvious enough. Not only do exertions in producing an object make the producer desirous to keep it and to have the exclusive disposal of it, but an encroachment upon the fruit of his labour arouses sympathetic resentment in outsiders, who feel that an effort deserves its reward.

As the recognition of ownership thus ultimately springs from a desire in the owner to keep and dispose of what he has appropriated or produced, it is evident that, in ordinary circumstances, there would be no moral disapproval of a voluntary transfer of property to another person. But the case is different if such a transfer is injurious to the interests of persons who have a special claim to consideration. Thus testation is frequently held to be inconsistent with the duties which parents owe to their children or other near relatives to one another. The father, though the lord of the family’s possessions, may indeed be regarded only as the first magistrate of an association, and in such a case his share in the division naturally devolves on the member of the family who succeeds to his authority.124 The right of inheritance, then, may be intimately connected with the idea that the heir was, in a manner, joint owner of the deceased person’s property already during his lifetime.125 But there are various other facts which account for the existence of this right. In early civilisation the rule of succession is part of a comprehensive system of rights and duties which unite persons of the same kin. Professor Robertson Smith observes that in ancient Arabia all persons on whom the duty of blood-revenge lay originally had the right of inheritance;126 and a similar connection between inheritance and blood-revenge is found among other peoples.

This system of mutual rights and duties is generally one-sided, it has reference either to paternal or to maternal relatives, but not to both at once. Now, whatever be the reason why the one or the other method of reckoning kinship prevails among a certain people, it is in the present place sufficient to point out the influence which the idea of a common descent exercises upon the right of inheritance owing to its power of knitting together the persons to whom it refers. Besides, the duty connected with this right may also be of such a nature as to require a certain amount of wealth for its performance; among the Hindus, Greeks, and Romans, the right to inherit a dead man’s property was exactly co-extensive with the duty of performing his obsequies and offering sacrifices to his spirit.127 A further cause of children inheriting their father’s property may be that they, to some extent, have previously been in joint possession of it; for, as we know, possession readily leads to ownership. They would have an additional claim to succeed to his property when it had been gathered by their labour, as well as his, or when they stood in need of the support which it had been the father’s duty to give them had he been alive. Moreover, where a person’s children are present on the spot at his death, they are apt to be the first occupants of his property;128 and we have noticed the importance of first occupancy as a means of establishing proprietary rights.

The influence of these latter considerations, which are independent of the method of tracing descent, is apparent from the fact that among several peoples inheritance runs in the male line even though children take the mother’s name and are considered to belong to her clan.129 It may be added that a reason which modern writers often have assigned for giving the property of a person who dies intestate to his children or other near relatives is the supposition that in so disposing of it the law is only likely to do what the proprietor himself would have done, if he had done anything.130

In details the rules of succession are influenced by a variety of circumstances. Women may be excluded from inheritance or receive a smaller share than the men because the latter, being the stronger party, appropriate everything or the larger portion of the property for themselves;131 or because the women are less in need of property, being supported by their male relatives or husbands;132 or because they are exempt from the heaviest duties connected with kinship, as the duty of blood-revenge;133 or, as was the case in the feudal system, because a female tenant is naturally unable to attend the lord in his wars;134 or for the purpose of preventing the estate from passing to another family or tribe.135 The idea of keeping together the property of the house also largely is at the bottom of the rule of primogeniture. Besides, the eldest son is the most respected among the children, sometimes he is regarded quite as a sacred being.136 On the death of the head of the family he is generally better suited than anybody else to take his place; and his privileged position with regard to inheritance is justified by the duties connected with it, especially the duty of looking after and supporting the other members of the household.137 In feudalism, where tenancy implied duties as well as rights, it was also, from the lord’s point of view, the simplest arrangement that when a tenant died a single person should fill the vacant place.138 But there are many other points of view which may determine the rules of succession.

It may be thought just that each child should have an equal share in the inheritance, and that something should be given also to the widow, whose maintenance devolved on the husband and who, whilst he was alive, had been in joint possession of many of his belongings. Or the youngest son may be the chief or the exclusive heir, partly perhaps for the sake of preventing a division of the property, or because the lord would have but one tenant,139 but partly also because he had remained with his father till his death,140 or “on the plea of his being less able to help himself on the death of the parents than his elder brethren, who have had their father’s assistance in settling themselves in the world during his lifetime.”141 The Wanyamwezi, again, justify the practice of leaving property to their illegitimate children by slave girls or concubines, to the exclusion of their legitimate offspring, “by the fact of the former requiring their assistance more than the latter, who have friends and relatives to aid them.”142 Generally there seems to be a close connection between illegitimate children’s right to inheritance and the legal recognition of polygamous practices. This is indicated by a comparison between Oriental and Roman legislation on the subject, and, in Teutonic countries, between ancient custom and the later law, which was influenced by Christianity’s horror of sexual acts falling outside the monogamous marriage relation.