When we turn to St. Thomas Aquinas, we find that his teaching on the subject of property is not at all out of harmony with that of the earlier Fathers of the Church, but, on the contrary, summarises and consolidates it. 'It remained to elaborate, to constitute a definite theory of the right of property. It sufficed to harmonise, to collaborate, and to relate one to the other these elements furnished by the Christian doctors of the first four or five centuries; and this was precisely the work of the great theologians of the Middle Ages, especially of St. Thomas Aquinas…. In establishing his thesis St. Thomas did not borrow from the Roman jurisconsults through the medium of St. Isidore more than their vocabulary, their formulas, their juridical distinctions; he also borrowed from Aristotle the arguments upon which the philosopher based his right of property. But the ground of his doctrine is undoubtedly of Christian origin. There is, between the Fathers and him, a perfect continuity.'[1] 'Community of goods,' he writes, 'is ascribed to the natural law, not that the natural law dictates that all things should be possessed in common, and that nothing should be possessed as one's own; but because the division of possession is not according to the natural law, but rather arose from human agreement, which belongs to positive law. Hence the ownership of possessions is not contrary to the natural law, but an addition thereto devised by human reason.' This is simply another way of stating St. Augustine's distinction between natural and positive law. If it speaks with more respect of positive law than St. Augustine had done, it is because Aquinas was influenced by the Aristotelian conception of the State being itself a natural institution, owing to man being a social animal.[2]
[Footnote 1: Abbé Calippe, op. cit., 1909, p. 124.]
[Footnote 2: See Carlyle, Property in Mediæval Theology. Community of goods is said to be according to natural law in the canon law, but certain titles of acquiring private property are also said to be natural, so that the passage does not help the discussion very much (Corp, Jur. Can., Dec. 1. Dist. i. c. 7.)]
The explanation which St. Thomas gives of the necessity for property also shows how clearly he agreed with the Fathers' teaching on natural communism: 'Two things are competent to man in respect of external things. One is the power to procure and dispense them, and in this regard it is lawful for a man to possess property. Moreover, this is necessary to human life for three reasons. First, because every man is more careful to procure what is for himself alone than that which is common to many or to all: since each one would shirk the labour, and would leave to another that which concerns the community, as happens when there is a great number of servants. Secondly, because human affairs are conducted in more orderly fashion if each man is charged with taking care of some particular thing himself, whereas there would be confusion if everybody had to look after any one thing indeterminately. Thirdly, because a more peaceful state is ensured to man if each one is contented with his own. Hence it is to be observed that quarrels more frequently occur when there is no division of the things possessed.[1] It is quite clear from this passage that Aquinas regarded property as something essential to the existence of society in the natural condition of human nature—that is to say, the condition that it had acquired at the fall. It is precisely the greed and avarice of fallen man that renders property an indispensable institution.
[Footnote 1: II. ii. 66, 2.]
There was another sense in which property was said to be according to human law, in distinction to the natural law, namely, in the sense that, whereas the general principle that men should own things might be said to be natural, the particular proprietary rights of each individual were determined by positive law. In other words, the fundamentum of property rights was natural, whereas the titulus of particular property rights was according to positive law. This distinction is stated clearly by Aquinas:[1] 'The natural right or just is that which by its very nature is adjusted to or commensurate with another person. Now this may happen in two ways; first, according as it is considered absolutely; thus the male by its very nature is commensurate with the female to beget offspring by her, and a parent is commensurate with the offspring to nourish it. Secondly, a thing is naturally commensurate with another person, not according as it is considered absolutely, but according to something resultant from it—for instance, the possession of property. For if a particular piece of land be considered absolutely, it contains no reason why it should belong to one man more than to another, but if it be considered in respect of its adaptability to cultivation, and the unmolested use of the land, it has a certain commensuration to be the property of one and not of another man, as the Philosopher shows.' Cajetan's commentary on this article clearly emphasises the distinction between fundamentum and titulus: 'In the ownership of goods two things are to be discussed. The first is why one thing should belong to one man and another thing to another. The second is why this particular field should belong to this man, that field to that man. With regard to the former inquiry, it may be said that the ownership of things is according to the law of nations, but with regard to the second, it may be said to result from the positive law, because in former times one thing was appropriated by one man and another thing by another.' It must not be supposed, however, from what we have just said, that there are no natural titles to property. Labour, for instance, is a title flowing from the natural law, as also is occupancy, and in certain circumstances, prescription. All that is meant by the distinction between fundamentum and titulus is that, whereas it can be clearly demonstrated by natural law that the goods of the earth, which are given by God for the benefit of the whole of mankind, cannot be made use of to their full advantage unless they are made the subject of private ownership, particular goods cannot be demonstrated to be the lawful property of this or that person unless some human act has intervened. This human act need not necessarily be an act of agreement; it may equally be an act of some other kind—for instance, a decree of the law-giver, or the exercise of labour upon one's own goods. In the latter case, the additional value of the goods becomes the lawful property of the person who has exerted the labour. Aquinas therefore pronounced unmistakably in favour of the legitimacy of private property, and in doing so was in full agreement with the Fathers of the Church. He was followed without hesitation by all the later theologians, and it is abundantly evident from their writings that the right of private property was the keystone of their whole economic system.[2]
[Footnote 1: II. ii. 57, 3.]
[Footnote 2: A community of goods, more or less complete, and a denial of the rights of private property was part of the teaching of many sects which were condemned as heretical—for instance, the Albigenses, the Vaudois, the Bégards, the Apostoli, and the Fratricelli. (See Brants, Op. cit., Appendix II.)]
Communism therefore was no part of the scholastic teaching, but it must not be concluded from this that the mediævals approved of the unregulated individualism which modern opinion allows to the owners of property. The very strength of the right to own property entailed as a consequence the duty of making good use of it; and a clear distinction was drawn between the power 'of procuring and dispensing' property and the power of using it. We have dealt with the former power in the present section, and we shall pass to the consideration of the latter in the next. In a later chapter we shall proceed to discuss the duties which attached to the owners of property in regard to its exchange.