"Of course, there always have been and always will be judicial errors. Human institutions cannot be perfect."
"And, then, a large part of the innocent, because they have been brought up amid certain conditions, do not consider the acts committed by them criminal."
"Pardon me; that is unfair. Every thief knows that stealing is wrong; that theft is immoral," Ignatius Nikiforovitch said, with the calm, self-confident, and, at the same time, somewhat contemptuous, smile which particularly provoked Nekhludoff.
"No, he does not know. He is told not to steal, but he sees and knows that the employers steal his labor, keep back his pay, and that the officials are constantly robbing him."
"That is anarchism," Ignatius calmly defined the meaning of his brother-in-law's words.
"I do not know what it is, but I am speaking of facts," Nekhludoff continued. "He knows that the officials are robbing him. He knows that we, the landlords, own the land which ought to be common property, and when he gathers some twigs for his oven we send him to jail and try to convince him that he is a thief."
"I do not understand, and if I do, I cannot agree with you. The land cannot be nobody's property. If you divide it," Ignatius Nikiforovitch began, being fully convinced that Nekhludoff was a socialist, and that the theory of socialism demands that all the land should be divided equally; that such division is foolish, and that he can easily refute it. "If you should divide the land to-day, giving each inhabitant an equal share, to-morrow it will again find its way into the hands of the more industrious and able among them——"
"Nobody even thinks of dividing the land into equal shares. There ought to be no property in land, and it ought not to be the subject of purchase and sale or renting."
"The right of property is a natural right. Without property right there would be no interest in cultivating the land. Destroy property right and we will return to the condition of the savage," authoritatively said Ignatius Nikiforovitch.
"On the contrary, only then will land not lie idle, as it is now."