This volume, like the last, enlarges on principles already laid down. It treats of the respective values of different kinds of labour, and of a particular mode of investing capital. The truths illustrated may be arranged as follows.
Property is held by conventional, not natural right.
As the agreement to hold man in property never took place between the parties concerned, i. e., is not conventional, Man has no right to hold Man in property.
Law, i. e., the sanctioned agreement of the parties concerned, secures property.
Where the parties are not agreed, therefore, law does not secure property.
Where one of the parties under the law is held as property by another party, the law injures the one or the other as often as they are opposed. Moreover, its very protection injures the protected party,—as when a rebellious slave is hanged.
Human labour is more valuable than brute labour, only because actuated by reason; for human strength is inferior to brute strength.
The origin of labour, human and brute, is the Will.
The Reason of slaves is not subjected to exercise, nor their will to more than a few weak motives.