This proposition is purely an axiom, because,—
1. It is not a definition, since it does not express all that is included in the right of property—the right of sale, of exchange, of gift; the right to transform, to alter, to consume, to destroy, to use and abuse, &c. All these rights are so many different powers of property, which we may consider separately; but which we disregard here, that we may devote all our attention to this single one,—the right of increase.
2. It is universally admitted. No one can deny it without denying the facts, without being instantly belied by universal custom.
3. It is self-evident, since property is always accompanied (either actually or potentially) by the fact which this axiom expresses; and through this fact, mainly, property manifests, establishes, and asserts itself.
4. Finally, its negation involves a contradiction. The right of increase is really an inherent right, so essential a part of property, that, in its absence, property is null and void.
OBSERVATIONS.—Increase receives different names according to the thing by which it is yielded: if by land, FARM-RENT; if by houses and furniture, RENT; if by life-investments, REVENUE; if by money, INTEREST; if by exchange, ADVANTAGE, GAIN, PROFIT (three things which must not be confounded with the wages or legitimate price of labor).
Increase—a sort of royal prerogative, of tangible and consumable homage—is due to the proprietor on account of his nominal and metaphysical occupancy. His seal is set upon the thing; that is enough to prevent any one else from occupying it without HIS permission.
This permission to use his things the proprietor may, if he chooses, freely grant. Commonly he sells it. This sale is really a stellionate and an extortion; but by the legal fiction of the right of property, this same sale, severely punished, we know not why, in other cases, is a source of profit and value to the proprietor.
The amount demanded by the proprietor, in payment for this permission, is expressed in monetary terms by the dividend which the supposed product yields in nature. So that, by the right of increase, the proprietor reaps and does not plough; gleans and does not till; consumes and does not produce; enjoys and does not labor. Very different from the idols of the Psalmist are the gods of property: the former had hands and felt not; the latter, on the contrary, manus habent et palpabunt. The right of increase is conferred in a very mysterious and supernatural manner. The inauguration of a proprietor is accompanied by the awful ceremonies of an ancient initiation. First, comes the CONSECRATION of the article; a consecration which makes known to all that they must offer up a suitable sacrifice to the proprietor, whenever they wish, by his permission obtained and signed, to use his article.
Second, comes the ANATHEMA, which prohibits—except on the conditions aforesaid—all persons from touching the article, even in the proprietor's absence; and pronounces every violator of property sacrilegious, infamous, amenable to the secular power, and deserving of being handed over to it.