Section III.: What is Property?

Property is simply wealth, that is possessed—that has an owner; in contradistinction to wealth, that has no owner, but lies exposed, unpossessed, and ready to be converted into property, by whomsoever chooses to make it his own.

All property is wealth; but all wealth is not property. A very small portion of the wealth in the world has any owner. It is mostly unpossessed. Of the wealth in the ocean, for example, only an infinitesimal part ever becomes property. Man occasionally takes possession of a fish, or a shell, leaving all the rest of the ocean’s wealth without an owner.

A somewhat larger proportion, but still a small proportion, of the wealth that lies in and upon the land, is property. Of the forests, the mines, the fruits, the animals, the atmosphere, a small part only has ever became property.

Of intellectual wealth, too, doubtless a very minute portion of all that is susceptible of acquisition, and possession, has ever been acquired—that is, has ever become property. Of all the truths, and of all the knowledge, which will doubtless sometime be possessed, how little is now possessed.