This commandment forbids all violations of the rights of property. The right of property in an object is the right to its exclusive possession and use.
The foundation of the right of property is the will of God. By this is meant, (1.) That God has so constituted man that he desires and needs this right of the exclusive possession and use of certain things. (2.) Having made man a social being, He has made the right of property essential to the healthful development of human society. (3.) He has implanted a sense of justice in the nature of man, which condemns as morally wrong everything inconsistent with the right in question. (4.) He has declared in his Word that any and every violation of this right is sinful.
This doctrine of the divine right of property is the only security for the individual or for society. If it be made to rest on any other foundation, it is insecure and unstable. It is only by making property sacred, guarded by the fiery sword of divine justice, that it can be safe from the dangers to which it is everywhere and always exposed.
Numerous theories have been advanced on this subject. These theories have had a twofold object: the one to explain the nature and ground of the right; the other to explain how the right was originally acquired. These objects are distinct and should not be confounded.
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The modern philosophical theory that might is right, that the strongest is always the best, includes indeed both these objects. If being is the only good, and if it is true the more of being the more of good, then he who has the most of being, he in whom the infinite is most fully revealed, has the right to have and to hold whatever he chooses to possess.
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If a regard to our individual well-being be the only ground of moral obligation, then a man has the right to whatever will make him happy. He may, and he certainly would, make a great mistake, if he supposed that taking what does not belong to him would promote his happiness; but he is restrained from such injustice only by a sense of prudence. He is entitled to have whatever in fact would make him happy, and for that reason.
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If regard to the general good, the greatest happiness of the greatest number, or expediency, as Paley makes it, be the rule and ground of duty, then it will always be a matter of opinion, a matter on which men will ever differ, what is, and what is not expedient. One might think that a community of goods would promote the greatest good, and then he would, at least in his own conscience, be entitled to act on that principle. Others might think that agrarianism, or the periodic distribution of all the land of the country in equal portions among the people, would promote the general good, and then that would be to them the rule of action. There would be no end to the devices to promote the greatest good, if the rights of men rested on no other foundation than that of expediency.
Some of the most distinguished legal and philosophical writers of the present age teach that “property is founded on utility.” With some, however, utility is not the ground, but rather the test of human rights and duties. The fact that an institution or a course of conduct is conducive to the public good, is not so much the reason why it is right, as a proof that it is right and in accordance with the will of God. “God designs the happiness of all his sentient creatures. Some human actions forward that benevolent purpose, or their tendencies are beneficent and useful. Other human actions are adverse to that purpose, or their tendencies are mischievous or pernicious. The former, as promoting his purpose, God has enjoined. The latter, as opposed to his purpose, God has forbidden. He has given us the faculty of observing; of remembering; and of reasoning; and by duly applying those faculties, we may collect the tendencies of our actions. Knowing the tendencies of our actions, and knowing his benevolent purpose, we know his tacit commands.”1 It is no doubt true that it is a fair and conclusive argument that a thing is right or wrong in itself and conformed or opposed to the will of God, that its tendency is of necessity and always to produce, on the one hand, good. or, on the other, evil. But this is a roundabout way of getting at the truth. Whether an institution or a course of action be useful or not, must be a matter of opinion. And if a matter of opinion, men will differ about it; and the opinion of one man, or even of the majority of men, will have no authority over others. God has revealed his will in his Word, and in the constitution of our nature. Paul says that even the heathen “do by nature the things contained in the law,” that the law is “written in their hearts.” (Rom. ii. 14, 15.) Property is sacred, not because in our opinion it is a useful institution, and hence inferentially approved by God, but He has said in the Bible, and says in every man’s conscience, “Thou shalt not steal.” Mr. Austin’s theory does not prevent his teaching that “property jus in rem,” depends on “principles of utility.”2