SECTION 2.--DUTIES REGARDING THE ACQUISITION AND USE OF PROPERTY We referred at the end of the last section to the very important distinction which Aquinas draws between the power of procuring and dispensing[1] exterior things and the power of using them. 'The second thing that is competent to man with regard to external things is their use. In this respect man ought to possess external things, not as his own, but as common, so that, to wit, he is ready to communicate them to others in their need.'[2] These words wherein St. Thomas lays down the doctrine of community of user of property were considered as authoritative by all later writers on the subject, and were universally quoted with approval by them,[3] and may therefore be taken as expressing the generally held view of the Middle Ages. They require careful explanation in order that their meaning be accurately understood.[4] Cajetan's gloss on this section of the _Summa_ enables us to understand its significance in a broad sense, but fuller information must be derived from a study of other parts of the _Summa_ itself. 'Note,' says Cajetan, 'that the words that community of goods in respect of use arises from the law of nature may be understood in two ways, one positively, the other negatively. And if they are understood in their positive sense they mean that the law of nature dictates that all things are common to all men; if in their negative sense, that the law of nature did not establish private ownership of possessions. And in either sense the proposition is true if correctly understood. In the first place, if they are taken in their positive sense, a man who is in a position of extreme necessity may take whatever he can find to succour himself or another in the same condition, nor is he bound in such a case to restitution, because by natural law he has but made use of his own. And in the negative sense they are equally true, because the law of nature did not institute one thing the property of one person, and another thing of another person.' The principle of community of user flows logically from the very nature of property itself as defined by Aquinas, who taught that the supreme justification of private property was that it was the most advantageous method of securing for the community the benefits of material riches. While the owner of property has therefore an absolute right to the goods he possesses, he must at the same time remember that this right is established primarily on his power to benefit his neighbour by his proper use of it. The best evidence of the correctness of this statement is the fact that the scholastics admitted that, if the owner of property was withholding it from the community, or from any member of the community who had a real need of it, he could be forced to apply it to its proper end. If the community could pay for it, it was bound to do so; but if the necessitous person could not pay for it, he was none the less entitled to take it.