I have endeavored in a recent book to indicate how the ethical system may be superinduced over the social system.[56] Here I am concerned chiefly to mark as strictly as possible the distinction between the two terms social and ethical. And I must, therefore, at once amend my previous statement that property is a social concept by saying that it is the concept of a social relation considered as the substratum in which is to be worked out the ethical relation. The general consequences of the property concept as defined are these: 1. He who will not work, neither shall he eat; or better, he who will not work if able-bodied shall be disciplined and trained in such a manner that he will work. The fruits of nature do not fall into the lap of mankind. We are not living in a state of Paradise. The human race is engaged in the arduous labor of constantly renewing the capital on which it subsists. As a member of the race, everyone is bound to do his part. 2. No one has a property right in harmful or superfluous luxuries, since property is the control of external things for the maintenance and development of personality; and luxury, so far from maintaining, undermines personality, and hinders its development. No one has ethically a right of property in great fortunes like those accumulated under the modern system of industry. Whatever is in excess of one’s needs, rightly estimated, is not appropriate to one, not proper to one, not his property. Since the present system of ownership cannot be changed abruptly, the idea of the stewardship of wealth has been suggested to quiet the consciences of those who have come to realize that they have no moral right to excessive wealth. But the idea of stewardship should be held with fear and trembling. It is at best a makeshift, a bridge leading over to something more sound. It may be so taught and received as to seem to justify by philanthropic use the possession of great fortunes. But the power to dispose of vast funds for philanthropic uses may come to be itself a badge of superiority. And even if this be not so, if surplus wealth be used modestly, and with a sincere intention to apply it in the best possible way, there is yet no surety that any individual owner will have the breadth of vision, the experience, the insight, to discharge adequately the function of distributor. The defects of his early education, habits ingrained in him in the course of his business career, may lead him to bestow lavishly in one direction while turning a deaf ear to the appeal of other needs even more urgent and fundamental. Nothing short of the collective wisdom of the community, the collaboration of the best, can safely direct the surplus wealth available for social benefaction.