This unequal distribution of commodities is altogether opposed to the general welfare. It hampers intellectual progress. "Accumulated property treads the powers of thought in the dust, extinguishes the sparks of genius, and reduces the great mass of mankind to be immersed in sordid cares, beside depriving the rich of the most salubrious and effectual motives to activity."[92] And the rich man can buy with his superfluity "nothing but glitter and envy, nothing but the dismal pleasure of restoring to the poor man as alms that to which reason gives him an undeniable right."[93] But the unequal distribution of commodities is also a hindrance to moral perfection. In the rich it produces ambition, vanity, and ostentation; in the poor, oppression, servility, and fraud, and, in consequence of these, envy, malice, and revenge.[94] "The rich man stands forward as the principal object of general esteem and deference. In vain are sobriety, integrity, and industry, in vain the sublimest powers of mind and the most ardent benevolence, if their possessor be narrowed in his circumstances. To acquire wealth and to display it, is therefore the universal passion."[95] "Force would have died away as reason and civilization advanced, but accumulated property has fixed its empire."[96] "The fruitful source of crimes consists in this circumstance, one man's possessing in abundance that of which another man is destitute."[97] II. _The general welfare demands that a distribution of commodities based solely on its precepts should take the place of property._ When Godwin uses the expression "property" for that portion of commodities which is assigned to an individual by these precepts, he does so only in a transferred sense; only a portion assigned by law can be designated as property in the strict sense. Now, according to the decrees of the general welfare, every man should have the means for a good life. 1. "How is it to be decided whether an object that may be used for the benefit of man shall be my property or yours? There is only one answer; according to justice."[98] "The laws of different countries dispose of property in a thousand different ways; but only one of them can be most consonant with justice."[99] Justice demands in the first place that every man have the means for life. "Our animal needs, it is well known, consist in food, clothing, and shelter. If justice means anything, nothing can be more unjust than that any man lacks these and at the same time another has too much of them. But justice does not stop here. So far as the general stock of commodities holds out, every one has a claim not only to the means for life, but to the means for a good life. It is unjust that a man works to the point of destroying his health or his life, while another riots in superfluity. It is unjust that a man has not leisure to cultivate his mind, while another does not move a finger for the general welfare."[100]