In Section 35 (“On Theft”) we read, among other things, as follows: “A theft committed without violence ought to be punished merely by a fine. It is just that he who takes the property of another should be deprived of his own. But if theft is ordinarily the crime of poverty and despair, if this offense is committed only by that class of unfortunate men to whom the right of property (a terrible right and perhaps not a necessary one) has left no possession but mere existence, the imposition of a fine will contribute only to multiply thefts, by increasing the number of the indigent, and robbing an innocent family of bread to give it to a rich man who is perhaps himself a criminal.” [12] VI. S. N. H. LINGUET. In his “Théorie des lois civiles”, directed principally against Montesquieu’s “L’esprit des lois”, in which Linguet seeks to defend the thesis, “The spirit of the laws is Property”, there are some interesting passages. After having shown that private property has been founded upon violence, he treats of the origin of the laws and, at the same time, of the causes of crime, and says: “Among men all equal, all robust, passionate, sanguinary, and accustomed to arms, dangerous disputes would continually arise. It would be impossible but that chance and intelligence should produce great inequality of fortune. He who believed that he had been injured would wish to get justice for himself. The association formed to secure the booty would be troubled by the difficulty of enjoying it. These inconveniences occurred to the clearest thinkers and they sought to find a remedy. It was a totally new art that they created. But as it is almost always science that misleads, and as truth is never so easy to discover as at a distance from the Doctors, they looked about to see what route they should take. “They thought that a primary act of violence was incontestably necessary. They could not disavow it, since it was the sole basis of their rights. But they also saw that it was necessary to prevent any further violence, since this would fall upon themselves. They conceived that the primitive usurpation ought to be regarded as a sacred title; but they perceived no less clearly that it was necessary to proscribe any new usurpation, which would contradict the ancient one and destroy it. In order to succeed in this they proposed to authorize only those brigandages which were carried on in common, and to punish severely those persons who dared to commit individual acts of spoliation. In response to their suggestions it was decreed that society should have the right to take everything, but that the members of society, as individuals, should be deprived of this right. They agreed that each should have peaceful possession of the part allotted to him, and that whoever tried to take it from him should be declared a public enemy and prosecuted as such.