“They are, if they have souls,” said Derwent. “And if not, we are beasts; and let us perish like them. And as for the first objection, it is a trivial one, soon forgotten in practice. There will naturally grow up an unwritten respect for one’s personal belongings; so far as it is necessary that there should be. If a man needs a coat so much as to filch mine, it is better he should have it. Free men will no more stoop to take a neighbor’s coat, or roof, or hat, than a prince will steal a pocket-handkerchief. And as to great values like statues, paintings, libraries, they are for all the world, and not to be monopolized by a vulgar money-maker. He truly owns a picture who enjoys it; not he who buys it. The pleasure in these, by divine law, is not selfish, not individual; only when a man loses himself in the contemplation of a beautiful picture does he really enjoy it, really make it his; it is of as little moment who has the title to the canvas and frame, as it is who owns the wide prairies and the mountains that the poet roams over. So there need be no vulgar property in these things; and they are all that is worth enjoying. As to exotics, and waste land, and dozens of houses, and yachts, and palaces, and game-preserves--these are social crimes.” “Exactly,” said Wemyss, with a well-bred sneer in his inflection. “You wish, like all the rest, to abolish civilization. All communists hate excellence; because they do not themselves excel. They say, since we cannot all be princes, let us all be savages.”