Here we have two facts combined and mixed up together, although in their own nature distinct. We have the gifts of nature—gratuitous materials, gratuitous forces. This is the domain of ‹Community›. We have also human efforts devoted to the appropriation of these materials, to the direction of these forces,—efforts which are exchanged, ‹estimated›, and compensated. This is the domain of ‹Property›. In other words, as regards both, we are not owners of the Utility of things, but of their Value, and value is simply the appreciation of reciprocal services. Property, Community, are two ideas correlative to the ideas of ‹onerosity› and ‹gratuitousness›, on which they are founded. That which is ‹gratuitous› is ‹common›, for every one enjoys a portion of it, and enjoys it unconditionally. That which is ‹onerous› is ‹appropriated›, because trouble taken, effort made, is the condition of its enjoyment, as the enjoyment is the reason for taking the trouble, or making the effort. Does an exchange intervene? It is effected by a comparative estimate of the two efforts or the two services. This reference to trouble, to pains, implies the existence of an Obstacle. We may then conclude that the object sought for approximates more nearly to the gratuitous and the common, in proportion as the obstacle is less; as, by hypothesis, the complete absence of obstacle would render it perfectly gratuitous and common. Now, with reference to human nature, which is progressive and perfectible, the obstacle can never be regarded as an absolute and invariable quantity. It diminishes. Then the pains taken diminish along with it—and the service with the pains—and value with the service—and property with value. And the Utility remains the same. Then the gratuitous and the common have gained all that onerosity and property have lost. [p224] To determine man to labour he must have a motive, and that motive is the satisfaction he has in view, or utility. His undoubted and irrepressible tendency is to realize the greatest possible satisfaction with the least possible labour, to cause the greatest amount of utility to correspond with the greatest amount of property. Whence it follows that the mission of Property, or rather of the spirit of property, is to realize, in a greater and greater degree, Community. The starting point of the human race being the maximum of poverty, or the maximum of obstacles to be overcome, it is clear that for all that is gained from one age to another we are indebted to the spirit of property.