3. _Respect the property of others._ Unless we are careful we may at this point commit a grave wrong. Upon what moral considerations shall the right of property be based? The school, especially the moral lessons which are imparted in it, should certainly not be placed in the service of vested interests. On the other hand, the school should not fill the pupils' minds with economic theories, which they are incapable of understanding, and of which the truth, the justice, the feasibility are still hotly disputed. We are therefore taking a very responsible step in introducing the idea of property at all into our moral lessons. And yet it is too great and important to be ignored. Some writers have advanced the theory that the right in question rests on labor, and they regard it as a self-evident proposition, one which, therefore, might safely be taught to the young, that every person is entitled to the products of his labor. Jules Simon says (see Paul Janet, Elements of Morals, English translation, p. 66): "This earth was worth nothing and produced nothing. I dug the soil, I brought from a distance fertilizing earth; it is now fertile. This fertility is my work; by fertilizing it, I made it mine." American writers have eloquent passages to the same effect. But this proposition certainly does not appear to me self-evident, nor even true. Chiefly for the reason that "my labor" and "my skill" are not original, but derivative factors in production. They are very largely the result of the labor and the skill of generations that have preceded me, that have built up in me this brain, this skill, this power of application. The products of my labor would indeed belong to me if my labor were really mine, if it were not to an incalculable extent the consequent of social antecedents, in regard to which I can not claim the least merit. The attempt to found the rewards of labor upon the merit of the laborer seems to me a perfectly hopeless one.