It does not fall within the scope of this work to describe how, in the course of mankind's evolution, as individual human abilities came to play a part in the social order, private property also grew up out of other forms of ownership. Ownership has, under the influence of the division of labour, gone on developing in this form within the body social down to the present day. And it is with present conditions that we are here concerned, and with what the next stage in their evolution must be. But in whatever way private property arose,--by the exercise of power, conquest, etc.,--it is an outcome of the social creativeness which is associated with individual human ability. And yet socialists to-day, with their thoughts bent upon social reconstruction, hold the theory, that the only way to obviate what is oppressive in private ownership, is to turn it into communal ownership. They put the question thus: How can private property in the means of production be prevented from arising, so that its oppressive effect upon the unpropertied masses may cease? In putting the question in this way, they overlook the fact, that the social organism is something that is constantly changing, growing. One cannot ask about a growing organism. What is the best form of arrangement to preserve it in the state which one regards as the suitable one for it. One can think in that way about something which starts at a certain point and then goes on in the same way ever afterwards without any essential change. But that will not do for the body social. Its life is a continual changing of each thing as it arises. To fix on some form as the very best, and expect it to remain in that form, is to undermine the very conditions of its life.