One of the conditions of life for the body social is, that whoever can serve the community through his individual abilities should not be deprived of the power to do so freely of his own initiative. Where such service involves free use of the means of production, to hamper free initiative would be to injure the general social interests. I am not proposing here to urge the argument commonly used in this connection, namely, that the prospect of the gains associated with the ownership of means of production is needed in order to stimulate the "enterpriser" to exertion. The whole form of thought represented in this book, with its conception of a progressive evolution in social conditions, must lead to the expectation, that this kind of incentive to social activity may be eliminated, through the emancipation of the spiritual life from its association with the political and economic system. Once it is free, the spiritual life will of itself inevitably evolve a social sense; and this social sense will provide incentives of a very different kind from the hope of economic advantage. But it is not so much a question of the kind of impulse which makes men like private ownership of the means of production, as of whether the necessary conditions of life for the body social are best fulfilled when the use of the means of production is free, or when it is directed by the community. And here, one must always clearly remember, that one cannot draw conclusions for the social organism of the present day from the conditions of life supposed to be found in primitive communities, but from such only as correspond to man's present stage of development. At the present stage, it is not possible for individual ability to find fruitful exercise through capital in the round of economic life, unless its use of capital is free. For fruitful results in any field of production there must be opportunity for the free use of capital; not because it gives an advantage to some individual or group; but because, opportunely directed by a social sense, it is the best way of serving the community. Whether he is producing alone or in company, the material a man is working on is in a manner bound up with himself, much like the skill of his own arms or legs. To interfere with his free use of the means of production, is like crippling the free exercise of his bodily skill. Private ownership, however, is simply the medium for this free use of the means of production. As regards ownership, all that matters to the body social, is that the owner should have the right to use it of his own free initiative. Clearly, two things are joined together in social life, that are of quite distinct implications for the body social--one, the free use of the capital basis of social production; the other, the "relation in right" which arises between the user of capital and other people, from the fact that his right of use precludes these other people from free activity on this same capital basis.