This is, doubtless, the idea that Papinius intended to convey in the phrase, as elegant as it is forcible--_Foenus mordet solidam_.

I beg pardon for using Latin so frequently in discussing this subject; it is an homage which I pay to the most usurious nation that ever existed.
FIRST PROPOSITION.
Property is impossible, because it demands Something for Nothing.
The discussion of this proposition covers the same ground as that of the origin of farm-rent, which is so much debated by the economists.

When I read the writings of the greater part of these men, I cannot avoid a feeling of contempt mingled with anger, in view of this mass of nonsense, in which the detestable vies with the absurd.

It would be a repetition of the story of the elephant in the moon, were it not for the atrocity of the consequences.

To seek a rational and legitimate origin of that which is, and ever must be, only robbery, extortion, and plunder--that must be the height of the proprietor's folly; the last degree of bedevilment into which minds, otherwise judicious, can be thrown by the perversity of selfishness.
"A farmer," says Say, "is a wheat manufacturer who, among other tools which serve him in modifying the material from which he makes the wheat, employs one large tool, which we call a field.