ABSTRACT
PROPERTY is property only if it is respected, that is to say,held sacred. We might think a priori that this sacredcharacter derived from man-that it is the husbandman who has communicated to the soil he tills and works, something of the respect of which he himself is the object, of the sanctity which is in him. In this case the property would have no moral value except that lent to it by human personality: this would be the value which, by entering into a relation with things and by making them its own, would confer a certain dignity on them by extension, as it were. But the facts seem to prove that the notion of property came about in quite a different way. The kind of sacredness that kept at a distance from the thing appropriated all individuals except the owner, does not derive from the owner; it resided initially in the thing itself. The things were sacred in themselves; they were inhabited by potencies, rather obscurely represented, and these were supposed to be their true owners, making the things untouchable to the profane. The profane were therefore not able to intrude on the divine sphere, unless they gave the gods their due and expiated their sacrilege by sacrifices. With these preliminary safeguards, they were able to take over the right of the gods themselves and put themselves in their place. Although, thanks to this expedient, the sacred character of the field ceased to be a hindrance to the work of the husbandman, it had not become extinct. It had merely been shifted from the centre to the periphery, and there its natural potency worked against all those who had not acquired a kind of immunity to it. The gods had not been driven from the field but transferred to the confines: a kind of bond had been made between them and the owner; they had become his protectors and by these regular ceremonies he ensured that their favour should continue.
But for all those outside, they were still powers to be dreaded. Woe to the neighbour whose plough had so much as grazed a terminal god! They had disarmed only towards those who had paid the debt due and had behaved to them in a proper manner. The field was in this way shielded from any incursion or from any seizure by another. A right of property became established for the benefit of particular men. This right has, then, a sacred origin: human property is but sacred or divine property put into the hands of men by means of a number of ritual ceremonies.
