ABSTRACT
But to assert his personality (he proceeds) man must reflect it in external objects ; for the body to be free, there must be some command over " things " ; a man is not fully conscious of his personality till he has embodied it in Property. To be without property is to be without a condition on which freedom depends. In this respect all men are equal ; all equally have the right to hold property (Rechtsphil., § 49, p. 85). The rationale of property is not the economic one, the satisfaction of wants, but the embodying of the Will in an external object ; it involves rather the satisfaction of Ownership than the pleasure of having a larger source for supplying the appetites. In property, as distinguished from possession, the will is identified with the external object, and this makes property the object of Law. The more clearly I leave my mark on the external object the more clearly I make it my property. Even my body is more clearly mine when I acquire bodily dexterities. Land must become private property like anything else (cf. Rechtsphil., § 203).
