[Footnote 1:  Abbe Calippe, op. cit., 1909, p. 124.]

[Footnote 2:  See Carlyle, Property in Mediaeval Theology.  Community of goods is said to be according to natural law in the canon law, but certain titles of acquiring private property are also said to be natural, so that the passage does not help the discussion very much (Corp, Jur.  Can., Dec. 1.  Dist. i. c. 7.)]

The explanation which St. Thomas gives of the necessity for property also shows how clearly he agreed with the Fathers’ teaching on natural communism:  ’Two things are competent to man in respect of external things.  One is the power to procure and dispense them, and in this regard it is lawful for a man to possess property.  Moreover, this is necessary to human life for three reasons.  First, because every man is more careful to procure what is for himself alone than that which is common to many or to all:  since each one would shirk the labour, and would leave to another that which concerns the community, as happens when there is a great number of servants.  Secondly, because human affairs are conducted in more orderly fashion if each man is charged with taking care of some particular thing himself, whereas there would be confusion if everybody had to look after any one thing indeterminately.  Thirdly, because a more peaceful state is ensured to man if each one is contented with his own.  Hence it is to be observed that quarrels more frequently occur when there is no division of the things possessed.[1] It is quite clear from this passage that Aquinas regarded property as something essential to the existence of society in the natural condition of human nature—­that is to say, the condition that it had acquired at the fall.  It is precisely the greed and avarice of fallen man that renders property an indispensable institution.

[Footnote 1:  II. ii. 66, 2.]

There was another sense in which property was said to be according to human law, in distinction to the natural law, namely, in the sense that, whereas the general principle that men should own things might be said to be natural, the particular proprietary rights of each individual were determined by positive law.  In other words, the fundamentum of property rights was natural, whereas the titulus of particular property rights was according to positive law.  This distinction is stated clearly by Aquinas:[1] ’The natural right or just is that which by its very nature is adjusted to or commensurate with another person.  Now this may happen in two ways; first, according as it is considered absolutely; thus the male by its very nature is commensurate with the female to beget offspring by her, and a parent is commensurate with the offspring to nourish it.  Secondly, a thing is naturally commensurate with another person, not according as it is considered absolutely, but according to something resultant from it—­for instance, the possession of property.  For if a