On page 41, speaking of the scientific work of Marx with a disdain which can not be taken seriously, since it is too much like that of the theologians for Darwin or that of the jurists for Lombroso, he reasons in this curious fashion: 

“Starting from the hypothesis that all private property is unjust, it is not logic that is wanting in the doctrine of Marx.  But if one recognizes, on the contrary, that every individual has a right to possess some thing of his own, the direct and inevitable consequence is [the rightfulness of] the profits of capital, and, therefore, the augmentation of the latter.”

Certainly, if one admits a priori the right of individual property in the land and the means of production ... it is needless and useless to discuss the question.

But the troublesome fact is that all the scientific work of Marx and the socialists has been done precisely in order to furnish absolute scientific proof of the true genesis of capitalist property—­the unpaid surplus-labor of the laborer—­and to put an end to the old fables about “the first occupant,” and “accumulated savings” which are only exceptions, ever becoming rarer.

Moreover, the negation of private property is not “the hypothesis,” but the logical and inevitable consequence of the premises of facts and of historical demonstrations made, not only by Marx, but by a numerous group of sociologists who, abandoning the reticence and mental reservations of orthodox conventionalism, have, by that step, become socialists.

* * * * *

But contemporary socialism, for the very reason that it is in perfect harmony with scientific and exact thought, no longer harbors the illusions of those who fancy that to-morrow—­with a dictator of “wonderful intelligence and remarkable eloquence,” charged with the duty of organizing collectivism by means of decrees and regulations—­we could reach the Co-operative Commonwealth at a bound, eliminating the intermediate phases.  Moreover, is not the absolute and unbridled individualism of yesterday already transformed into a limited individualism and into a partial collectivism by legal limitations of the jus abutendi and by the continuous transformation into social functions or public properties of the services (lighting, water-supply, transportation, etc.), or properties (roads, bridges, canals, etc.), which were formerly private services and properties?  These intermediate phases can not be suppressed by decrees, but they develop and finish their course naturally day by day, under the pressure of the economic and social conditions; but, by a natural and therefore inexorable progress, they are constantly approaching more closely that ultimate phase of absolute collectivism in the means of production, which the socialists have not invented, but the tendency toward which they have shown, and whose ultimate attainment they scientifically predict.  The rate of progress toward this goal they can accelerate by giving to the proletarians, organized into a class-party, a clearer consciousness of their historic mission.