the progress of society. Laws must be judged by their average working,
not by exceptional cases. In general, the system of private property
must be judged by this test: Does it further the welfare of the nation
better than would any alternative plan for the control of economic
wealth? The question is not whether it is faultless, for no human
institution is so. Nor must it be assumed that the rule of property
needs to be uniform in respect to all kinds of wealth. There are
many kinds of property, and the test may be applied separately to the
different forms and to the varying degrees of property rights. The
varied and often strict limitations of property mentioned above are
all determined by some thought, wise or foolish, of social expediency.
Different parts of wealth may be treated in different ways: there may
be private property in wagons, and public property in roads; private
property in houses, and public property in forests; private property
in automobiles, and public property in railway carriages. But any rule
of property, like any other workable human law, must be applicable to
all individuals that meet the conditions.

The very acceptance of the theory of social expediency implies the
need of frequent readjustment of the institution of private property.
The essential thought in the various attacks on the institution of
property is that, because it either causes or makes possible the
inequality of incomes, it is not socially expedient. Private property,
as it is found to-day, is complicated by many historical accidents.
Survivals of ancient injustice and relics of feudal institutions that
rest on no vital reason remain in our new country as well as in the
older ones. The limits of property in many respects are determined not
according to the logic of expediency, but by the social inertia which
often governs successive generations.