creative. Social institutions are the garments or embodiments of
impulses, and may be classified roughly according to the impulses
which they embody. Property is the direct expression of
possessiveness; science and art are among the most direct expressions
of creativeness. Possessiveness is either defensive or aggressive; it
seeks either to retain against a robber, or to acquire from a present
holder. In either case an attitude of hostility toward others is of
its essence. It would be a mistake to suppose that defensive
possessiveness is always justifiable, while the aggressive kind is
always blameworthy; where there is great injustice in the _status
quo_, the exact opposite may be the case, and ordinarily neither is
justifiable.

State interference with the actions of individuals is necessitated by
possessiveness. Some goods can be acquired or retained by force,
while others cannot. A wife can be acquired by force, as the Romans
acquired the Sabine women; but a wife's affection cannot be acquired
in this way. There is no record that the Romans desired the affection
of the Sabine women; and those in whom possessive impulses are strong
tend to care chiefly for the goods that force can secure. All
material goods belong to this class. Liberty in regard to such goods,
if it were unrestricted, would make the strong rich and the weak poor.
In a capitalistic society, owing to the partial restraints imposed by
law, it makes cunning men rich and honest men poor, because the force
of the state is put at men's disposal, not according to any just or
rational principle, but according to a set of traditional maxims of
which the explanation is purely historical.

In all that concerns possession and the use of force, unrestrained
liberty involves anarchy and injustice. Freedom to kill, freedom to