It was a situation in which the acquisition of property depended, in the main, on the workmanlike serviceability of the man who acquired it, and in which, on the whole, honesty was the best policy. Under such conditions the principles of fair play and the inviolability of ownership would be somewhat closely in touch with the ancient human instinct of workmanship, which approves mutual aid and serviceability to the common good. On the other hand, the current experience of men in the communities of Christendom, now no longer acts to reinforce these habits of thought embodied in the system of natural rights; and it is scarcely conceivable that a conviction of the goodness, sufficiency, and inviolability of the rights of ownership could arise out of such a condition of things, techno logical and pecuniary, as now prevails.