Principles of Morals and

Principles of Morals and Legislation/173
mance of which the property is said to be enjoyed, have their termina-
tion, or the person in whom they have their commencement. Yet some-
thing which could be spoken of under that appellation was absolutely
requisite. The expedient then has been to create, as it were, on every
occasion, an ideal being, and to assign to a man this ideal being for the
object of his property: and these are the sort of objects to which men of
science, in taking a view of the operations of the law in this behalf,
came, in process of time, to give the name of incorporeal. Now of these
incorporeal objects of property the variety is prodigious. Fictitious enti-
ties of this kind have been fabricated almost out of every thing: not
conditions only (that of a trustee included), but even reputation have
been of the number. Even liberty has been considered in this same point
of view: and though on so many occasions it is contrasted with property,
yet on other occasions, being reckoned into the catalogue of posses-
sions, it seems to have been considered as a branch of property. Some of
these applications of the words property, object of property (the last,
for instance), are looked upon, indeed, as more figurative, and less proper
than the rest: but since the truth is, that where the immediate object is
incorporeal, they are all of them improper, it is scarce practicable any
where to draw the line.
Notwithstanding all this latitude, yet, among the relations in virtue
of which you are said to be possessed of a condition, there is one at least
which can scarcely, by the most forced construction, be said to render
any other man, or any other thing, the object of your property. This is
the right of persevering in a certain course of action; for instance, in the
exercising of a certain trade. Now to confer on you this right, in a cer-
tain degree at least, the law has nothing more to do than barely to ab-
stain from forbidding you to exercise it. Were it to go farther, and, for
the sake of enabling you to exercise your trade to the greater advantage,
prohibit others from exercising the like, then, indeed, persons might be
found, who in a certain sense, and by a construction rather forced than
otherwise, might be spoken of as being the objects of your property:
viz., by being made to render you that sort of negative service which
consists in the forbearing to do those acts which would lessen the profits
of your trade. But the ordinary right of exercising any such trade or
profession, as is not the object of a monopoly, imports no such thing;
and yet, by possessing this right, a man is said to possess a condition:
and by forfeiting it, to forfeit his condition.
After all, it will be seen, that there must be cases in which, accord-

---

174/Jeremy Bentham
ing to the usage of language, the same offence may, with more or less
appearance of propriety, be referred to the head of offences against con-
dition, or that of offences against property, indifferently. In such cases
the following rule may serve for drawing the line. Wherever, in virtue of
your possessing a property, or being the object of a property possessed
by another you are characterised, according to the usage of language,
by a particular name, such as master, servant, husband, wife, steward,
agent, attorney, or the like, there the word condition may be employed
in exclusion of the word property: and an offence in which, in virtue of
your bearing such relation, you are concerned, either in the capacity of
an offender, or in that of a party injured, may be referred to the head of
offences against condition, and not to that of offences against property.
To give an example: Being bound, in the capacity of land steward to a
certain person, to oversee the repairing of a certain bridge, you forbear
to do so: in this case, as the services you are bound to render are of the
number of those which give occasion to the party, from whom they are
due, to be spoken of under a certain generical name, viz., that of land
steward, the offence of withholding them may be referred to the class of
offences against condition. But suppose that, without being engaged in
that general and miscellaneous course of service, which with reference
to a particular person would denominate you his land steward, you were
bound, whether by usage or by contract, to render him that single sort of
service which consists in the providing, by yourself or by others, for the
repairing of that bridge: in this case, as there is not any such current
denomination to which, in virtue of your being bound to render this
service, you stand aggregated (for that of architect, mason, or the like,
is not here in question), the offence you commit by withholding such
service cannot with propriety be referred to the class of offences against
condition: it can only therefore be referred to the class of offences against
property.
By way of further distinction, it may be remarked, that where a
man, in virtue of his being bound to render, or of others being bound to
render him, certain services, is spoken of as possessing a condition, the
assemblage of services is generally so considerable, in point of dura-
tion, as to constitute a course of considerable length, so as on a variety
of occasions to come to be varied and repeated: and in most cases, when
the condition is not of a domestic nature, sometimes for the benefit of
one person, sometimes for that of another. Services which come to be
rendered to a particular person on a particular occasion, especially if

---