craft, as its correlate, was the syBtem of petty trade ; and as the differentiation of occupations was carried to a high degree, purchase and sale came to prevail very generally, and the commiuiity acquired a commercial complexion and commercial habits of thought. Under these circumstances , the natural right of ownership came to comI prise an extreme freedom and facility in the disposal of property. The whole sequence of growth of this natural right is, of course, to be taken in connection with the general growth of individual rights that culminated in the eighteenth-century system of Natural Liberty. How far the English economic development is to be accounted the chief or fundamental factor in the general growth of natural rights is a question that cannot be taken up here. The outcome, so far as it immediately touches the present topic, was that by the time of the industrial revolution a fairly consistent standardization of economic life had been reached in terms of workmanship and price. The writings of Adam Smith and his contemporaries bear witness to this. And this eighteenth-century standardization stands over as the dominant economic institution of later times.' Such, in outline, seem to be the histori-
' Taken by and lai^e, the stondiu'dizaUon of conduct, knonledfn, and Ideals current in the eighteenth century, and coDsonant with th« elgbteenth-century economic situation, is in the last analysis reducible to terms of workmanlike efBcieuc; rather than terma ol material
cal antecedents and the spiritual basis of the modern institution of property, and therefore of bufiiness enterprise as it prevails in the present.'
This sketch of the genesis of the modern institution of property and of modern business principles may seem dubious to those who are inclined to give it a more substantial character than that of a habit of thought, — that is to say, those who still adhere to the doctrine of natural rights with something of the eighteenth-century naivete. But whatever may be