The law of contract, which holds essentially to those principles of eternal justice which are engraven upon the depths of the human heart, is the immutable element of jurisprudence, and, in a certain sense, its philosophy.

Property, on the contrary, is the variable element of jurisprudence, its history, its policy." Marvellous! There is in law, and consequently in politics, something variable and something invariable.

The invariable element is obligation, the bond of justice, duty; the variable element is property,--that is, the external form of law, the subject-matter of the contract.

Whence it follows that the law can modify, change, reform, and judge property.
Reconcile that, if you can, with the idea of an eternal, absolute, permanent, and indefectible right.
However, M.Laboulaye is in perfect accord with himself when he adds, "Possession of the soil rests solely upon force until society takes it in hand, and espouses the cause of the possessor;" [62] and, a little farther, "The right of property is not natural, but social.

The laws not only protect property: they give it birth," &c.