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We can hardly judge what effect Plato's views would have upon his

own contemporaries; they would perhaps have seemed to them only

an exaggeration of the Spartan commonwealth. Even modern writers

would acknowledge that the right of private property is based on

expediency, and may be interfered with in a variety of ways for

the public good. Any other mode of vesting property which was

found to be more advantageous, would in time acquire the same

basis of right; 'the most useful,' in Plato's words, 'would be

the most sacred.' The lawyers and ecclesiastics of former ages

would have spoken of property as a sacred institution. But they

only meant by such language to oppose the greatest amount of

resistance to any invasion of the rights of individuals and of

the Church.