The order of knights,
constituting the nobility regarded as a mere rank or class of
specially titled individuals, as well as the order of the clergy,
called the church, are both subject to this relation. They can never
be entitled by any hereditary privileges with which they may be
favoured, to acquire an absolute property in the soil transmissible to
their successors. They can only acquire the use of such property for
the time being. If public opinion has ceased, on account of other
arrangements, to impel the state to protect itself from negligence
in the national defence by appeal to the military honour of the
knightly order, the estates granted on that condition may be recalled.
And, in like manner, the church lands or spiritualities may be
reclaimed by the state without scruple, if public opinion has ceased
to impel the members of the state to maintain masses for the souls
of the dead, prayers for the living, and a multitude of clergy, as
means to protect themselves from eternal fire. But in both cases,
the condition of indemnifying existing interests must be observed.
Those who in this connection fall under the movement of reform are not
entitled to complain that their property is taken from them; for the
foundation of their previous possession lay only in the opinion of the
people, and it can be valid only so long as this opinion lasts.
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