Note 597 — Chapter X · THE STATE (A) THE PROBLEM OF THE ESTATES—NOBILITY AND PRIESTHOOD

Property in this most significant sense—the having grown up with something—refers therefore less to the particular person than to the family tree to which he belongs. In every quarrel within a peasant or even within a princely family, this is the deep and violent element. The master for the time being holds possession only in the name of the family line. Hence, too, the terror of death without heirs. Property also is a Time-symbol, and consequently it is closely related to marriage, which is a firm plantlike intergrowth and mutual possession of two human beings, so real as to be even reflected in an increasing facial similarity.