During the course of a class discussion yesterday on the role that respect for the inviolability of property boundaries plays in creating social order, one of my students asked “how can one individual change anything in our world?” I asked him to look up at the ceiling, particularly to the overhead lights. “How did they get there?,” I inquired. He apparently thought I was referring to a construction contractor having installed them. “No,” I went on, “where did the lights, themselves, come from? Weren’t they the invention of Thomas Edison? Now, if Edison can enlighten the world, why can’t you?”

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