Theories are private property, but truth is common stock.

Charles Caleb Colton (1780–1832) was an English cleric-turned-writer best known for his aphoristic collection *Lacon; or, Many Things in Few Words*. The remark fits the early nineteenth-century culture of moral and political “maxims,” when writers distilled observations about knowledge, opinion, and public life into portable sentences. Colton’s epigrams often contrast individual vanity or intellectual possession with broader ethical ideals. In this vein, he distinguishes between “theories,” which people tend to treat as personal inventions to defend and own, and “truth,” which—if it is truth—belongs to everyone and should circulate freely rather than be hoarded or used as a badge of authorship.

Colton draws a sharp line between speculative systems and shared reality. “Theories” are likened to private property: they can be claimed, branded, and defended as one’s own, often becoming entangled with ego and faction. “Truth,” by contrast, is “common stock”—a public good that does not increase in value by being monopolized and is not diminished by being shared. The aphorism implicitly critiques intellectual possessiveness and partisan attachment to ideas, urging readers to treat truth as something to be tested, communicated, and held in common rather than treated as a personal asset. It also hints that theories are provisional, while truth is universal.