BOOK III.

RELATIVE DUTIES.

CHAP. I.-ON PROPERTY.

If you should see in a field of corn a flock of pigeons, all of whom, save one, were engaged, not in choosing for themselves the best food, but the worst, and reserving the best for that single pigeon, the weakest and perhaps the worst of the flock; and if, while that single pigeon was devouring or wasting at pleasure, you should see, when another hungry and hardy pigeon touched a grain of the hoard, all the other pigeons fly on the intruder, and peck it to death; you would then see nothing more than what is practised every day among men. In civilized society, many persons toil to find superfluities for one, sometimes the least deserving of his species; and in the mean time get for themselves only the worst and smallest share, and quietly look on, while they see the fruits of their labor spent or spoiled by that single one or his minions. They will even join to hang a man, whose necessities may have led him to take the smallest particle from the hoard so unequally distributed.

CHAP. II. THE USE OF THE INSTITUTION OF PROPERTY.

This institution, which, from the view just given of it, seems so unnatural, still possesses advantages enough to counterbalance its apparent absurdity. The principal advantages are the following.

1. It increases the produce of the earth.

In climates where the earth produces little without labor, no one would sow if all might reap. Hence, the spontaneous productions of the earth, such as acorns, berries, game, and fish, would be the only food of its inhabitants; and a handful of men would thus starve on waste lands,

1 Illustrate the distribution of property by an example.

2 How is the example applied?

3 What is said of the institution, seemingly so unnatural ?

4 What is the first advantage? Why so?

5 What would follow from not cultivating the earth?

which, if cultivated, would feed thousands. In soils naturally fertile, or on coasts where fish abound, and in climates where clothes are unnecessary, a large population may subsist without property in land; but in less favored spots, the want of food arising from the want of institutions to secure property, leads people even to devour each other.

11. It preserves the produce of the earth to maturity.

If, under a system which is intended to be favorable to the security of property, we find the fruit of a tree which is exposed to depredation always plucked before it is ripe; it is fair to infer that, where there is a community of property, corn, if sown, would never be permitted to come to maturity, nor would lambs and calves grow up to sheep and cows; because each would think he had better take what he could get, than leave it to another to enjoy.

III. It prevents contests.

Where there is not enough for all, and where no rules exist to settle the share of each, it is plain that contests alone can regulate the distribution.

IV. It improves the conveniences of life.

As each man is secure in the produce of his own labor, he is enabled to direct his attention to a particular art, and to exchange the productions of that art for those of another. Thus is introduced the subdivision of labor, by which each man becomes a proficient in his own art, which he could not be, if his time were taken up by all the different occupations necessary to his subsistence. By this arrangement, articles of necessity and ornament are improved in their manufacture; and as new wants are created, fresh exertions are made and remunerated; so that they, who are the worst off where the laws of property prevail, are better off than the best are where all things are in common.

6 Where would this state of things be not disadvantageous?

7 What has it led to in some situations?

8 What is the second advantage?

9 By what example is this proved?

10 What is the third advantage?

What inference from it?

11 Would there be contests if there were no right to property?

12 What is the fourth advantage?

13 What preliminary step for that does it occasion?

14 What does the entire attention to one art occasion?

15 What is the result of this arrangement?

16 Then what opinion may we form concerning those who are subject to the institution of property?

The great inequality of property which is found in civilized nations, abstractedly considered, is an evil; but it is an evil which flows from a greater good; and is to be rectified only when it is unconnected with such good.

CHAP. III.-THE HISTORY OF PROPERTY.

The first objects of property were the fruits a man gathered, and the animals he caught; then the hut he built, and the tools and weapons he made; and, subsequently, his flocks and herds. Even Abel, the second from Adam, was a keeper of sheep, which, with oxen, asses, and camels, composed the wealth of the patriarchs, as they now do that of the Arabs. The next object of property was probably a well of water; which, in the countries of the east where the world was first peopled, was from its value a source of frequent contentions;* and to dig or discover one was deemed an act worthy of honorable record. Land, at present so important as to be alone called real property, was, when more plentiful, little thought of; but as the people increased, and tillage was resorted to, it rose in value. The first partition of an estate on record is that which took place between Abram and Lot; and the terms of it are the most simple: "If thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left."

There are no traces of property in land in Cæsar's account of Britain; little in the history of patriarchal times; and none of it is found amongst the savages of America or of Australia. Even the ancient Scythians, who appropriated houses and cattle, are expressly said to have left their lands in common.

Even for some time property in immovables was confined to temporary occupancy: for as soon as a man quitted his hut or cave, and the feeding ground of his cattle; another entered on them by the same title as his predecessor. It is probable that a permanent property in lands, not cultivated by

17 What is our final opinion of inequality of property? 18 Mention the first objects of property, one after another.

19 What was the next object of property, and why was it made so? 20 What is said of land? What is the first partition of land? 21 In what history are there no accounts of landed property? 22 What was the tenure of property in immovables originally?

* Gen. xxi. 25; xxvi. 18.

the resident proprietor or his agents, was first settled by the laws of the people, or the will of the ruler alone.

CHAP. IV.-IN WHAT THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY IS FOUNDED.

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To explain the right of property in land, consistently with the law of nature, is no easy task for as the land was once common to all, by what right could any part of it be taken by one person, to the exclusion of all others?

Many different and consequently unsatisfactory reasons. have been given.

One says that the right of the first possessor rested on the tacit consent given by his contemporaries to such possession, which consent, being once granted, could not be revoked by the relinquishing parties.

But consent cannot be presumed from silence, where the party said to be consenting knows nothing of the matter in question. It is true, the parties in the neighborhood of the spot where such appropriation took place, might have consented but that very consent is as much an infringement on the general rights of mankind as the occupancy of the individual himself; and cannot bind other portions of mankind who are ignorant of such transactions between the appropriator and his neighbors.

Locke says, that the right to property rests on the natural right of a man to the produce of his own labor; for by cultivation consequent on the occupancy, the labor bestowed on the soil is so mixed up with it, that the man cannot be deprived of one without the loss of the other which is manifestly his own.

But this reason will hold good only where the value of the labor gives nearly the whole value to the ground; as in the case of a waste, which a man should pare, burn, and plough for the growth of corn not previously produced; or where the labor confers the greatest part of the value, as in the case of

23 How did such property first become permanent?

24 What is said of the right of property in connection with the law of nature ?

25 Has there ever been any explanation ?

26 What is the first account of it?

27 What is said of this reason?

28 What reason is given by Locke?

29 When is this reason applicable ?

game or fish, which, till caught, are of no value to anybody. But the right to possess, founded on the labor bestowed, can give no right to the possession of a tract of country as is claimed by discoverers, or to the fencing in of a piece of ground for a cattle pasture, or to hold in perpetuity even a farm when the cultivation and its effects shall have ceased.

Another and better reason is, that, as God has provided the ground for all, he has given leave to any to take what he pleases, (if not previously possessed,) without any kind of consent from others.

But this permission can apply only to so much as would yield the necessaries of life; and not to any superfluous wealth which may be enjoyed by the individual, at the expense of others, who, by such appropriation, may be pinched for food.

Such are the reasons usually assigned; but were they perfectly unexceptionable, they would scarcely vindicate the present claim to a right of property in land, unless it were also shown that the possession did actually take place in some of the ways here supposed, and that justice has been done in every subsequent transmission. For if one link in this evidence fail, no title posterior to such failure can be held to be good.

The real foundation of our right is the law of the land. God intended the earth for man's use. This intention cannot be fulfilled without establishing property: he therefore willed the institution of property. But such institution cannot be effected, if the law of the land does not regulate the distribution; consequently it is "right," or consistent with the will of God, for any individual to possess as much as the law of the land gives him. And, consequently, as the right does not depend on the manner or justice of the original acquisition, nor its subsequent transmission; so neither can it be taken away for any defect in the title which is not cognizable by law.

30 Is it suited to every case?

31 What better reason has been given?

32 How far will this apply, and how far will it not?

33 How far will all these reasons affect our present claims?

34 What is the real foundation of our right in landed property?

35 In our argument for this, what do we suppose to be the intention of the Deity?

36 After supposing this, mention the train of reasoning that shows our right to be perfect? 37 What follows from this proof?

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