CHA P. II.

THE USE OF THE INSTITUTION OF PROPERTY.

TH

HERE muft be fome very important advantages to account for an inftitution, which in one view of it is fo paradoxical and unnatural. The principal of these advantages are the following:

I. It increases the produce of the earth.

The earth, in climates like ours, produces little without cultivation; and none would be found willing to cultivate the ground, if others were to be admitted to an equal share of the produce. The same is true of the care of flocks and herds of tame animals.

Crabs and acorns, red deer, rabbits, game, and fish, are all we should have to fubfift upon in this country, if we trufted to the fpontaneous producțions of the foil: and it fares not much better with other countries. A nation of North American favages, confifting of two or three hundred, will take up, and be half-ftarved upon a tract of land, which in Europe, and with European management, would be fufficient for the maintenance of as many thoufands.

In fome fertile foils, together with great abundance of fish upon their coafts, and in regions where clothes are unneceffary, a confiderable degree of population may fubfift without property in land; which is the cafe in the islands of Otaheite; but in lefs favoured fituations, as in the country of New Zealand, though this fort of property obtain in a small degree, the inhabitants, for want of a more fecure and regular establishment

establishment of it, are driven oft-times by the fcarcity of provifion to devour one another.

II. It preferves the produce of the earth to maturity.

We may judge what would be the effects of a community of right to the productions of the earth, from the trifling fpecimens which we fee of it at prefent. A cherry-tree in a hedge-row, nuts in a wood, the grafs of an unftinted pasture, are feldom of much advantage to any body, because people do not wait for the proper season of reaping them. Corn, if any were sown, would never ripen; lambs and calves would never grow up to fheep and cows, because the first person that met with them would reflect, that he had better take them as they are, than leave them for another.

IIL It prevents contests.

War and wafte, tumult and confufion, must be unavoidable and eternal, where there is not enough for all, and where there are no rules to adjuft the divifion.

IV. It improves the conveniency of living.

This it does two ways. It enables mankind to divide themselves into diftinct profeffions; which is impoffible, unless a man can exchange the productions of his own art for what he wants from others; and exchange implies property. Much of the advantage of civilized over favage life depends upon this. When a man is from neceflity his own taylor, tent-maker, carpenter, cook, huntfman, and fisherman, it is not probable that he will be expert at any of his callings. Hence the rude habitations, furniture, clothing, and implements of favages; and the tedious length of time which all their operations require.

It likewise encourages thofe arts, by which the accommodations of human life are fupplied, by ap. propriating to the artift the benefit of his difcoveries and improvements; without which appropriation, ingenuity will never be exerted with effect.

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СНАР.

T

HISTORY OF

PROPERTY.

HE firft objects of property were the fruits which a man gathered, and the wild animals he caught; next to thefe, the tents or houses which he built, the tools he made ufe of to catch or prepare his food; and afterwards weapons of war and offence. Many of the favage tribes in North America have advanced no farther than this yet; for they are faid to reap their harveft, and return the produce of their market with foreigners, into the common hoard or treafury of.the tribe. Flocks and herds of tame animals foon became property; Abel, the second from Adam, was a keeper of fheep; sheep and oxen, camels, and affes, compofed the wealth of the Jewish patriarchs, as they do ftill of the modern Arabs. As the world was first peopled in the Eaft, where there exifted a great scarcity of water, wells probably were next made property; as we learn, from the frequent and serious mention of them in the Old Testament, the contentions and treaties about them, and from its being recorded, among the most memorable atchievements of very eminent men, that they dug or discovered a well. Land, which is now fo important a part of property, which alone our laws call real property, and regard upon all occafions with fuch peculiar attention, was probably not made property in any country, till long after the inftitution of many other fpecies of property, that is, till the country became populous, and tillage began to be thought of. The first partition of an eftate which we read of, was that which took place between

* Gen. xxi. 25. xxvi. 18.

between Abram and Lot; and was one of the fimpleft imaginable: "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 Cafar's account of Britain; little of it in the hiftory of the Jewish patriarchs; none of it found amongst the nations of North America; the Scythians are exprefsly faid to have appropriated their cattle and houfes, but to have left their land in common. Property in immovables continued at firft no longer than the occupation; that is, fo long as a man's family continued in poffeffion of a cave, or his flocks depaftured upon a neighbouring hill, no one attempted, or thought he had a right, to disturb or drive them out: but when the man quitted his cave, or changed his pafture, the first who found them unoccupied, entered upon them, by the fame title as his predeceffors; and made way in his turn for any one that happened to fucceed him. All more permanent property in land, was probably pofterior to civil government and to laws; and therefore fettled by thefe, or according to the will of the reigning chief.

CHAP.