WHAT IS A MAN'S PROPERTY? Anything which it is lawful for him,
and for him alone, to use. BUT WHAT RULE HAVE WE, BY WHICH WE CAN
DISTINGUISH THESE OBJECTS? Here we must have recourse to
statutes, customs, precedents, analogies, and a hundred other
circumstances; some of which are constant and inflexible, some
variable and arbitrary. But the ultimate point, in which they all
professedly terminate, is the interest and happiness of human
society. Where this enters not into consideration, nothing can
appear more whimsical, unnatural, and even superstitious, than
all or most of the laws of justice and of property.

Those who ridicule vulgar superstitions, and expose the folly of
particular regards to meats, days, places, postures, apparel,
have an easy task; while they consider all the qualities and
relations of the objects, and discover no adequate cause for that
affection or antipathy, veneration or horror, which have so
mighty an influence over a considerable part of mankind. A Syrian
would have starved rather than taste pigeon; an Egyptian would
not have approached bacon: But if these species of food be
examined by the senses of sight, smell, or taste, or scrutinized
by the sciences of chemistry, medicine, or physics, no difference
is ever found between them and any other species, nor can that
precise circumstance be pitched on, which may afford a just
foundation for the religious passion. A fowl on Thursday is
lawful food; on Friday abominable: Eggs in this house and in this
diocese, are permitted during Lent; a hundred paces farther, to
eat them is a damnable sin. This earth or building, yesterday was
profane; to-day, by the muttering of certain words, it has become