grants God made of the world to Adam, and to Noah, and his sons, it is
very clear, that God, as king David says, Psal. cxv. 16. has given the
earth to the children of men; given it to mankind in common. But this
being supposed, it seems to some a very great difficulty, how any one
should ever come to have a property in any thing: I will not content
myself to answer, that if it be difficult to make out property, upon a
supposition that God gave the world to Adam, and his posterity in common,
it is impossible that any man, but one universal monarch, should have any
property upon a supposition, that God gave the world to Adam, and his
heirs in succession, exclusive of all the rest of his posterity. But I
shall endeavour to shew, how men might come to have a property in several
parts of that which God gave to mankind in common, and that without any
express compact of all the commoners.
Sec. 26. God, who hath given the world to men in common, hath also
given them reason to make use of it to the best advantage of life, and
convenience. The earth, and all that is therein, is given to men for the
support and comfort of their being. And tho' all the fruits it naturally
produces, and beasts it feeds, belong to mankind in common, as they are
produced by the spontaneous hand of nature; and no body has originally a
private dominion, exclusive of the rest of mankind, in any of them, as
they are thus in their natural state: yet being given for the use of men,
there must of necessity be a means to appropriate them some way or other,
before they can be of any use, or at all beneficial to any particular
man. The fruit, or venison, which nourishes the wild Indian, who knows
no enclosure, and is still a tenant in common, must be his, and so his,
i.e. a part of him, that another can no longer have any right to it,
before it can do him any good for the support of his life.
Sec. 27. Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to
all men, yet every man has a property in his own person: this no body has
any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his