that was mine, removing them out of that common state they were in, hath
fixed my property in them.
Sec. 29. By making an explicit consent of every commoner, necessary
to any one's appropriating to himself any part of what is given in
common, children or servants could not cut the meat, which their father
or master had provided for them in common, without assigning to every one
his peculiar part. Though the water running in the fountain be every
one's, yet who can doubt, but that in the pitcher is his only who drew it
out? His labour hath taken it out of the hands of nature, where it was
common, and belonged equally to all her children, and hath thereby
appropriated it to himself.
Sec. 30. Thus this law of reason makes the deer that Indian's who
hath killed it; it is allowed to be his goods, who hath bestowed his
labour upon it, though before it was the common right of every one. And
amongst those who are counted the civilized part of mankind, who have
made and multiplied positive laws to determine property, this original
law of nature, for the beginning of property, in what was before common,
still takes place; and by virtue thereof, what fish any one catches in
the ocean, that great and still remaining common of mankind; or what
ambergrise any one takes up here, is by the labour that removes it out of
that common state nature left it in, made his property, who takes that
pains about it. And even amongst us, the hare that any one is hunting,
is thought his who pursues her during the chase: for being a beast that
is still looked upon as common, and no man's private possession; whoever
has employed so much labour about any of that kind, as to find and pursue
her, has thereby removed her from the state of nature, wherein she was
common, and hath begun a property.
Sec. 31. It will perhaps be objected to this, that if gathering the
acorns, or other fruits of the earth, &c. makes a right to them, then any
one may ingross as much as he will. To which I answer, Not so. The same