remainder, after such enclosure, would not be as good to the rest of the
commoners, as the whole was when they could all make use of the whole;
whereas in the beginning and first peopling of the great common of the
world, it was quite otherwise. The law man was under, was rather for
appropriating. God commanded, and his wants forced him to labour. That
was his property which could not be taken from him where-ever he had
fixed it. And hence subduing or cultivating the earth, and having
dominion, we see are joined together. The one gave title to the other.
So that God, by commanding to subdue, gave authority so far to
appropriate: and the condition of human life, which requires labour and
materials to work on, necessarily introduces private possessions.
Sec. 36. The measure of property nature has well set by the extent of
men's labour and the conveniencies of life: no man's labour could subdue,
or appropriate all; nor could his enjoyment consume more than a small
part; so that it was impossible for any man, this way, to intrench upon
the right of another, or acquire to himself a property, to the prejudice
of his neighbour, who would still have room for as good, and as large a
possession (after the other had taken out his) as before it was
appropriated. This measure did confine every man's possession to a very
moderate proportion, and such as he might appropriate to himself, without
injury to any body, in the first ages of the world, when men were more in
danger to be lost, by wandering from their company, in the then vast
wilderness of the earth, than to be straitened for want of room to plant
in. And the same measure may be allowed still without prejudice to any
body, as full as the world seems: for supposing a man, or family, in the
state they were at first peopling of the world by the children of Adam,
or Noah; let him plant in some inland, vacant places of America, we shall
find that the possessions he could make himself, upon the measures we
have given, would not be very large, nor, even to this day, prejudice the
rest of mankind, or give them reason to complain, or think themselves