tion of any; therefore, when such consequences would follow, all regard to it is superseded.

Q. But is not restitution due when in our power? A. Certainly; but not the full value of the property destroyed; but what it was worth at the time of destroying it, which, considering the danger, might be very little.

BOOK III.

PART I.

Q. WHAT is the subject of the 3rd book?

A. Relative duties; and the first part is devoted to the consideration of relative duties which are determinate.

CHAPTER I.

Q. OF what does the first chapter treat?
A. Of Property.

Q. Exemplify the every-day and established prac tice of men with regard to property?

A. If you should see ninety-nine pigeons of a flock collecting grain, and reserving for themselves nly the chaff, while they kept the corn for one, per

haps the weakest and worst of the flock-sitting and looking on all the winter, whilst this one was devouring and wasting it, or if any other pigeon touched a single grain, all the others flying upon it and killing it, you would see no more than is constantly done among men. For you will see ninety-nine scraping together superfluities for one, oftentimes the feeblest and worst of the set-a child, a woman, or a fool; and if one touch a particle of the hoard, the others hang him for the theft.

CHAPTER II.

Q. MUST there not be some very important advantages to account for an institution so paradoxical and unnatural?

A. Yes; and the principal are, 1. It increases the produce of the earth. 2. It preserves that produce to maturity. 3. It prevents contests. 4. It improves the conveniency of living.

Q. How does it increase the produce of the earth? A. None would cultivate the ground if others were to share equally the produce. The same is true of the care of flocks and herds. The spontaneous productions of this country are not numerous, and it fares not much better in other soils. Two or three hundred savages will be half-starved upon a tract of land that would subsist as many thousands with European manage

ment.

In some fertile soils, or where fish is abundant, a considerable population may subsist without property; but in less-favoured situations a want of a secure establishment of it, often drives the inhabitants to devour one another from scarcity.

Q. How does it preserve the produce to maturity; A. We may judge from what we see, what would be the effects of a community of right. A cherrytree in a hedge, the grass of an unstinted pasture, are seldom of much advantage to any, because people do not wait for the proper season. Corn would never ripen-lambs and calves would never grow up to sheep and cows, because the first that met them would reflect that he had better take them as they are than leave them for another.

Q. How does it prevent contests?

A. War, waste, tumult, and confusion must be eternal, where there is not enough for all, nor rules to adjust the division.

Q. How does it improve the conveniency of living? A. In two ways. It enables mankind to divide themselves into distinct professions, which is impossible unless a man can exchange his own productions for what he wants from others. Hence the rude and tedious operations of savages in their dwellings, clothes, and furniture. It likewise encourages those arts by which the accommodations of life are supplied, by securing to the artist the benefit of his discoveries and improvements..

Q. May we not pronounce, therefore, that the

poorest and worst provided for, in countries where property prevails, are better situated, as to food, raiment, &c. than any are, in places where most things are in common?

A. Certainly; and the balance upon the whole must preponderate in favour of property, with a manifest and great excess.

Q. Is not inequality of property, as it exists in most countries of Europe, an evil?

A. Abstractedly considered, it is; but it flows from those rules concerning property by which men are incited to industry. If there be any great inequality unconnected with this origin, it ought to be corrected.

CHAPTER III.

Q. WHAT does this chapter embrace ?
A. The history of Property.

Q. What were the first objects of property?

A. The fruits which a man gathered; the animals he caught; the dwellings he built; his tools, and afterwards his weapons. Many savages of America have advanced no further yet than this. Flocks and herds soon became property, they were the wealth of the patriarchs, and are still of the Arabs.

Q. Were not wells probably next made property? A. Yes; as the East was first peopled, where

there existed a great scarcity of water. Frequent and serious mention is made of them in the Old Testament; treaties were made about them, and the digging of them is recorded among the achievements of eminent men.

Q. When was land made property?

A. Not till long after the institution of many other kinds of property, that is, till the country became populous, and tillage was thought of. Abraham and Lot's partition of an estate was the first we read of. There are no traces of property in land in Cæsar's account of Britain; little among the patriarchs, none among the North American nations, and the Scythians left their land in common.

Q. How long did property in immoveables continue at first?

A. No longer than the occupation. When a man quitted the cave in which he had dwelt, or the hill on which his flocks had depastured, the first who found them unoccupied, entered upon the same title as his predecessor. All more permanent property was probably posterior to civil government.

CHAPTER IV.

Q. SHOW in what the right of property is founded? A. In speaking of property in land, there is a