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the chaff and refufe; keeping this heap for one, and that the weakeft perhaps and worst pigeon. of the flock; fitting round, and looking on all the winter, whilft this one was devouring, throwing about and wafting it; and, if a pigeon more hardy or hungry than the reft, touched a grain of the hoard, all the others inftantly flying upon it, and tearing it to pieces: if you fhould fee this, you would fee nothing more, than what is every day practised and established among men. Among men you fee the ninety and nine, toiling and fcraping together a heap of fuperfluities for one; getting nothing for themselves all the while, but a little of the coarfeft of the provifion, which their own labour produces; and this one too, oftentimes the feebleft and worst of the whole fet, a child, a woman, a madman, or a fool; looking quietly on, while they fee the fruits of all their labour fpent or fpoiled; and if one of them take or touch a particle of it, the others join against him, and hang him for the theft.

CHAP.

CHA P. II.

THE USE OF THE INSTITUTION OF

PROPERTY.

THE

HERE must be fome very important advantages to account for an inftitution, which in one view of it is fo paradoxical and unnatural.

The principal of these advantages are the following:

I. It increases the produce of the earth.

The earth, in climates like ours, produces little without cultivation; and none would be found willing to cultivate the ground, if others were to be admitted to an equal fhare of the produce. The fame is true of the care of flocks and herds of tame animals.

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Crabs and acorns, red deer, rabbits, game, and fifh, are all we fhould have to fubfift upon this country, if we trusted to the spontaneous productions of the foil: and it fares not much

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better

better with other countries. A nation of North American favages, confifting of two or three hundred, will take up, and be half-starved upon a tract of land, which in Europe, and with European management, would be fufficient for the maintenance of as many thoufands.

In fome fertile foils, together with great abundance of fish upon their coafts, and in regions where clothes are unneceffary, a confiderable degree of population may fubfift without property in land; which is the cafe in the islands of Otaheite: but in lefs favoured fituations, as in the country of New Zealand, though this fort of property obtain in a fmall degree, the inhabitants, for want of a more fecure and regular establishment of it, are driven ofttimes by the fcarcity of provifion to devour one another. II. It preferves the produce of the earth to maturity.

We may judge what would be the effects of a community of right to the productions of the earth, from the trifling specimens which we see of it at prefent. A cherry-tree in a hedge row, nuts in a wood, the grafs of an unftinted pafture, are feldom of much advantage to any body, becaufe people do not wait for the proper feafon of reaping them. Corn, if any were fown, would

never ripen; lambs and calves would never grow up to sheep and cows, because the first person that met with them would reflect, that he had better take them as they are, than leave them for another.

III. It prevents contefts.

War and wafte, tumult and confufion, muft be unavoidable and eternal, where there is not enough for all, and where there are no rules to adjust the divifion.

IV. It improves the conveniency of living. This it does two ways. It enables mankind to divide themfelves into distinct profeffions which is impoffible, unless a man can exchange the productions of his own art for what he wants from others; and exchange implies property. Much of the advantage of civilized over favage life depends upon this. When a man is from neceffity his own taylor, tent-maker, carpenter, cook, huntfman, and fisherman, it is not probable that he will be expert at any of his callings. Hence the rude habitations, furniture, clothing, and implements of favages; and the tedious length of time which all their operations require.

It likewise encourages thofe arts, by which the accommodations of human life are supplied,

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by appropriating to the artist the benefit of his discoveries and improvements; without which appropriation, ingenuity will never be exerted with effect.

Upon these several accounts we may venture, with a few exceptions, to pronounce, that even the poorest and the worft provided in countries where property and the confequences of property prevail, are in a better situation, with refpect to food, raiment, houfes, and what are called the neceffaries of life, than any are, in places where most things remain in common. The balance, therefore, upon the whole, muft preponderate in favour of property with manifest and great excefs.

Inequality of property in the degree in which it exifts in moft countries of Europe, abftractedly confidered, is an evil: but it is an evil, which flows from thofe rules concerning the acquifition and difpofal of property, by which men are incited to induftry, and by which the object of their industry is rendered fecure and valuable. If there be any great inequality unconnected with this origin, it ought to be corrected.

CHAP.

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