Sec. 32. But the chief matter of property being now not
the fruits of the earth, and the beasts that subsist on it, but
the earth itself; as that which takes in and carries with it
all the rest; I think it is plain, that property in that too is
acquired as the former. As much land as a man tills, plants,
improves, cultivates, and can use the product of, so much is his
property. He by his labour does, as it were, inclose it from
the common. Nor will it invalidate his right, to say every body
else has an equal title to it; and therefore he cannot
appropriate, he cannot inclose, without the consent of all his
fellow-commoners, all mankind. God, when he gave the world in
common to all mankind, commanded man also to labour, and the
penury of his condition required it of him. God and his reason
commanded him to subdue the earth, i.e. improve it for the
benefit of life, and therein lay out something upon it that was
his own, his labour. He that in obedience to this command of
God, subdued, tilled and sowed any part of it, thereby annexed to
it something that was his property, which another had no title
to, nor could without injury take from him.
Sec. 33. Nor was this appropriation of any parcel of
land, by improving it, any prejudice to any other man, since
there was still enough, and as good left; and more than the yet
unprovided could use.
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