But be this as it will, which I lay no stress on;
this I dare boldly affirm, that the same rule of propriety,
(viz.) that every man should have as much as he could make use
of, would hold still in the world, without straitening any body;
since there is land enough in the world to suffice double the
inhabitants, had not the invention of money, and the tacit
agreement of men to put a value on it, introduced (by consent)
larger possessions, and a right to them; which, how it has done,
I shall by and by shew more at large.
Sec. 37. This is certain, that in the beginning, before the
desire of having more than man needed had altered the intrinsic
value of things, which depends only on their usefulness to the
life of man; or had agreed, that a little piece of yellow
metal, which would keep without wasting or decay, should be
worth a great piece of flesh, or a whole heap of corn; though men
had a right to appropriate, by their labour, each one of himself,
as much of the things of nature, as he could use: yet this could
not be much, nor to the prejudice of others, where the same
plenty was still left to those who would use the same industry.
To which let me add, that he who appropriates land to himself by
his labour, does not lessen, but increase the common stock of
mankind: for the provisions serving to the support of human life,
produced by one acre of inclosed and cultivated land, are (to
speak much within compass) ten times more than those which are
yielded by an acre of land of an equal richness lying waste in
common.
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