Sec. 49. Thus in the beginning all the world was America,
and more so than that is now; for no such thing as money was
any where known. Find out something that hath the use and value
of money amongst his neighbours, you shall see the same man will
begin presently to enlarge his possessions.
Sec. 50. But since gold and silver, being little useful to
the life of man in proportion to food, raiment, and carriage, has
its value only from the consent of men, whereof labour yet
makes, in great part, the measure, it is plain, that men have
agreed to a disproportionate and unequal possession of the
earth, they having, by a tacit and voluntary consent, found out,
a way how a man may fairly possess more land than he himself can
use the product of, by receiving in exchange for the overplus
gold and silver, which may be hoarded up without injury to any
one; these metals not spoiling or decaying in the hands of the
possessor. This partage of things in an inequality of private
possessions, men have made practicable out of the bounds of
society, and without compact, only by putting a value on gold and
silver, and tacitly agreeing in the use of money: for in
governments, the laws regulate the right of property, and the
possession of land is determined by positive constitutions.
Sec. 51. And thus, I think, it is very easy to conceive,
without any difficulty, how labour could at first begin a title
of property in the common things of nature, and how the spending
it upon our uses bounded it.
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