ORIGIN OF LAND-OWNERSHIP. 645 



Necessity gave to the occupant more than a mere transient in- 

 terest. Necessity gave a species of 'property in the soil, and, in 

 order to insure that property, recourse was had to social organiza- 

 tion, to laws, and punishments for violation of laws. 



Now, when man enters into civil society and partakes of its 

 benefits, he must surrender some of his absolute personal rights, 

 or exchange them, as it were, for such relative rights as are inci- 

 dent to men as factors of society. This is no loss or hardship, for 

 he gains by exchange that security of person and property which 

 it is the object of civil government to insure ; whereas, in the nat- 

 ural state, every other man being possessed of the same absolute 

 rights of person and property, there would be no security either 

 of person or property. The rights, then, belonging to a man in 

 civil society, which we will call his civil rights, are the absolute 

 right belonging to him by nature, so far restrained by civil law 

 as is necessary and expedient for the general advantage of the 

 community. 



It being evidently natural that man should acquire a right of 

 property in the soil, the next inquiry is, how property became 

 actually vested. As occupancy gave the right to temporary use, 

 so occupancy also gave the original right of property in the thing 

 used. The same law of nature would suggest that the first occu- 

 pant who had by his industry and thrift added to the utility of the 

 soil in fact, developed by labor the only value therein should 

 become the owner. The product of a man's labor, the work of his 

 hands, is his. "Whatever he removes out of the condition that 

 nature has left it in, he has mixed his labor with and joined to it 

 something that is his own, and thereby acquires a property in the 

 thing itself. Necessity, arising from insecurity of person and 

 property, being assigned as the first and primary reason for pri- 

 vate ownership in land, the right of a man to the product of his 

 labor may be cited as a secondary reason. 



Although by theory of civil law as well as by usage, ripening 

 into universal sanction, the ownership of land is deemed to be in 

 private individuals, can it be said, after all, honestly and ration- 

 ally, that the individual has an ownership of the soil as absolute 

 as in the case of personal property ? His interest is rather pos- 

 sessory for the time being, the manner of his enjoyment usufruct- 

 uary : he can not move the land or carry it with him from place 

 to place ; he can not change the nature of it ; he can merely draw 

 from its substance for the time being, to the exclusion of all others 

 from such use. In such exclusive use he is as much supported 

 and upheld by natural justice and moral right as in the case of 

 personal property. His labor and capital have improved it, beau- 

 tified it, rendered it more productive, and enhanced its utility ; 

 and, so far as value is concerned, it will be argued hereafter that 



