CITATIONS FROM WRITINGS OF JURISTS AND ECONOMISTS. 615 



which each had cleared and cultivated, and this i.s the most reasonable 

 origin of property. It was introduced for the maintenance of peace 

 ainoug men. It is the principle of their union and social order. 



T. Rutherford, Institutes of Natural Law, 1799, 3d ed., pp. 56-59 

 and p. 93, sec. 4, 5, chap, iv, and sec. 6, chap. v. 



IV. Such a community of goods as we Lave been speaking of, would 

 necessarily become inconvenient, as the wants of mankind increased, 

 and as the love of justice and equity decayed amongst them. The wants 

 of mankind were increased by polishing their manners, and by intro- 

 ducing amongst them a civilized and elegant way of living. Savages 

 who would be contented to live in caves, to clothe themselves with bark 

 or skins, and to feed upon nuts and acorns, or such other fruits as the 

 earth produces without much culture, would have but few wants, and 

 these wants would be easily supplied. But when men are civilized and 

 improved in their way of living, they must have convenient houses, 

 useful furniture, warm and clean clothing, and their food must be pre- 

 pared and dressed for them before they can eat it. This iucreaseof wants 

 arising from acivilized and improved way of living would not be perceived, 

 if nature furnished us with as plentiful a supply for these wants as for 

 the ordinary wants of a savage; but materials to supply such wants as 

 these are not to be met with everywhere; nature has given us some of 

 them so sparingly, that it requires much industry to collect them; and 

 even those which are collected most readily, are not fit for use till they 

 are improved and manufactured with much art and labour; so that even 

 in these instances, where materials are plentiful, provisions would be 

 scarce, if there were not able heads to contrive, and a number of hands 

 to work. 



But the increase of numbers will be an additional increase of the 

 wants of mankind. Whatever way of life they may be in, the greater 

 their numbers are, the greater plenty of provisions they will have occa- 

 sion for. The same quantity of materials, or the same improvements 

 which would produce plenty if there but few men to consume what is 

 provided, would be too scanty to supply the demands of a multitude. 

 When the wants of mankind, compared with the provisions for supply- 

 ing them were thus increased, it would become not only inconvenient, 

 but inconsistent, too, with their peace and quiet, to continue joint part- 

 ners of all things, as of a common stock belonging equally to all. For 

 when the wants of them all, in such a scarcity of provisions, could not 

 be supplied at once ; when im>re men came at the same time to have 

 occasion for the same thing, which could not, however, answer the pur- 

 poses of more than one of them ; in such a state of community, where 

 each has the same claim to what all of them want, and but one of them 

 can enjoy, disputes and quarrels would be endless. 



This inconvenience would become more pressing, if mankind failed 

 in the practice of equity and benevolence towards one another. Few 

 would be willing to labour for the improvement of a common stock, 

 where others are to enjoy in common with themselves the produce of 

 their contrivance and industry; and few, even of them, who were least 

 able or least inclined to work, would be willing to take up with the rude 

 and uncultivated supplies of nature, or be contented to use and enjoy 

 nothing but what they had cultivated and improved themselves. Thus, 

 on the one hand, the want of such benevolence as might incline us to 

 labour for the good of the species, and on the other hand, the want of 

 such equity as might dispose us to be satisfied with fruits of our own 



