CITATIONS FROM WRITINGS OF JURISTS AND ECONOMISTS. 617 



agreed to the introduction of property for the convenience of all, and 

 not for the destruction of any. And since the claim which the pro- 

 prietor of a thing has to it depends upon the consent of mankind, this 

 claim must be subject to all the limitations which they designed to lay it 

 under, and can extend no farther than they designed it should extend. 



We may urge in support of the same right of extreme necessity that 

 no compact, either express or tacit, could so introduce property as to be 

 binding without such a limitation. For since the right which a man 

 has to his life is unalienable, as will appear hereafter, he cannot alienate 

 the natural right which he has to the necessary means of his own pres- 

 ervation. However, therefore, mankind may have consented that par- 

 ticular things should be possessed in property by particular persons; 

 yet in whatever respect such things become absolutely necessary for 

 the preservation of individuals, they still continue in common. So that 

 extreme necessity sets property aside, or makes it lawful for persons 

 who labor under such necessity, to use those things in which others 

 have property as if the things were still in common. Thus, where a 

 man must have starved otherwise, it is naturally no theft if lie takes 

 victuals which is not his own; because, though the owner of what is 

 so taken has. in respect of all other men, an exclusive right m it, he 

 has no such right iu respect of the necessitous person. You may say. 

 indeed, that it is not the property of the poor man who takes it; which 

 we readily allow. But then, we contend that, in respect of him, it is 

 not the property of the person from whom he takes it. If it was you 

 might easily prove this act to be theft unless the owner consented 

 to his taking it; because theft consists in taking away the property of 

 another without his consent. But you should observe that where there 

 is no property there can be no theft. And if, in order to prove the poor 

 man's act to be theft you will assume that the person from whom the 

 thing is taken has property in it, you either take the matter in question 

 for granted, or else you are guilty of a fallacy. If. when you assume 

 that the person from whom the thing is taken lias property in it, you 

 mean that he has property in respect of the poor man: or that, as the 

 owner has a right to exclude all others from the use of the filing, so he 

 has likewise the same right to exclude him. you take the matter in 

 question for granted. But if when you assume this in general, you 

 mean only that he has property in respect of all others, you are guilty 

 of a fallacy: you have more in your conclusion than is contained iu 

 your premises; you assume only that he has property in respect of 

 some, and conclude, as if he had property in respect of all. 



To this head we may likewise refer the right, which we have in case 

 of lire, to pull down our neighbor's house in order to preserve our own; 

 the right which we have to cut the nets or cables of another man when 

 our own boat is entangled with them, and must otherwise sink; the 

 obligation on ship-board which each person is under, in a scarcity of 

 provisions, to bring out his own stock and to leave it in common; the 

 right which, in a storm, all who are on board have to demand that each 

 person shall throw so many of his goods into the sea as would over- 

 burden the ship; and lastly, the right which a nation at war has to 

 seize upon and. garrison a place of strength in a neutral country, when 

 it is morally certain that the enemy would otherwise get possession of 

 it. and by that means be enabled to do them irreparable damage. For 

 though, in some of these instances, the preservation of life may seem 

 not to be immediately concerned, yet, at least the reason upon which 

 Grotius supports the right of extreme necessity is applicable to all of 

 them. It is not probable that mankind when they consented to intro- 



