618 CITATIONS FROM WRITINGS OF JURISTS AND ECONOMISTS. 



duce property, should design to extend that claim to cases wherein 

 such an exclusive right would force them to sutler what is beyond the 

 ordinary patience of human nature. 



Pttffendorf, Private Property springs from the Interest of Peace and 

 Civilization, Bk. IV, ch. iv, sec. 14, p. 377, London, 1749. (English 



trans.) 



Inasmuch as a social life is the very foundation of a natural law, and 

 since it is at the same time sufficiently evident from the temper and 

 genius of mankind that in a great multitude where all join their 

 endeavors towards improving life with various inventions, the peace 

 and beauty of society could not be kept up without distinct dominions 

 of things, such dominions were therefore settled and this very rightly 

 and agreeably to the aim of nature's laws, human affairs plainly requir- 

 ing it to be done. 



• Ibid., Bk. IV. ch. v, p. 378. 



We are in the next place to inquire into the object of property, or to 

 examine what things are capable of coming under that condition. Now 

 to give a thing this capacity we judge these two qualifications to be 

 necessary. 



First. That it be able to afford some use to men mediately or imme- 

 diately; by itself or by its connection with somewhat else: and 



Secondly. That it be someway or other so far under the power of men, 

 as that they may take possession of it and keep it for their occasions. 

 And further, since property implies a right of excluding others from 

 your possession, without which right would be altogether insignificant 

 if it could not be effectually exercised ; it would be in vain for you to 

 claim that as your own which you can by no means hinder others from 

 sharing with you. 



II. Yet some things there are which though very beneficial to man- 

 kind, yet by reason of their vast extent are inexhaustible, so that all 

 may enjoy them together and yet no man suffer in his particular use. 

 To appropriate things of this nature would be malicious and inhuman; 

 and on this account it is usual to attribute an exemption from property 

 to the light and heat of the sun, to the air, to running water, and the 

 like, 



Page 379. 



III. We are likewise to observe that as the substances of those things 

 which men have dominion over, are composed of different kinds of 

 matter, so each thing is taken and possessed in that way which the 

 condition of its nature admits. For the more closely anything can be 

 confined and as it were shut up, the more easily will it produce the 

 effects of property against the claims of others; and consequently the 

 more capable a thing is of being guarded from unjust invaders, the 

 greater security we promise ourselves in the property of it. Yet, as we 

 are not immediately to conclude a thing exempt from property because 

 it cannot, without some trouble be kept from other hands, so, in case 

 a thing be in so wide a manner spread and diffused as that either it is 

 morally impossible it should fall under any method of keeping, or that 

 it cannot be kept without much greater charges than the fruits and 

 advantages of it would countervail, it is not to be supposed that any 



