CITATIONS FROM WRITINGS OF JURISTS AND ECONOMISTS. 623 



dwellings, especially for the protection of their young; that the birds 

 of the air had nests, and the beasts of the field had caverns, the inva- 

 sion of which they esteemed a very flagrant injustice, and would sacri- 

 fice their lives to preserve them. Hence a property was soon established 

 in every man's house and homestall; which seem to have been originally 

 mere temporary huts or movable cabins, suited to the design of Provi- 

 dence for more speedily peopling the earth, and suited to the wander- 

 ing life of their owners, before any extensive property in the soil or 

 ground was established. And there can be no doubt but that mova- 

 bles of every kind became sooner appropriated than the permanent 

 substantial soil; partly because they were more susceptible of a long 

 occupancy, which might be continued for months together without any 

 sensible interruption, and at length by usage ripen into an established 

 right; but principally because few of them could be fit for use till 

 improved and meliorated by the bodily labour of the occupant; which 

 bodily labour, bestowed upon any subject which before lay in common to 

 all men, is universally allowed to strengthen very materially, the title 

 that mere occupancy gives to an exclusive property therein. 



The article of food was a more immediate call, and therefore a more 

 early consideration. Such as were not contented with the spontaneous 

 product of the earth, sought for more solid refreshment in the flesh of 

 beasts, which they obtained by hunting. But the frequent disappoint- 

 ments incident to that method of provision induced them to gather 

 together such animals as were of a more tame and sequacious nature; 

 and to establish a permanent property in their flocks and herds, in 

 order to sustain themselves in a less precarious manner, partly by the 

 milk of the dams, and partly by the flesh of the young. The support 

 of these their cattle made the article of water also a very important 

 point. And therefore the Book of Genesis (the most venerable monu- 

 ment of antiquity, considered merely with a view to history) Mill fur- 

 nish us with frequent instances of violent contentions concerning wells, 

 the exclusive property of which appears to have been established in the 

 first digger or occupant, even in such places where the ground and 

 herbage remained yet in common. Thus we find Abraham, who was 

 but a sojourner, asserting his right to a well in the country of Abimelech 

 and exacting an oath for. his security, "because he had digged that 

 well 1 ". And Isaac, about ninety years afterwards, reclaimed this, his 

 father's property, and after much contention with the Philistines, was 

 suffered to enjoy it in peace 2 . 



All this time the soil and pasture of the earth remained still in com- 

 mon as before, and open to every occupant; except perhaps in the 

 neighbourhood of towns, where the necessity of a sole and exclusive 

 property in lands (for the sake of agriculture) was earlier felt, and 

 therefore more readily complied with. Otherwise, when the multitude 

 of men and cattle had consumed every convenience on one spot of 

 ground, it was deemed a natural right to seize upon and occupy such 

 other lands as would more easily supply their necessities. This prac- 

 tice is still retained among the wild and uncultivated nations that have 

 never been formed into civil states, like the Tartars and others in the 

 east; where the climate itself and the boundless extent of their territory 

 conspire to retain them still in the same savage state of vagrant liberty, 

 which was universal in the earliest ages; and which, Tacitus informs 

 us, continued among the Germans till the decline of the Roman 



'Genesis, xxi, 30. 2 Genesis, xxvi, 15, 18, etc. 



