VII OX THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MK\ .SI." 



logical consistency than some of those who have 

 come after him, puts the land and its produce upon 

 the same footing. " Vous etes perdus si vous 

 oubliez que les fruits sont a tous, et que la terre 

 n'est a personne," says he. 1 



From Rousseau's point of view (and, for 1 1n- 

 present, I leave any other aside), this is, in fact, 

 the only rational conclusion from the premisses. 

 The attempt to draw a distinction between land, 

 as a limited commodity, and other things as un- 

 limited, is an obvious fallacy. For, according to 

 him, 2 the total habitable surface of the earth is the 

 property of the whole human race in common. 

 Undoubtedly, the habitable and cultivable land 

 amounts to a definite number of square miles, 

 which, by no effort of human ingenuity, at present 

 known or suspected, can be sensibly increased be- 

 yond the area of that part of the globe which is not 

 covered by water ; and therefore its quantity is 

 limited. But if the land is limited, so is the quan- 

 tity of the trees that will grow on it ; of the cattle 

 that can be pastured on it ; of the crops that can 

 be raised from it ; of the minerals that can be dug 

 from it ; of the wind and of the water-power, 

 afforded by the limited streams which flow from 

 the limited heights. And, if the human race were 

 to go on increasing in number at its present rate, 

 a time would come when there would not be stand- 



[ l "\Vhich may be Englished, in brief, " Crops are everybody's 

 and land is nobody's."] 



* As to Hobbes, but on different grounds. 



