viii NATURAL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS 371 



becomes a glaring fallacy the moment it is re- 

 garded as a scientific statement from which the 

 most serious practical consequences are deducible. 

 Can anything whatever, in strict truth, be said to 

 be " brought into being by human exertion " ? 

 Let us consider one of the earliest and simplest 

 products of human industry, a flint implement. 

 Probably, its earliest condition was a natural flint 

 nodule, such as one may find on any chalk down, 

 rounded at one end, roughly sharp at the other, 

 and thus convenient to the hand of the savage 

 who picked it up. Now did he thus acquire any 

 right of property in his find or not ? He cer- 

 tainly spent no labour upon it, beyond that of 

 taking possession. It was emphatically " a gra- 

 tuitous offering of Nature," just as much as the 

 land on which it lay. The existence or the 

 non-existence of flints, their increase or diminu- 

 tion, nowise depends on man ; they exist irrespect- 

 ively of him, their quantity is strictly limited, and 

 no man, by taking thought, can add a flint to 

 those which already exist. If taking possession 

 could give a title to the one thing, why not to the 

 other ? But suppose it did not. Let it occur to 

 our forefather that a few knocks with another 

 stone would chip the thin end of his flint to a 

 sharper edge and make it a handier tool or weapon. 

 Let him give those half-dozen blows ; then, for- 

 sooth, it " embodies labour " and may be said to 

 have been " brought into being by human exer- 



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