372 NATURAL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS YIII 



tion." By the sacramental operation of these 

 half-dozen taps, that which previously was the 

 common property of all men has now become 

 several property vested " by natural law " abso- 

 lutely in one man. 



With the gradual improvement of the art of 

 flint chipping, the implement advanced from the 

 rough, hardly modified, natural nodule to the 

 exquisitely symmetrical and delicate axe, or spear, 

 or arrow head, of a subsequent epoch, or to the 

 still more finished ground axes of yet later date. 

 The quantity of labour invested in each imple- 

 ment, therefore, steadily increased, as time went 

 on, in proportion to the quantity of the raw flint. 

 But the latter was always there. The assertion 

 that the most perfected and artificial of these 

 implements is "brought into being by human 

 exertion," becomes a gross error if it leads us to 

 forget that, without the peculiar physical proper- 

 ties of the flint, which are emphatically "the 

 gratuitous offering of nature," any amount of 

 human exertion would be thrown away. 



What is true in this extremely simple case, is 

 true of everything which is said to be produced by 

 human industry. In all such things there is 

 something a bundle of natural qualities and 

 powers whit-h exists irrespective of human exer- 

 tion and something, a shaping and modification 

 of the bundle, which is the effect of human 

 exertion. It is only the relative proportion of the 



