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A RISTO CRA C Y AND E VOL UTION 



Book IV 

 Chapter 2 



The dart of a 

 savage hunter, 



the manure 

 heap or cart 

 horse of a 

 peasant, 



kindred purposes. Now let us imagine a race of 

 savages who use no missiles at all, but catch their 

 game merely by sleight of hand. If a man is 

 entitled to such game as he catches, the excep- 

 tionally dexterous hunter who catches most will be 

 necessarily the rightful possessor of more game 

 than his fellows. This will be granted by those 

 who admit that work constitutes a true, and the 

 only true title to possession. 



Such being the case, then, let us alter our sup- 

 position somewhat, and suppose that the hunters, 

 instead of catching the game with their hands, kill 

 it with wooden darts ; and that the amount of game 

 which each hunter will secure in a day depends not 

 on the skill with which the darts are thrown, but 

 on the skill with which the darts are made. Under 

 these circumstances, the hunter who secures most 

 will not be the man who is quickest in seizing the 

 quarry with his hands, but the man who makes the 

 darts that will reach their mark most certainly ; and 

 yet no one would say that he was less entitled to 

 what he took, because his exceptional skill, before 

 it could become effectual, was obliged to become 

 embodied in some object external to himself. 



In the same way, if two peasants are cultivating 

 similar fields, and one, by sheer hard work, raises 

 a larger crop than the other, his right to his larger 

 crop would not be denied by anybody. Let us 

 suppose, then, that instead of working harder than 

 his neighbour he works more intelligently, that he 

 saves and stores up as manure materials which his 



