Chapter 5
Of Property
§. 24. Whether we consider natural reason, which tells us that men, being once
born, have a right to their preservation, and consequently to meat and drink
and such other things as Nature affords for their subsistence, or
"revelation," which gives us an account of those grants God made of
the world to Adam, and to Noah and his sons, it is very clear that God, as King
David says (Psalm 115. 16), "has given the earth to the children of
men," given it to mankind in common. But, this being supposed, it seems to
some a very great difficulty how any one should ever come to have a property in
anything, I will not content myself to answer, that, if it be difficult to make
out "property" upon a supposition that God gave the world to Adam and
his posterity in common, it is impossible that any man but one universal
monarch should have any "property" upon a supposition that God gave
the world to Adam and his heirs in succession, exclusive of all the rest of his
posterity; but I shall endeavour to show how men might come to have a property
in several parts of that which God gave to mankind in common, and that without
any express compact of all the commoners.
§. 25. God, who hath given the world to men in common, hath also given them
reason to make use of it to the best advantage of life and convenience. The
earth and all that is therein is given to men for the support and comfort of
their being. And though all the fruits it naturally produces, and beasts it
feeds, belong to mankind in common, as they are produced by the spontaneous
hand of Nature, and nobody has originally a private dominion exclusive of the
rest of mankind in any of them, as they are thus in their natural state, yet
being given for the use of men, there must of necessity be a means to
appropriate them some way or other before they can be of any use, or at all
beneficial, to any particular men. The fruit or venison which nourishes the
wild Indian, who knows no enclosure, and is still a tenant in common, must be
his, and so his — i.e., a part of him, that another can no longer have any
right to it before it can do him any good for the support of his life.
§. 26. Though the earth and all inferior creatures be common to all men, yet
every man has a "property" in his own "person." This nobody
has any right to but himself. The "labour" of his body and the
"work" of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever, then,
he removes out of the state that Nature hath provided and left it in, he hath
mixed his labour with it, and joined to it something that is his own, and
thereby makes it his property. It being by him removed from the common state
Nature placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it that
excludes the common right of other men. For this "labour" being the
unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what
that is once joined to, at least where there is enough, and as good left in
common for others.
§. 27. He that is nourished by the acorns he picked up under an oak, or the
apples he gathered from the trees in the wood, has certainly appropriated them
to himself. Nobody can deny but the nourishment is his. I ask, then, when did
they begin to be his? when he digested? or when he ate? or when he boiled? or
when he brought them home? or when he picked them up? And it is plain, if the
first gathering made them not his, nothing else could. That labour put a
distinction between them and common. That added something to them more than
Nature, the common mother of all, had done, and so they became his private
right. And will any one say he had no right to those acorns or apples he thus
appropriated because he had not the consent of all mankind to make them his?
Was it a robbery thus to assume to himself what belonged to all in common? If
such a consent as that was necessary, man had starved, notwithstanding the
plenty God had given him. We see in commons, which remain so by compact, that
it is the taking any part of what is common, and removing it out of the state
Nature leaves it in, which begins the property, without which the common is of
no use. And the taking of this or that part does not depend on the express
consent of all the commoners. Thus, the grass my horse has bit, the turfs my
servant has cut, and the ore I have digged in any place, where I have a right
to them in common with others, become my property without the assignation or
consent of anybody. The labour that was mine, removing them out of that common
state they were in, hath fixed my property in them.
§. 28. By making an explicit consent of every commoner necessary to any one's
appropriating to himself any part of what is given in common. Children or
servants could not cut the meat which their father or master had provided for
them in common without assigning to every one his peculiar part. Though the
water running in the fountain be every one's, yet who can doubt but that in the
pitcher is his only who drew it out? His labour hath taken it out of the hands
of Nature where it was common, and belonged equally to all her children, and
hath thereby appropriated it to himself.
§. 29. Thus this law of reason makes the deer that Indian's who hath killed
it; it is allowed to be his goods who hath bestowed his labour upon it, though,
before, it was the common right of every one. And amongst those who are counted
the civilised part of mankind, who have made and multiplied positive laws to
determine property, this original law of Nature for the beginning of property,
in what was before common, still takes place, and by virtue thereof, what fish
any one catches in the ocean, that great and still remaining common of mankind;
or what amber-gris any one takes up here is by the labour that removes it out
of that common state Nature left it in, made his property who takes that pains
about it. And even amongst us, the hare that any one is hunting is thought his
who pursues her during the chase. For being a beast that is still looked upon
as common, and no man's private possession, whoever has employed so much labour
about any of that kind as to find and pursue her has thereby removed her from
the state of Nature wherein she was common, and hath begun a property.
§. 30. It will, perhaps, be objected to this, that if gathering the acorns or
other fruits of the earth, etc., makes a right to them, then any one may
engross as much as he will. To which I answer, Not so. The same law of Nature
that does by this means give us property, does also bound that property too.
"God has given us all things richly." Is the voice of reason
confirmed by inspiration? But how far has He given it us — "to
enjoy"? As much as any one can make use of to any advantage of life before
it spoils, so much he may by his labour fix a property in. Whatever is beyond
this is more than his share, and belongs to others. Nothing was made by God for
man to spoil or destroy. And thus considering the plenty of natural provisions
there was a long time in the world, and the few spenders, and to how small a
part of that provision the industry of one man could extend itself and engross
it to the prejudice of others, especially keeping within the bounds set by
reason of what might serve for his use, there could be then little room for
quarrels or contentions about property so established.
§. 31. But the chief matter of property being now not the fruits of the earth
and the beasts that subsist on it, but the earth itself, as that which takes in
and carries with it all the rest, I think it is plain that property in that too
is acquired as the former. As much land as a man tills, plants, improves,
cultivates, and can use the product of, so much is his property. He by his
labour does, as it were, enclose it from the common. Nor will it invalidate his
right to say everybody else has an equal title to it, and therefore he cannot
appropriate, he cannot enclose, without the consent of all his
fellow-commoners, all mankind. God, when He gave the world in common to all
mankind, commanded man also to labour, and the penury of his condition required
it of him. God and his reason commanded him to subdue the earth — i.e.,
improve it for the benefit of life and therein lay out something upon it that
was his own, his labour. He that, in obedience to this command of God, subdued,
tilled, and sowed any part of it, thereby annexed to it something that was his
property, which another had no title to, nor could without injury take from
him.
§. 32. Nor was this appropriation of any parcel of land, by improving it, any
prejudice to any other man, since there was still enough and as good left, and
more than the yet unprovided could use. So that, in effect, there was never the
less left for others because of his enclosure for himself. For he that leaves
as much as another can make use of does as good as take nothing at all. Nobody
could think himself injured by the drinking of another man, though he took a
good draught, who had a whole river of the same water left him to quench his
thirst. And the case of land and water, where there is enough of both, is
perfectly the same.
§. 33. God gave the world to men in common, but since He gave it them for
their benefit and the greatest conveniencies of life they were capable to draw
from it, it cannot be supposed He meant it should always remain common and
uncultivated. He gave it to the use of the industrious and rational (and labour
was to be his title to it); not to the fancy or covetousness of the quarrelsome
and contentious. He that had as good left for his improvement as was already
taken up needed not complain, ought not to meddle with what was already
improved by another's labour; if he did it is plain he desired the benefit of
another's pains, which he had no right to, and not the ground which God had
given him, in common with others, to labour on, and whereof there was as good
left as that already possessed, and more than he knew what to do with, or his
industry could reach to.
§. 34. It is true, in land that is common in England or any other country,
where there are plenty of people under government who have money and commerce,
no one can enclose or appropriate any part without the consent of all his
fellow-commoners; because this is left common by compact — i.e., by the
law of the land, which is not to be violated. And, though it be common in
respect of some men, it is not so to all mankind, but is the joint propriety of
this country, or this parish. Besides, the remainder, after such enclosure,
would not be as good to the rest of the commoners as the whole was, when they
could all make use of the whole; whereas in the beginning and first peopling of
the great common of the world it was quite otherwise. The law man was under was
rather for appropriating. God commanded, and his wants forced him to labour.
That was his property, which could not be taken from him wherever he had fixed
it. And hence subduing or cultivating the earth and having dominion, we see,
are joined together. The one gave title to the other. So that God, by
commanding to subdue, gave authority so far to appropriate. And the condition
of human life, which requires labour and materials to work on, necessarily
introduce private possessions.
§. 35. The measure of property Nature well set, by the extent of men's labour
and the conveniency of life. No man's labour could subdue or appropriate all,
nor could his enjoyment consume more than a small part; so that it was
impossible for any man, this way, to entrench upon the right of another or
acquire to himself a property to the prejudice of his neighbour, who would
still have room for as good and as large a possession (after the other had
taken out his) as before it was appropriated. Which measure did confine every
man's possession to a very moderate proportion, and such as he might
appropriate to himself without injury to anybody in the first ages of the
world, when men were more in danger to be lost, by wandering from their
company, in the then vast wilderness of the earth than to be straitened for
want of room to plant in.
§. 36. The same measure may be allowed still, without prejudice to anybody,
full as the world seems. For, supposing a man or family, in the state they were
at first, peopling of the world by the children of Adam or Noah, let him plant
in some inland vacant places of America. We shall find that the possessions he
could make himself, upon the measures we have given, would not be very large,
nor, even to this day, prejudice the rest of mankind or give them reason to
complain or think themselves injured by this man's encroachment, though the
race of men have now spread themselves to all the corners of the world, and do
infinitely exceed the small number was at the beginning. Nay, the extent of
ground is of so little value without labour that I have heard it affirmed that
in Spain itself a man may be permitted to plough, sow, and reap, without being
disturbed, upon land he has no other title to, but only his making use of it.
But, on the contrary, the inhabitants think themselves beholden to him who, by
his industry on neglected, and consequently waste land, has increased the stock
of corn, which they wanted. But be this as it will, which I lay no stress on,
this I dare boldly affirm, that the same rule of propriety — viz., that
every man should have as much as he could make use of, would hold still in the
world, without straitening anybody, since there is land enough in the world to
suffice double the inhabitants, had not the invention of money, and the tacit
agreement of men to put a value on it, introduced (by consent) larger
possessions and a right to them; which, how it has done, I shall by and by show
more at large.
§. 37. This is certain, that in the beginning, before the desire of having
more than men needed had altered the intrinsic value of things, which depends
only on their usefulness to the life of man, or had agreed that a little piece
of yellow metal, which would keep without wasting or decay, should be worth a
great piece of flesh or a whole heap of corn, though men had a right to
appropriate by their labour, each one to himself, as much of the things of
Nature as he could use, yet this could not be much, nor to the prejudice of
others, where the same plenty was still left, to those who would use the same
industry.
Before the appropriation of land, he who gathered as much of the wild
fruit, killed, caught, or tamed as many of the beasts as he could — he
that so employed his pains about any of the spontaneous products of Nature as
any way to alter them from the state Nature put them in, by placing any of his
labour on them, did thereby acquire a propriety in them; but if they perished
in his possession without their due use — if the fruits rotted or the
venison putrefied before he could spend it, he offended against the common law
of Nature, and was liable to be punished: he invaded his neighbour's share, for
he had no right farther than his use called for any of them, and they might
serve to afford him conveniencies of life.
§. 38. The same measures governed the possession of land, too. Whatsoever he
tilled and reaped, laid up and made use of before it spoiled, that was his
peculiar right; whatsoever he enclosed, and could feed and make use of, the
cattle and product was also his. But if either the grass of his enclosure
rotted on the ground, or the fruit of his planting perished without gathering
and laying up, this part of the earth, notwithstanding his enclosure, was still
to be looked on as waste, and might be the possession of any other. Thus, at
the beginning, Cain might take as much ground as he could till and make it his
own land, and yet leave enough to Abel's sheep to feed on: a few acres would
serve for both their possessions. But as families increased and industry
enlarged their stocks, their possessions enlarged with the need of them; but
yet it was commonly without any fixed property in the ground they made use of
till they incorporated, settled themselves together, and built cities, and
then, by consent, they came in time to set out the bounds of their distinct
territories and agree on limits between them and their neighbours, and by laws
within themselves settled the properties of those of the same society. For we
see that in that part of the world which was first inhabited, and therefore
like to be best peopled, even as low down as Abraham's time, they wandered with
their flocks and their herds, which was their substance, freely up and down
— and this Abraham did in a country where he was a stranger; whence it is
plain that, at least, a great part of the land lay in common, that the
inhabitants valued it not, nor claimed property in any more than they made use
of; but when there was not room enough in the same place for their herds to
feed together, they, by consent, as Abraham and Lot did (Gen. xiii. 5),
separated and enlarged their pasture where it best liked them. And for the same
reason, Esau went from his father and his brother, and planted in Mount Seir
(Gen. 36. 6).
§. 39. And thus, without supposing any private dominion and property in Adam
over all the world, exclusive of all other men, which can no way be proved, nor
any one's property be made out from it, but supposing the world, given as it
was to the children of men in common, we see how labour could make men distinct
titles to several parcels of it for their private uses, wherein there could be
no doubt of right, no room for quarrel.
§. 40. Nor is it so strange as, perhaps, before consideration, it may appear,
that the property of labour should be able to overbalance the community of
land, for it is labour indeed that puts the difference of value on everything;
and let any one consider what the difference is between an acre of land planted
with tobacco or sugar, sown with wheat or barley, and an acre of the same land
lying in common without any husbandry upon it, and he will find that the
improvement of labour makes the far greater part of the value. I think it will
be but a very modest computation to say, that of the products of the earth
useful to the life of man, nine-tenths are the effects of labour. Nay, if we
will rightly estimate things as they come to our use, and cast up the several
expenses about them — what in them is purely owing to Nature and what to
labour — we shall find that in most of them ninety-nine hundredths are
wholly to be put on the account of labour.
§. 41. There cannot be a clearer demonstration of anything than several
nations of the Americans are of this, who are rich in land and poor in all the
comforts of life; whom Nature, having furnished as liberally as any other
people with the materials of plenty — i.e., a fruitful soil, apt to
produce in abundance what might serve for food, raiment, and delight; yet, for
want of improving it by labour, have not one hundredth part of the
conveniencies we enjoy, and a king of a large and fruitful territory there
feeds, lodges, and is clad worse than a day labourer in England.
§. 42. To make this a little clearer, let us but trace some of the ordinary
provisions of life, through their several progresses, before they come to our
use, and see how much they receive of their value from human industry. Bread,
wine, and cloth are things of daily use and great plenty; yet notwithstanding
acorns, water, and leaves, or skins must be our bread, drink and clothing, did
not labour furnish us with these more useful commodities. For whatever bread is
more worth than acorns, wine than water, and cloth or silk than leaves, skins
or moss, that is wholly owing to labour and industry. The one of these being
the food and raiment which unassisted Nature furnishes us with; the other
provisions which our industry and pains prepare for us, which how much they
exceed the other in value, when any one hath computed, he will then see how
much labour makes the far greatest part of the value of things we enjoy in this
world; and the ground which produces the materials is scarce to be reckoned in
as any, or at most, but a very small part of it; so little, that even amongst
us, land that is left wholly to nature, that hath no improvement of pasturage,
tillage, or planting, is called, as indeed it is, waste; and we shall find the
benefit of it amount to little more than nothing.
§. 43. An acre of land that bears here twenty bushels of wheat, and another in
America, which, with the same husbandry, would do the like, are, without doubt,
of the same natural, intrinsic value. But yet the benefit mankind receives from
one in a year is worth five pounds, and the other possibly not worth a penny;
if all the profit an Indian received from it were to be valued and sold here,
at least I may truly say, not one thousandth. It is labour, then, which puts
the greatest part of value upon land, without which it would scarcely be worth
anything; it is to that we owe the greatest part of all its useful products;
for all that the straw, bran, bread, of that acre of wheat, is more worth than
the product of an acre of as good land which lies waste is all the effect of
labour. For it is not barely the ploughman's pains, the reaper's and thresher's
toil, and the baker's sweat, is to be counted into the bread we eat; the labour
of those who broke the oxen, who digged and wrought the iron and stones, who
felled and framed the timber employed about the plough, mill, oven, or any
other utensils, which are a vast number, requisite to this corn, from its
sowing to its being made bread, must all be charged on the account of labour,
and received as an effect of that; Nature and the earth furnished only the
almost worthless materials as in themselves. It would be a strange catalogue of
things that industry provided and made use of about every loaf of bread before
it came to our use if we could trace them; iron, wood, leather, bark, timber,
stone, bricks, coals, lime, cloth, dyeing-drugs, pitch, tar, masts, ropes, and
all the materials made use of in the ship that brought any of the commodities
made use of by any of the workmen, to any part of the work, all which it would
be almost impossible, at least too long, to reckon up.
§. 44. From all which it is evident, that though the things of Nature are
given in common, man (by being master of himself, and proprietor of his own
person, and the actions or labour of it) had still in himself the great
foundation of property; and that which made up the great part of what he
applied to the support or comfort of his being, when invention and arts had
improved the conveniences of life, was perfectly his own, and did not belong in
common to others.
§. 45. Thus labour, in the beginning, gave a right of property, wherever any
one was pleased to employ it, upon what was common, which remained a long
while, the far greater part, and is yet more than mankind makes use of Men at
first, for the most part, contented themselves with what unassisted Nature
offered to their necessities; and though afterwards, in some parts of the
world, where the increase of people and stock, with the use of money, had made
land scarce, and so of some value, the several communities settled the bounds
of their distinct territories, and, by laws, within themselves, regulated the
properties of the private men of their society, and so, by compact and
agreement, settled the property which labour and industry began. And the
leagues that have been made between several states and kingdoms, either
expressly or tacitly disowning all claim and right to the land in the other's
possession, have, by common consent, given up their pretences to their natural
common right, which originally they had to those countries; and so have, by
positive agreement, settled a property amongst themselves, in distinct parts of
the world; yet there are still great tracts of ground to be found, which the
inhabitants thereof, not having joined with the rest of mankind in the consent
of the use of their common money, lie waste, and are more than the people who
dwell on it, do, or can make use of, and so still lie in common; though this
can scarce happen amongst that part of mankind that have consented to the use
of money.
§. 46. The greatest part of things really useful to the life of man, and such
as the necessity of subsisting made the first commoners of the world look after
— as it doth the Americans now — are generally things of short
duration, such as — if they are not consumed by use — will decay and
perish of themselves. Gold, silver, and diamonds are things that fancy or
agreement hath put the value on, more than real use and the necessary support
of life. Now of those good things which Nature hath provided in common, every
one hath a right (as hath been said) to as much as he could use; and had a
property in all he could effect with his labour; all that his industry could
extend to, to alter from the state Nature had put it in, was his. He that
gathered a hundred bushels of acorns or apples had thereby a property in them;
they were his goods as soon as gathered. He was only to look that he used them
before they spoiled, else he took more than his share, and robbed others. And,
indeed, it was a foolish thing, as well as dishonest, to hoard up more than he
could make use of If he gave away a part to anybody else, so that it perished
not uselessly in his possession, these he also made use of And if he also
bartered away plums that would have rotted in a week, for nuts that would last
good for his eating a whole year, he did no injury; he wasted not the common
stock; destroyed no part of the portion of goods that belonged to others, so
long as nothing perished uselessly in his hands. Again, if he would give his
nuts for a piece of metal, pleased with its colour, or exchange his sheep for
shells, or wool for a sparkling pebble or a diamond, and keep those by him all
his life, he invaded not the right of others; he might heap up as much of these
durable things as he pleased; the exceeding of the bounds of his just property
not lying in the largeness of his possession, but the perishing of anything
uselessly in it.
§. 47. And thus came in the use of money; some lasting thing that men might
keep without spoiling, and that, by mutual consent, men would take in exchange
for the truly useful but perishable supports of life.
§. 48. And as different degrees of industry were apt to give men possessions
in different proportions, so this invention of money gave them the opportunity
to continue and enlarge them. For supposing an island, separate from all
possible commerce with the rest of the world, wherein there were but a hundred
families, but there were sheep, horses, and cows, with other useful animals,
wholesome fruits, and land enough for corn for a hundred thousand times as
many, but nothing in the island, either because of its commonness or
perishableness, fit to supply the place of money. What reason could any one
have there to enlarge his possessions beyond the use of his family, and a
plentiful supply to its consumption, either in what their own industry
produced, or they could barter for like perishable, useful commodities with
others? Where there is not something both lasting and scarce, and so valuable
to be hoarded up, there men will not be apt to enlarge their possessions of
land, were it never so rich, never so free for them to take. For I ask, what
would a man value ten thousand or an hundred thousand acres of excellent land,
ready cultivated and well stocked, too, with cattle, in the middle of the
inland parts of America, where he had no hopes of commerce with other parts of
the world, to draw money to him by the sale of the product? It would not be
worth the enclosing, and we should see him give up again to the wild common of
Nature whatever was more than would supply the conveniences of life, to be had
there for him and his family.
§. 49. Thus, in the beginning, all the world was America, and more so than
that is now; for no such thing as money was anywhere known. Find out something
that hath the use and value of money amongst his neighbours, you shall see the
same man will begin presently to enlarge his possessions.
§. 50. But, since gold and silver, being little useful to the life of man, in
proportion to food, raiment, and carriage, has its value only from the consent
of men — whereof labour yet makes in great part the measure — it is
plain that the consent of men have agreed to a disproportionate and unequal
possession of the earth — I mean out of the bounds of society and compact;
for in governments the laws regulate it; they having, by consent, found out and
agreed in a way how a man may, rightfully and without injury, possess more than
he himself can make use of by receiving gold and silver, which may continue
long in a man's possession without decaying for the overplus, and agreeing
those metals should have a value.
§. 51. And thus, I think, it is very easy to conceive, without any difficulty,
how labour could at first begin a title of property in the common things of
Nature, and how the spending it upon our uses bounded it; so that there could
then be no reason of quarrelling about title, nor any doubt about the largeness
of possession it gave. Right and conveniency went together. For as a man had a
right to all he could employ his labour upon, so he had no temptation to labour
for more than he could make use of. This left no room for controversy about the
title, nor for encroachment on the right of others. What portion a man carved
to himself was easily seen; and it was useless, as well as dishonest, to carve
himself too much, or take more than he needed.