§. 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.
