§. 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.
