§. 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.
