earth[1]." This is the only true and ſolid foundation of man's dominion over external things, whatever airy metaphyſical notions may have been ſtarted by fanciful writers upon this ſubject. The earth therefore, and all things therein, are the general property of all mankind, excluſive of other beings, from the immediate gift of the creator. And, while the earth continued bare of inhabitants, it is reaſonable to ſuppoſe, that all was in common among them, and that every one took from the public ſtock to his own uſe ſuch things as his immediate neceſſities required.
These general notions of property were then ſufficient to anſwer all the purpoſes of human life; and might perhaps ſtill have anſwered them, had it been poſſible for mankind to have remained in a ſtate of primaeval ſimplicity: as may be collected from the manners of many American nations when firſt diſcovered by the Europeans; and from the antient method of living among the firſt Europeans themſelves, if we may credit either the memorials of them preſerved in the golden age of the poets, or the uniform accounts given by hiſtorians of thoſe times, wherein "erant omnia communia et indiviſa omnibus, veluti unum cunctis patrimonium eſſet[2]." Not that this communion of goods ſeems ever to have been applicable, even in the earlieſt ages, to ought but the ſubſtance of the thing; nor could be extended to the uſe of it. For, by the law of nature and reaſon, he who firſt began to uſe it, acquired therein a kind of tranſient property, that laſted ſo long as he was uſing it, and no longer[3]: or, to ſpeak with greater preciſion, the right of poſſeſſion continued for the ſame time only that the act of poſſeſſion laſted. Thus the ground was in common, and no part of it was the permanent property of any man in particular: yet whoever was in the occupation of any determinate ſpot of it, for reſt, for ſhade, or the like, acquired for the time a ſort of ownerſhip, from which it would have been unjuſt, and contrary to the law of nature, to have driven him by force; but the inſtant that he quitted the uſe or occupation of it,
