has providence interwoven our duty and our happineſs together) the reſult of this very neceſſity has been the enobling of the human ſpecies, by giving it opportunities of improving it's rational faculties, as well as of exerting it's natural. Neceſſity begat property; and, in order to inſure that property, recourſe was had to civil ſociety, which brought along with it a long train of inſeparable concomitants; ſtates, government, laws, puniſhments and the public exerciſe of religious duties. Thus connected together, it was found that a part only of ſociety was ſufficient to provide, by their manual labour, for the neceſſary ſubſiſtence of all; and leiſure was given to others to cultivate the human mind, to invent uſeful arts, and to lay the foundations of ſcience.
The only queſtion remaining is, how this property became actually veſted; or what it is that gave a man an excluſive right to retain in a permanent manner that ſpecific land, which before belonged generally to every body, but particularly to nobody. And, as we before obſerved that occupancy gave the right to the temporary uſe of the ſoil, ſo it is agreed upon all hands that occupancy gave alſo the original right to the permanent property in the ſubſtance of the earth itſelf; which excludes every one elſe but the owner from the uſe of it. There is indeed ſome difference among the writers on natural law, concerning the reaſon why occupancy ſhould convey this right, and inveſt one with this abſolute property: Grotius and Puffendorf inſiſting, that this right of occupancy is founded upon a tacit and implied aſſent of all mankind, that the firſt occupant ſhould become the owner; and Barbeyrac, Titius, Mr Locke, and others, holding, that there is no ſuch implied aſſent, neither is it neceſſary that there ſhould be; for that the very act of occupancy, alone, being a degree of bodily labour, is from a principle of natural juſtice, without any conſent or compact, ſufficient of itſelf to gain a title. A diſpute that favours too much of nice and ſcholaſtic refinement! However, both ſides agree in this, that occupancy is the thing by which the title was in fact originally gained; every man ſeiſing to his own continued uſe ſuch ſpots of ground as he found moſt
