Though the water running in the fountain be every one's, yet who can doubt, but that in the pitcher is his only who drew it out? His labour hath taken it out of the hands of nature, where it was common, and belonged equally to all her children, and hath thereby appropriated to himself.
-------------------------
John Locke
Second Treatise of Government
Chapter V - On Property
Section 28-32
Sec. 28. He that is nourished by the acorns he picked up under an oak, or
the apples he gathered from the trees in the wood, has certainly
appropriated them to himself. No body can deny but the nourishment is his. I
ask then, when did they begin to be his? when he digested? or when he eat?
or when he boiled? or when he brought them home? or when he picked them up?
and it is plain, if the first gathering made them not his, nothing else
could. That labour put a distinction between them and common: that added
something to them more than nature, the common mother of all, had done; and
so they became his private right. And will any one say, he had no right to
those acorns or apples, he thus appropriated, because he had not the consent
of all mankind to make them his? Was it a robbery thus to assume to himself
what belonged to all in common? If such a consent as that was necessary, man
had starved, notwithstanding the plenty God had given him. We see in
commons, which remain so by compact, that it is the taking any part of what
is common, and removing it out of the state nature leaves it in, which
begins the property; without which the common is of no use. And the taking
of this or that part, does not depend on the express consent of all the
commoners. Thus the grass my horse has bit; the turfs my servant has cut;
and the ore I have digged in any place, where I have a right to them in
common with others, become my property, without the assignation or consent
of any body. The labour that was mine, removing them out of that common
state they were in, hath fixed my property in them.
Sec. 29. By making an explicit consent of every commoner, necessary to any
one's appropriating to himself any part of what is given in common, children
or servants could not cut the meat, which their father or master had
provided for them in common, without assigning to every one his peculiar
part. Though the water running in the fountain be every one's, yet who can
doubt, but that in the pitcher is his only who drew it out? His labour hath
taken it out of the hands of nature, where it was common, and belonged
equally to all her children, and hath thereby appropriated it to himself.
Sec. 30. Thus this law of reason makes the deer that Indian's who hath
killed it; it is allowed to be his goods, who hath bestowed his labour upon
it, though before it was the common right of every one. And amongst those
who are counted the civilized part of mankind, who have made and multiplied
positive laws to determine property, this original law of nature, for the
beginning of property, in what was before common, still takes place; and by
virtue thereof, what fish any one catches in the ocean, that great and still
remaining common of mankind; or what ambergrise any one takes up here, is by
the labour that removes it out of that common state nature left it in, made
his property, who takes that pains about it. And even amongst us, the hare
that any one is hunting, is thought his who pursues her during the chase:
for being a beast that is still looked upon as common, and no man's private
possession; whoever has employed so much labour about any of that kind, as
to find and pursue her, has thereby removed her from the state of nature,
wherein she was common, and hath begun a property.
Sec. 31. It will perhaps be objected to this, that if gathering the acorns,
or other fruits of the earth, &c. makes a right to them, then any one may
ingross as much as he will. To which I answer, Not so. The same law of
nature, that does by this means give us property, does also bound that
property too. God has given us all things richly, 1 Tim. vi. 12. is the
voice of reason confirmed by inspiration. But how far has he given it us? To
enjoy. As much as any one can make use of to any advantage of life before it
spoils, so much he may by his Labour fix a property in: whatever is beyond
this, is more than his share, and belongs to others. Nothing was made by God
for man to spoil or destroy. And thus, considering the plenty of natural
provisions there was a long time in the world, and the few spenders; and to
how small a part of that provision the industry of one man could extend
itself, and ingross it to the prejudice of others; especially keeping within
the bounds, set by reason, of what might serve for his use; there could be
then little room for quarrels or contentions about property so established.
Sec. 32. But the chief matter of property being now not the fruits of the
earth, and the beasts that subsist on it, but the earth itself; as that
which takes in and carries with it all the rest; I think it is plain, that
property in that too is acquired as the former. As much land as a man tills,
plants, improves, cultivates, and can use the product of, so much is his
property. He by his labour does, as it were, inclose it from the common. Nor
will it invalidate his right, to say every body else has an equal title to
it; and therefore he cannot appropriate, he cannot inclose, without the
consent of all his fellow-commoners, all mankind. God, when he gave the
world in common to all mankind, commanded man also to labour, and the penury
of his condition required it of him. God and his reason commanded him to
subdue the earth, i.e. improve it for the benefit of life, and therein lay
out something upon it that was his own, his labour. He that in obedience to
this command of God, subdued, tilled and sowed any part of it, thereby
annexed to it something that was his property, which another had no title
to, nor could without injury take from him.
say ye?
presence
)
