21.).
Chapter V
Of Property
24. Whether we consider natural reason, which tells us that men,
being once born, have a right to their preservation, and
consequently to meat and drink and such other things as Nature affords
for their subsistence, or "revelation," which gives us an account of
those grants God made of the world to Adam, and to Noah and his
sons, it is very clear that God, as King David says (Psalm 115. 16),
"has given the earth to the children of men," given it to mankind in
common. But, this being supposed, it seems to some a very great
difficulty how any one should ever come to have a property in
anything, I will not content myself to answer, that, if it be
difficult to make out "property" upon a supposition that God gave
the world to Adam and his posterity in common, it is impossible that
any man but one universal monarch should have any "property" upon a
supposition that God gave the world to Adam and his heirs in
succession, exclusive of all the rest of his posterity; but I shall
endeavour to show how men might come to have a property in several
parts of that which God gave to mankind in common, and that without
any express compact of all the commoners.
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