For he that leaves as much as another can
make use of does as good as take nothing at all. Nobody could think
himself injured by the drinking of another man, though he took a
good draught, who had a whole river of the same water left him to
quench his thirst. And the case of land and water, where there is
enough of both, is perfectly the same.
33. God gave the world to men in common, but since He gave it them
for their benefit and the greatest conveniencies of life they were
capable to draw from it, it cannot be supposed He meant it should
always remain common and uncultivated. He gave it to the use of the
industrious and rational (and labour was to be his title to it); not
to the fancy or covetousness of the quarrelsome and contentious. He
that had as good left for his improvement as was already taken up
needed not complain, ought not to meddle with what was already
improved by another's labour; if he did it is plain he desired the
benefit of another's pains, which he had no right to, and not the
ground which God had given him, in common with others, to labour on,
and whereof there was as good left as that already possessed, and more
than he knew what to do with, or his industry could reach to.
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