35. The measure of property Nature well set, by the extent of
men's labour and the conveniency of life. No man's labour could subdue
or appropriate all, nor could his enjoyment consume more than a
small part; so that it was impossible for any man, this way, to
entrench upon the right of another or acquire to himself a property to
the prejudice of his neighbour, who would still have room for as
good and as large a possession (after the other had taken out his)
as before it was appropriated. Which measure did confine every man's
possession to a very moderate proportion, and such as he might
appropriate to himself without injury to anybody in the first ages
of the world, when men were more in danger to be lost, by wandering
from their company, in the then vast wilderness of the earth than to
be straitened for want of room to plant in.
36. The same measure may be allowed still, without prejudice to
anybody, full as the world seems. For, supposing a man or family, in
the state they were at first, peopling of the world by the children of
Adam or Noah, let him plant in some inland vacant places of America.
We shall find that the possessions he could make himself, upon the
measures we have given, would not be very large, nor, even to this
day, prejudice the rest of mankind or give them reason to complain
or think themselves injured by this man's encroachment, though the
race of men have now spread themselves to all the corners of the
world, and do infinitely exceed the small number was at the beginning.
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