How Private Property Began

Part 1

War may be justified by the injury done on anything that we own.

Our ownership of anything is either by:

• a right COMMON to us as men, or
• a right we acquire in our INDIVIDUAL capacity

This common right is called by legal authorities as Corporeal and Incorporeal rights.

Corporeal things are either:

• unappropriated, or
• made into private property

Part 2

God gave to mankind dominion over all the creatures. This grant which was renewed upon the restoration of the world after the deluge.*

Justin says that all things formed a common stock for all mankind, as the inheritors of one general patrimony.

This is why every man seized to his own use or consumption whatever he could get.

met with; a general exercise of a right, which supplied the place of private property. So that to deprive any one of what he had thus seized, became an act of injustice.

Cicero has explained in his third book, on the bounds of good and evil, by comparing the world to a Theatre, in which the seats are common property, yet every spectator claims that which he occupies, for the time being, as his own.

A state of affairs, which could not subsist but in the greatest simplicity of manners, and under the mutual forbearance and good-will of mankind.

An example of a community of goods, arising from extreme simplicity of manners, may be seen in some nations of America, who for many ages have subsisted in this manner without inconvenience.

The Essenes gave an example of men actuated by mutual affection.

• They held all things in common.

This was adopted by the primitive Christians at Jerusalem, and still prevailing among some religious orders.

Early man required no clothing and had simple manners.

Yet Justin, as says of the Scythians, he might would be ignorant of vice rather than know virtue.

Tacitus says, that in the early ages of the world, men lived free from the influence of evil passions, without reproach, and wickedness.

Consequently without the restraints of punishment.

In primitive times there appeared among mankind, according to Macrobius, a simplicity, ignorant of evil, and inexperienced in craft: a simplicity which in the book of Wisdom seems to be called integrity, and by the Apostle Paul simplicity in opposition to subtilty.

Their sole employment was to worship God symbolized by the tree of life as it is explained by the ancient Hebrews in the Book of Revelation.

Men at that period subsisted on the spontaneous productions of the ground.

It was a simple state to which they did not long adhere.

They then invented various arts, indicated by the tree of knowledge of good and evil, that is the knowledge of those things which may be either used properly, or abused; which Philo calls a middle kind of wisdom.

In this view, Solomon says, God hath created men upright, that is, in simplicity, but they have sought out many inventions, or, in the language of Philo, they have inclined to subtilty.

In the sixth oration of Dion Prusaeensis it is said, “the descendants have degenerated from the innocence of primitive times, contriving many subtile inventions no way conducive to the good of life; and using their strength not to promote justice, but to gratify their appetites.”

Agriculture and pasturage were the most ancient pursuits, which characterized the first brothers.

Some distribution of things would necessarily follow these different states; and we are informed by holy writ, that the rivalry thus created ended in murder.

At length men increasing in wickedness by their evil communications with each other, the race of Giants, that is of strong and violent men appeared, whom the Greeks denominate by a title, signifying those who make their own hands and strength the measure of justice.

The world in time was cleared of this Giant race by the deluge.

Savage life was succeeded by a softer and more sensual way of life.

The greatest breach in the harmony of men was made by ambition.

The great extent of land was sufficient for the use of by the few people.

• There was no need to create ownership.

But as the population grew, men it became necessary to divide land for each family.

In the hot countries of the East, wells are very important.

In order to avoid strife and inconvenience, everyone would want to own them.

This is why men departed from the primaeval state of holding all things in common.

• They attached the ideas of property, first to moveable and next to immoveable things.

Men began to acquire a taste for more delicate man-made things than the natural productions of the ground.

• They looked for more commodious habitations than caves, or trees.

Industry became necessary to supply those wants.

Each individual began to apply his attention to some particular art.

The distance of the places between habitations prevented men from carrying the fruits of the earth to a common stock.

The lack of just principle and equitable kindness would destroy that equality between producers and consumers.

At the same time, we learn how things passed from being held in common to a state of property. It was not by the act of the mind alone that this change took place. For men in that case could never know, what others intended to appropriate to their own use, so as to exclude the claim of every other pretender to the same;

Many people want to possess the same one thing.

Property therefore was established either by:

• express agreement or
  • an exeample is by division
• tacit consent
  • an example is by occupancy

The most natural basis for dividing land is to base it on current occupation.

Cicero in book 3 of his Offices says that a universal maxim is to enjoy the necessaries of life for oneself, than to leave them for the acquisition of another. *

This is supported by Quintilian, who says, if something used privately by any individual becomes his own property, then it is unjust to take it away from him.