ndustry on
neglected, and consequently waste land, has increased the stock of corn,
which they wanted. But be this as it will, which I lay no stress on;
this I dare boldly affirm, that the same rule of propriety, (viz.) that
every man should have as much as he could make use of, would hold still
in the world, without straitening any body; since there is land enough
in the world to suffice double the inhabitants, had not the invention of
money, and the tacit agreement of men to put a value on it, introduced
(by consent) larger possessions, and a right to them; which, how it has
done, I shall by and by shew more at large.

Sect. 37. This is certain, that in the beginning, before the desire of
having more than man needed had altered the intrinsic value of things,
which depends only on their usefulness to the life of man; or had
agreed, that a little piece of yellow metal, which would keep without
wasting or decay, should be worth a great piece of flesh, or a whole
heap of corn; though men had a right to appropriate, by their labour,
each one of himself, as much of the things of nature, as he could use:
yet this could not be much, nor to the prejudice of others, where the
same plenty was still left to those who would use the same industry. To
which let me add, that he who appropriates land to himself by his
labour, does not lessen, but increase the common stock of mankind: for
the provisions serving to the support of human life, produced by one
acre of inclosed and cultivated land, are (to speak much within compass)
ten times more than those which are yielded by an acre of land of an
equal richness lying waste in common. And therefore he that incloses
land, and has a greater plenty of the conveniencies of life from ten
acres, than he could have from an hundred left to nature, may truly be
said to give ninety acres to mankind: for his labour now supplies him
with provisions out of ten acres, which were but the product of an
hundred lying in common. I have here rated the improved land very low,
in making its product but as ten to one, when it is much nearer an
hundred to one: for I ask, whether in the wild woods and uncultivated
waste of America, left to nature, without any improvement, tillage or
husbandry, a thousand acres yield the needy and wretched inhabitants as
many conveniencies of life, as ten acres of equally fertile land do in
Devonshire, where they are well cultivated?

Before the appropriation of land, he who ga