hereby acquire a right to it while the entertainment lasted; but no man
had a right to dispossess another.

"The earth is a great theatre, furnished by the Almighty, with perfect
wisdom and goodness, for the entertainment and employment of all
mankind. Here every man has a right to accommodate himself as a
spectator, and to perform his part as an actor; but without hurt to
others."

Consequences of Reid's doctrine.

1. That the portion which each one appropriates may wrong no one, it
must be equal to the quotient of the total amount of property to be
shared, divided by the number of those who are to share it;

2. The number of places being of necessity equal at all times to that
of the spectators, no spectator can occupy two places, nor can any actor
play several parts;

3. Whenever a spectator comes in or goes out, the places of all contract
or enlarge correspondingly: for, says Reid, "THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY
IS NOT INNATE, BUT ACQUIRED;" consequently, it is not absolute;
consequently, the occupancy on which it is based, being a conditional
fact, cannot endow this right with a stability which it does not possess
itself. This seems to have been the thought of the Edinburgh professor
when he added:--

"A right to life implies a right to the necessary means of life; and
that justice, which forbids the taking away the life of an innocent man,
forbids no less the taking from him the necessary means of life. He has
the same right to defend the one as the other. To hinder another man's
innocent labor, or to deprive him of the fruit of it, is an injustice
of the same kind, and has the same effect as to put him in fetters or in
prison, and is equally a just object of resentment."

Thus the chief of the Scotch school, without considering at all the
inequality of skill or labor, posits a priori the equality of the means
of labor, abandoning thereafter to each laborer the care of his own
person, after the eternal axiom: WHOSO DOES WELL, SHALL FARE WELL.

The philosopher Reid is lacking, not in knowledge of the principle, but
in courage to pursue it to its ultimate. If the right of life is equal,
the right of labor is equal, and so is the right of occupancy. Would
it not be criminal, were some islanders to repulse, in the name of
property, the unfortunate victims of a shipwreck struggling to reach
the shore? The very idea of such cruelty sickens the imagination. The
proprietor, like Robinson Crusoe on his island, wards