e mankind to apply to that of agriculture. As soon as men
were wanted to fuse and forge iron, others were wanted to maintain
them. The more hands were employed in manufactures, the fewer hands
were left to provide subsistence for all, though the number of mouths
to be supplied with food continued the same; and as some required
commodities in exchange for their iron, the rest at last found out the
method of making iron subservient to the multiplication of
commodities. Hence on the one hand husbandry and agriculture, and on
the other the art of working metals and of multiplying the uses of
them.

To the tilling of the earth the distribution of it necessarily
succeeded, and to property once acknowledged, the first rules of
justice: for to secure every man his own, every man must have
something. Moreover, as men began to extend their views to futurity,
and all found themselves in possession of more or less goods capable
of being lost, every one in particular had reason to fear, lest
reprisals should be made on him for any injury he might do to others.
This origin is so much the more natural, as it is impossible to
conceive how property can flow from any other source but industry; for
what can a man add but his labour to things which he has not made, in
order to acquire a property in them? 'Tis the labour of the hands
alone, which giving the husbandman a title to the produce of the land
he has tilled gives him a title to the land itself, at least till he
has gathered in the fruits of it, and so on from year to year; and
this enjoyment forming a continued possession is easily transformed
into a property. The ancients, says Grotius, by giving to Ceres the
epithet of Legislatrix, and to a festival celebrated in her honour the
name of Thesmorphoria, insinuated that the distribution of lands
produced a new kind of right; that is, the right of property different
from that which results from the law of nature.

Things thus circumstanced might have remained equal, if men's talents
had been equal, and if, for instance, the use of iron, and the
consumption of commodities had always held an exact proportion to each
other; but as this proportion had no support, it was soon broken. The
man that had most strength performed most labour; the most dexterous
turned his labour to best account; the most ingenious found out
methods of lessening his labour; the husbandman required more iron, or
the smith more corn, and while both worked equally