on some other
person. This rule can have no ill consequence, in occasioning wars and
dissentions; since the proprietor's consent, who alone is concerned, is
taken along in the alienation: And it may serve to many good purposes
in adjusting property to persons. Different parts of the earth produce
different commodities; and not only so, but different men both are
by nature fitted for different employments, and attain to greater
perfection in any one, when they confine themselves to it alone. All
this requires a mutual exchange and commerce; for which reason the
translation of property by consent is founded on a law of nature, as
well as its stability without such a consent.

So far is determined by a plain utility and interest. But perhaps it is
from more trivial reasons, that delivery, or a sensible transference of
the object is commonly required by civil laws, and also by the laws of
nature, according to most authors, as a requisite circumstance in the
translation of property. The property of an object, when taken for
something real, without any reference to morality, or the sentiments of
the mind, is a quality perfectly insensible, and even inconceivable; nor
can we form any distinct notion, either of its stability or translation.
This imperfection of our ideas is less sensibly felt with regard to its
stability, as it engages less our attention, and is easily past over by
the mind, without any scrupulous examination. But as the translation
of property from one person to another is a more remarkable event, the
defect of our ideas becomes more sensible on that occasion, and obliges
us to turn ourselves on every side in search of some remedy. Now as
nothing more enlivens any idea than a present impression, and a relation
betwixt that impression and the idea; it is natural for us to seek
some false light from this quarter. In order to aid the imagination in
conceiving the transference of property, we take the sensible object,
and actually transfer its possession to the person, on whom we would
bestow the property. The supposed resemblance of the actions, and the
presence of this sensible delivery, deceive the mind, and make it fancy,
that it conceives the mysterious transition of the property. And that
this explication of the matter is just, appears hence, that men have
invented a symbolical delivery, to satisfy the fancy, where the real one
is impracticable. Thus the giving the keys of a granary is understood
to be the