Page:The Effects of Civilisation on the People in European States.djvu/69

Rh suppose that there were certain persons who had, by some public service, obtained a grant of it from the public. Nothing of this kind could probably have happened in those early times, at least to many; or, if it had to some few, could such grant be valid any longer than for the lives of the granters? for they could have no natural right to grant it away from the next generation; every succeeding generation having an equal right to the use of the land with the preceding. No person, therefore, could originally have an exclusive right to any portion of land, except, perhaps, to such a quantity of it as was sufficient to furnish himself and family with the necessaries of life; for to that quotum of the produce he had a right in its common state. This argument is so evident as to require no proof, except to people who, having imbibed the idea of exclusive property in land in their infancy, have suffered it to remain in their minds unexamined the rest of their lives; or to such other people whose interest blinds them so as not to see the clearest truths. Arguments, therefore, to convince the understanding, are probably useless: if any can have effect, it must be such as tend to induce people to prefer justice to their interest.