Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/16

 4 another might eie it without injutice. Thus alo a vine or other tree might be aid to be in common, as all men were equally entitled to it's produce; and yet any private individual might gain the ole property of the fruit, which he had gathered for his own repat. A doctrine well illutrated by Cicero, who compares the world to a great theatre, which is common to the public, and yet the place which any man has taken is for the time his own.

when mankind increaed in number, craft, and ambition, it became neceary to entertain conceptions of more permanent dominion; and to appropriate to individuals not the immediate ue only, but the very ubtance of the thing, to be ued. Otherwie innumerable tumults mut have arien, and the good order of the world been continually broken and diturbed, while a variety of perons were triving who hould get the firt occupation of the ame thing, or diputing which of them had actually gained it. As human life alo grew more and more refined, abundance of conveniences were devied to render it more eay, commodious, and agreeable; as, habitations for helter and afety, and raiment for warmth and decency. But no man would be at the trouble to provide either, o long as he had only an uufructuary property in them, which was to ceae the intant that he quitted poeion; — if, as oon as he walked out of his tent, or pulled off his garment, the next tranger who came by would have a right to inhabit the one, and to wear the other. In the cae of habitations in particular, it was natural to oberve, that even the brute creation, to whom every thing ele was in common, maintained a kind of permanent property in their dwellings, epecially for the protection of their young; that the birds of the air had nets, and the beats of the field had caverns, the invaion of which they eteemed a very flagrant injutice, and would acrifice their lives to preerve them. Hence a property was oon etablihed in every man's houe and home-tall; which eem to have been originally mere temporary huts or moveable cabins, Rh