Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/17

 Ch. 1. uited to the deign of providence for more peedily peopling the earth, and uited to the wandering life of their owners, before any extenive property in the oil or ground was etablihed. And there can be no doubt, but that moveables of every kind became ooner appropriated than the permanent ubtantial oil: partly becaue they were more uceptible of a long occupancy, which might be continued for months together without any enible interruption, and at length by uage ripen into an etablihed right; but principallv becaue few of them could be fit for ue, till improved and meliorated by the bodily labour of the occupant: which bodily labour, betowed upon any ubject which before lay in common to all men, is univerally allowed to give the fairet and mot reaonable title to an excluive property therein.

article of food was a more immediate call, and therefore a more early conideration. Such, as were not contented with the pontaneous product of the earth, fought for a more olid refrehment in the fleh of beats, which they obtained by hunting. But the frequent diappointments, incident to that method of proviion, induced them to gather together uch animals as were of a more tame and equacious nature; and to etablih a permanent property in their tocks and herds, in order to utain themelves in a les precarious manner, partly by the milk of the dams, and partly by the fleh of the young. The upport of thee their cattle made the article of water alo a very important point. And therefore the book of Geneis (the mot venerable monument of antiquity, conidered merely with a view to hitory) will furnih us with frequent intances of violent contentions concerning wells; the excluive property of which appears to have been etablihed in the firt digger or occupant, even in uch places where the ground and herbage remained yet in common. Thus we find Abraham, who was but a ojourner, aerting his right to a well in the country of Abimelech, and exacting an oath for his ecurity, "becaue he had digged that well ." And Iaac, about ninety years afterwards, re-claimed this his fa- Rh