O F PROPERTY. AN is led to gratify his appetite for food MA from an instinctive feeling. No train of reasoning was necessary to teach him, that the fruits and herbage which pleased his eye, and were grateful to his taste, were intended by the Creator to fupply him with nourishment; or that the pure stream which issued from the limpid fountain was destined to afford him falubrious refreshment. His appetite he might indulge without control, while the means of subsistence afforded by the bounties of Nature, without the intervention of care or industry, art or labour, were more than fufficient to fatisfy the wants of the human race exifting in a ftate of primeval fimplicity. A SENSE A SENSE of right to enjoy the fruits of the earth neceffarily accompanied the gratification of appetite for food. There fubfifts in the human mind a primary univerfal and permanent sense or opinion of right, without any deduction of reafon or reflection, in regard to the free use of every herb bearing feed which is upon the face of all the earth, and the fruit of every tree that is pleasant to the fight, and good for food. THIS fenfe or opinion of right could never have difcovered itself by visible effects, while there existed no occafion for competition about the means of fubfiftence, or gratification of appetite. If a sense of right accompanies the enjoyment of Nature's productions, there must neceffarily arise in the mind a sense of violation of that right, when any attempt is made to limit or restrain the wonted gratification of natural appetites and defires. It is the nature of Man, to feel anger or refentment when he is opposed or obftructed obstructed in the pursuit of the means of self-prefervation, or in the gratification of his natural wants. When his confident hope of natural enjoyment is fruftrated by fuperior force, cunning, or dexterity; a sense of injury arises in his mind against the author of his disappointment, and he is naturally led to remove, overcome, or destroy the obstacle that oppofed itself to the gratification of his defires. If there had not exifted a primary fenfe of right to enjoy the fruits of the earth, and all the productions of nature, there could be no injury felt by the weak when obftructed by the ftrong in the pursuit of gratifying natural propenfities and defires. THIS fenfe of natural right would often, in the earliest stages of fociety, be violated by the ftrong to the prejudice of the weak; but until the arrival of that period when property came to be understood as belonging exclufively to a tribe or community, any violation of natural right could be productive of no dangerous effects, and could require no combined efforts of society to check its progrefs. The natural inclination of men living in primitive fociety leads them to share their stock of provifions freely with one another: any departure from this general difpofition could operate only as a rare and unim portant exception from a general rule. THE regulation of property.is the object of Juftice. Prior to the establishment of a system of exclusive property, there was no occafion for erecting a tribunal for the administration of justice: yet that an idea of property had existence in primeval fociety, we are led to conclude, from the intimate connection fubfifting between a person and a fubject of frequent and necessary use.. JUSTICE, fo far as it is made a fyftem, and enforced by the civil magistrate, may with propriety be faid to be founded in public utility; but its origin may be traced to a remoter and more fimple fource. THE |