Thus far we have shown the reasons which should lead the legislator to sanction the existence of property. But we have only considered wealth in the mass: it is, however, necessary to descend to details; to take the individual objects which compose it, and seek out the principles which ought to govern the distribution of property at the periods when it presents itself to the law for appropriation to such or such an individual. These principles are the same that we have already laid down: Subsistence, abundance, equality, security. When they accord, the decision is easy: when they separate, it is necessary to learn to distinguish which ought to be preferred.
Actual possession is a title to property, which may precede and supply the place of all others: it will be always good against every man who has no other title to oppose to it. Arbitrarily to take away from him who possesses, in order to give to him who possesses not, would be to create a loss upon one side and a gain upon the other. But the amount of the pleasure would not be equal to the amount of the pain. First reason:---One such act of violence would spread alarm among all proprietors, by attacking their security. Second reason:---Actual possession, therefore, is a title founded upon the good of the first order and the good of the second order.
What is called the right of the first occupant, or the original discoverer, amounts to the same thing. When the right of property is granted to the first occupant---1st, He is spared the pain of disappointment; that pain which he would feel at finding himself deprived of the thing which he had occupied before all others. 2dly, It prevents contests; the combats which might take place between him and successive competitors. 3dly, It gives birth to enjoyments which, without it, would not exist for any one: the first occupier, trembling lest he should lose what he had found, would not dare openly to enjoy it, for fear of betraying himself; hence, all that he could not immediately consume would be of no value to him. 4thly, The good that is secured to him, acting in the character of reward, becomes a spur to the industry of others, who are led to seek to procure for themselves similar advantages; and the increase of the general wealth is the result of these individual acquisitions. 5thly, If every unappropriated thing did not belong to the first occupier, it would always be the prey of the strongest: the weak would be subject to continual oppression.
All these reasons do not present themselves distinctly to the mind of men: but they perceive them confusedly, and feel them as by instinct, Hence they say reason, equity, justice, direct it. These words, repeated by every body, without being explained by any one, express only a sentiment of approbation; but this approbation, founded upon solid reasons, can but acquire new force from the support of the principle of utility.
The title of original occupation has been the primitive foundation of property. It may be employed again with regard to newly-formed islands, or lands newly discovered, reservation being made of the right of governing---the superior right of the sovereign.
Possession of a certain standing, fixed by the law, ought to be superior to all other titles. If you have allowed so long a time to elapse without claiming your right, it is a proof that you have not known of its existence, or that you did not intend to make use of it. In these two cases, there has not been any attempt on your part---any desire to obtain possession of the thing; but on mine there has been the attempt and the desire to preserve it. To leave me in possession, is not to oppose security: to transfer it to you, is to attack it, and is to make all possessors uneasy, who know of no other title to their property than ancient bonâ fide possession.
But what time should be requisite to produce this displacement of hope? or, in other words, what time is requisite to legalize property in the hands of its possessors, and to extinguish all opposing titles? Nothing can be precisely determined: the lines of demarcation must be drawn at hazard, according to the value of the goods to which they refer. If this line of demarcation does not always prevent disappointment among those interested, it will prevent at least all evils of the second order. The law warns me, that if, during one year, ten years, or thirty years, I neglect to claim my right, the loss of this right itself will be the result of my negligence. This threat, the effects of which I can prevent, does not injure my security.
I have supposed that the possession is honestly obtained: in the contrary case, to confirm it would be, not to favour security, but to reward crime. The age of Nestor ought not to be sufficient to secure to an usurper the wages and the price of his iniquity. For why should there be a period when the malefactor should become tranquil? why should he enjoy the fruits of his crimes under the protection of the laws which he has violated?
With respect to his heirs, it is necessary to make distinctions. Are they honest? There may be alleged in their favour the same reason as for the ancient proprietor, and they have possession, besides, to incline the balance In their favour. Are they dishonest, as their predecessors were? They are his accomplices, and impunity ought never to be the privilege of fraud.
This is what is commonly called prescription.---Reasons upon which it is founded: Prevention of disappointment---General security of proprietors.
Property in land includes all that this land contains, and all that it produces. Can its value be any thing but its contents and its produce? By its contents, are understood every thing which is below the surface, as mines and quarries; by its produce, every thing which belongs to the vegetable kingdom. All possible reasons unite for the giving this extent to the right of property in land---security, subsistence, the increase of the general wealth, the blessing of peace.
If my land nourish animals, it is to me they owe their birth and their nourishment; their existence would have been a loss to me, if the possession of them did not secure me an indemnity. If the law give them to any one but me, there will be all the loss on one side, and all the gain on another---an arrangement opposed as well to equality as to security. It would then be my interest to diminish their number, and to prevent their increase, to the detriment of the general wealth.
If chance have thrown upon the earth things which have not yet received the seal of property, or which have lost the impression; as a whale cast on shore by a tempest, the scattered remains of a shipwreck, or uprooted trees; these things ought to belong to the possessor of the land. The reason of this preference:---He is so situated as to derive a profit from them, without loss to any individual: they cannot be refused to him, without occasioning a pain of disappointment; and indeed no one can take possession of them without occupying his land, or without encroaching upon his rights. He has in his favour all the reasons of the first occupant.
The waters which have covered unappropriated lands leave them:---To whom shall the property in these new lands be granted? There are many reasons for giving them to the proprietors of the neighbouring lands: Ist, They only can occupy them without encroaching upon the property of others. 2d, They only can have formed any hope respecting these lands, and previously considered them as belonging to themselves. 3d, The chance of gaining by the retreat of the waters is only an indemnity for the chance of losing by their invasion. 4th, The property in lands acquired from the waters will operate as a reward exciting to the labours necessary for this kind of conquest.[Note]
If I apply my labour to one of those things which are already considered as belonging to me, my title acquires new force. These vegetables which my land produces---I have sown and gathered them. I have tended these cattle, I have dug up these roots, I have felled these trees, and I have hewn them. If I should have suffered on having these things taken from me in a rough state, how much more shall I not suffer now, since each effort of my industry has given to these objects a new value, has strengthened my attachment to them, and the wish I have to keep them? These sources of future enjoyments, continually augmented by labour, would not exist without security.
But if I apply my labour to a thing which belongs to another, treating it as if it were my own; for example, if I have made cloth with your wool; to which of us ought the thing produced to belong? Before answering this question, the question of fact must be cleared up: Was it honestly or dishonestly that I treated the thing as my property? If I have acted dishonestly, to leave me possessed of the thing produced, would be to reward the crime: if I have acted honestly, it remains to be examined, which of the two values is the greater---the original value of the thing, or the value added to it by the labour? How long has the first possessor lost it? how long have I possessed it? To whom does the place belong, in which it is found situated, at the moment it is reclaimed---to me, to the ancient possessor, or to another?
The principle of caprice having no regard to the measure of pains and pleasures, gives all to one of the parties, without caring for the other. The principle of utility, desirous of reducing to the lowest term, an inevitable inconvenience, weighs the two interests, seeks a method of reconciling them, and prescribes indemnities. It awards the article to that one of the two claimants, who would lose the most if his claim were rejected, but subject to the charge of giving to the other a sufficient indemnity.
It is after these same principles, that the same question ought to be resolved, with regard to an article which has been mixed and confounded with another; as metal belonging to you, which has been mingled in the crucible with metal belonging to me; liquor belonging to me, which has been poured into the same vessel with liquor belonging to you. There have been grand debates among the Roman lawyers, to determine to whom to give the whole. The one party, under the name of Sabinians, would give the whole to me; the other party, under the name of Proculians, would give all to you. Which was right? Neither of them: their decision always left one suffering party, One simple question would have prevented all these debates: Which of the two, by losing what had been his, would lose most?
The English lawyers have cut the gordian knot. They have not taken the trouble to examine where would be the greatest injury: they have neither considered honesty nor dishonesty, nor the greatest real value, nor the greatest desire to keep. They have decided that moveable property shall always be awarded to the possessor at the time, subject to the charge of indemnifying the original proprietor.
Your land incloses in its bosom treasures; but, either from want of knowledge, or want of means, or want of confidence in your success, you will not seek for them, and the treasures remain hidden. If I, a stranger to your property, have all that you want for their exploring, and I ask to do it, ought the right to do so to be awarded to me without your consent? Why not? Under your land, the buried wealth does good to no one: in mine it will acquire great value; thrown into circulation, it will animate industry. What injury is done to you? You lose nothing: the surface, the only thing from which you derive any thing, remains always in the same state. But what the law, attentive to your interests, ought to do for you, is to award you a greater or less considerable part of the product; for though this treasure was nothing in your hands, it left you a certain expectation of profiting by it some day, and this chance ought not to be taken from you without indemnity.
Such is the law of England. In certain districts, it permits, upon certain conditions, the pursuit of a vein of metal discovered in the field of another, to whosoever wishes to try the adventure.
Great lakes, great rivers, great bays, and especially the ocean, are not occupied as exclusive property. They are considered as belonging to no person, or, to speak more correctly as belonging to all.
There is no reason for limiting the right of fishing in the ocean. The multiplication of most kinds of fishes appears inexhaustible. The prodigality, the munificence of nature in this respect, surpasses every thing which can be conceived. The indefatigable Lewenhock has estimated the number of eggs in the roe of a single cod at above six millions. What we can take and consume in this immense magazine of food is absolutely nothing, compared with the destruction produced by physical causes, which we neither know, nor can prevent, nor weaken. Man in the open sea, with his nets and lines, is only a feeble rival to the great tyrants of the ocean; whilst as to the fishes of rivers, lakes, and little gulfs, the laws take efficacious and necessary precautions for their preservation.
There is no reason for jealousy, no danger of diminishing the sources of wealth, by the number of competitors: the right of the first occupant may be left for each, and every species of labour encouraged, which tends to increase the general abundance.
It is the same with uncultivated and unappropriated lands, wild forests. In those vast countries which are not peopled in proportion to their extent, these tracts form considerable spaces, in which the right of hunting may be exercised without restraint. Man is there as yet only the rival of the carnivorous animals, and the chase extends the sources of subsistence without injury to any one.
But in civilized societies, in which agriculture has made great progress, where the unappropriated lands bear only a small proportion to those which have received the seal of property, there are many reasons which plead against the right of chase granted to the first occupier.
First Inconvenience.---In those countries where the population is numerous, the destruction of wild animals may proceed faster than their reproduction. Render the chase free, the kinds of animals which are its objects may be sensibly diminished, and even annihilated. The sportsman would then have as much trouble to procure a single partridge, as he has now to procure a hundred; and this would make them a hundred-fold dearer. He would not himself lose, but he would only furnish to society one hundredth part of the value he now furnishes. In other and more simple terms, the pleasure of eating partridges would be reduced to a hundredth part of what it is.
Second Inconvenience.---The chase, without being more productive than other labours, has unhappily more attractions: play is there combined with labour, idleness with exercise, glory with danger. The charm of a profession, so well suited to all the natural tastes of man, draws into this career a great number of competitors: by their rivalry they reduce the price of the labour employed upon it to the most simple subsistence; and in general this class of adventurers will be poor.
Third Inconvenience.---The chase having particular seasons, there will be intervals in which the activity of the hunter will be chained up. he will not easily return from a wandering to a sedentary life---from independence to subjection---and from a habit of idleness to a habit of labour. Accustomed, like the gamester, to live upon chances and hopes, a small fixed salary will have few attractions for him. His is a state which leads a man to crime, from its misery and idleness.
Fourth Inconvenience.---The exercise even of this profession is naturally fruitful in crimes. The multitude of quarrels, of lawsuits, prosecutions, convictions, imprisonments, and other punishments to which it gives rise, are more than sufficient to counterbalance its pleasures. The hunter, tired of vainly waiting for his prey in the high-roads, spies out in secret the game of the neighbouring proprietors. Does he think himself observed? he turns aside, he hides himself, he uses patience and cunning. Does he think there are no witnesses? he no longer respects any bounds; he passes the ditches, he leaps the hedges, he lays waste the inclosures, and his cupidity, betraying his prudence, throws him into situations from which he often cannot escape without misfortune or crime.
If the right of chase were permitted on the high-roads, an army of guards would be requisite to prevent the wanderings of the hunters.
Fifth Inconvenience.---If this right of chase be allowed to exist, though so little advantageous when exercised in such narrow limits, an assortment of laws is requisite in the civil and penal code, to determine its exercise and to punish its violations. This multiplication of laws is an evil, because they cannot be multiplied without being weakened. Besides, the severity necessary to prevent such easy and attractive crimes, gives an odious character to property, and places the rich man in a state of war with his indigent neighbours. The means of cutting short this inconvenience is not to regulate, but to suppress this right.
The prohibitory law once known, no expectation will be formed of enjoying this privilege: partridges will be no more coveted than fowls, and in the minds of the multitude, poaching will not be distinguished from theft.
It is true, that at present popular ideas are in favour of this right of chase; but if it be sometimes necessary to yield to popular ideas, it is only upon those occasions in which they have great strength, and in which there is no hope of changing their course. When pains shall be taken to enlighten the people, to discuss the motives of the law, to make them consider it as a means of peace and security, by showing that the exercise of this right is reduced almost to nothing---that the life of a hunter is miserable---that this ungrateful profession incessantly exposes him to criminality, and his family to indigence and shame, I dare affirm that popular opinion, pressed by the continual and gentle force of reason, will in a short time take a new direction.
There are some animals whose value after death does not compensate for the damages they do: such are foxes, wolves, bears, all carnivorous beasts, the enemies of the species subjected to man. Far from preserving them, it is only desirable that they should be destroyed. One method is to give the property in them to the first occupant, without regard to the territorial proprietor. Every hunter who attacks hurtful animals ought to be considered as employed by the police. But this exception should only be admitted with regard to animals capable of causing great waste.
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