But when mankind increased in number, craft, and ambition, it became necessary to entertain conceptions of a more permanent dominion; and to appropriate to individuals not the immediate use only, but the very substance of the thing to be used.  Otherwise, innumerable tumults must have arisen, and the good order of the world been continually broken and disturbed, while a variety of persons were striving who should get the first occupation of the same thing, or disputing which of them had actually gained it.  As human life also grew more and more refined, abundance of conveniences were devised to render it more easy, commodious, and agreeable; as habitations for shelter and safety, and raiment for warmth and decency.  But no man would be at the trouble to provide either, so long as he had only a usufructuary property in them, which was to cease the instant that he quitted possession; if, as soon as he walked out of his tent or pulled off his garment, the next stranger who came by would have a right to inhabit the one and to wear the other.

In the case of habitations, in particular, it was natural to observe that even the brute creation, to whom everything else was in common, maintained a kind of permanent property in their dwellings, especially for the protection of their young; that the birds of the air had nests, and the beasts of the fields had caverns, the invasion of which they esteemed a very flagrant injustice, and would sacrifice their lives to preserve them.  Hence a property was soon established in every man’s house and homestead; which seem to have been originally mere temporary huts or movable cabins, suited to the design of Providence for more speedily peopling the earth, and suited to the wandering life of their owners, before any extensive property in the soil or ground was established.

There can be no doubt but that movables of every kind became sooner appropriated than the permanent, substantial soil; partly because they were more susceptible of a long occupancy, which might be continue for months together without any sensible interruption, and at length, by usage, ripen into an established right; but, principally, because few of them could be fit for use till improved and meliorated by the bodily labor of the occupant; which bodily labor, bestowed upon any subject which before lay in common to all men, is universally allowed to give the fairest and most reasonable title to an exclusive property therein.

The article of food was a more immediate call, and therefore a more early consideration.  Such as were not contented with the spontaneous product of the earth, sought for a more solid refreshment in the flesh of beasts, which they obtained by hunting.  But the frequent disappointments incident to that method of provision, induced them to gather together such animals as were of a more tame and sequacious nature and to establish themselves in a less precarious manner, partly by the milk of the dams, and partly by the flesh of the young.