of distribution with which the
barbarians were acquainted, and the only form of justice of which they
could conceive; and then the question of origin assumes this form:
how did equality afterwards disappear?)--or else these treaties and
agreements were forced by the strong upon the weak, and in that case
they are null; the tacit consent of posterity does not make them valid,
and we live in a permanent condition of iniquity and fraud.

We never can conceive how the equality of conditions, having once
existed, could afterwards have passed away. What was the cause of such
degeneration? The instincts of the animals are unchangeable, as well
as the differences of species; to suppose original equality in human
society is to admit by implication that the present inequality is
a degeneration from the nature of this society,--a thing which the
defenders of property cannot explain. But I infer therefrom that, if
Providence placed the first human beings in a condition of equality, it
was an indication of its desires, a model that it wished them to realize
in other forms; just as the religious sentiment, which it planted in
their hearts, has developed and manifested itself in various ways. Man
has but one nature, constant and unalterable: he pursues it through
instinct, he wanders from it through reflection, he returns to it
through judgment; who shall say that we are not returning now? According
to Grotius, man has abandoned equality; according to me, he will yet
return to it. How came he to abandon it? Why will he return to it? These
are questions for future consideration.

Reid writes as follows:--

"The right of property is not innate, but acquired. It is not grounded
upon the constitution of man, but upon his actions. Writers on
jurisprudence have explained its origin in a manner that may satisfy
every man of common understanding.

"The earth is given to men in common for the purposes of life, by the
bounty of Heaven. But to divide it, and appropriate one part of its
produce to one, another part to another, must be the work of men
who have power and understanding given them, by which every man may
accommodate himself, WITHOUT HURT TO ANY OTHER.

"This common right of every man to what the earth produces, before it
be occupied and appropriated by others, was, by ancient moralists, very
properly compared to the right which every citizen had to the public
theatre, where every man that came might occupy an empty seat, and
t