or,
retire!

But the creator of the land does not sell it: he gives it; and, in
giving it, he is no respecter of persons. Why, then, are some of his
children regarded as legitimate, while others are treated as bastards?
If the equality of shares was an original right, why is the inequality
of conditions a posthumous right?

Say gives us to understand that if the air and the water were not of a
FUGITIVE nature, they would have been appropriated. Let me observe in
passing that this is more than an hypothesis; it is a reality. Men have
appropriated the air and the water, I will not say as often as they
could, but as often as they have been allowed to.

The Portuguese, having discovered the route to India by the Cape of
Good Hope, pretended to have the sole right to that route; and Grotius,
consulted in regard to this matter by the Dutch who refused to recognize
this right, wrote expressly for this occasion his treatise on
the "Freedom of the Seas," to prove that the sea is not liable to
appropriation.

The right to hunt and fish used always to be confined to lords and
proprietors; to-day it is leased by the government and communes to
whoever can pay the license-fee and the rent. To regulate hunting and
fishing is an excellent idea, but to make it a subject of sale is to
create a monopoly of air and water.

What is a passport? A universal recommendation of the traveller's
person; a certificate of security for himself and his property. The
treasury, whose nature it is to spoil the best things, has made the
passport a means of espionage and a tax. Is not this a sale of the right
to travel?

Finally, it is permissible neither to draw water from a spring situated
in another's grounds without the permission of the proprietor, because
by the right of accession the spring belongs to the possessor of the
soil, if there is no other claim; nor to pass a day on his premises
without paying a tax; nor to look at a court, a garden, or an orchard,
without the consent of the proprietor; nor to stroll in a park or an
enclosure against the owner's will: every one is allowed to shut himself
up and to fence himself in. All these prohibitions are so many positive
interdictions, not only of the land, but of the air and water. We who
belong to the proletaire class: property excommunicates us! _Terra, et
aqua, et aere, et igne interdicti sumus_.

Men could not appropriate the most fixed of all the elements without
appropriating the three