substance, freely up and down; and this Abraham did, in a 
country where he was a stranger.  Whence it is plain, that at 
least a great part of the land lay in common; that the 
inhabitants valued it not, nor claimed property in any more than 
they made use of.  But when there was not room enough in the same 
place, for their herds to feed together, they by consent, as 
Abraham and Lot did, Gen. xiii.  5.  separated and inlarged 
their pasture, where it best liked them.  And for the same reason 
Esau went from his father, and his brother, and planted in 
mount Seir, Gen. xxxvi. 6.

     Sec. 39.  And thus, without supposing any private dominion, 
and property in Adam, over all the world, exclusive of all 
other men, which can no way be proved, nor any one's property be 
made out from it; but supposing the world given, as it was, to 
the children of men in common, we see how labour could make 
men distinct titles to several parcels of it, for their private 
uses; wherein there could be no doubt of right, no room for 
quarrel.

     Sec. 40.  Nor is it so strange, as perhaps before 
consideration it may appear, that the property of labour should 
be able to over-balance the community of land: for it is labour 
indeed that puts the difference of value on every thing; and 
let any one consider what the difference is between an acre of 
land planted with tobacco or sugar, sown with wheat or barley, 
and an acre of the same land lying in common, without any 
husbandry upon it, and he will find, that the improvement of 
labour makes the far greater part of the value.  I think it 
will be but a very modest computation to say, that of the 
products of the earth useful to the life of man nine tenths are 
the effects of labour: nay, if we will rightly estimate things 
as they come to our use, and cast up the several expences about 
them, what in them is purely owing to nature, and what to 
labour, we shall find, that in most of them ninety-nine 
hundredths are wholly to be put on the account of labour.  

     Sec. 41.  There cannot be a clearer demonstration of any 
thing, than several nations of the Americans are of this, who 
are rich in land, and poor in all the comforts of life; whom 
nature having furnished as liberally as any other people, with 
the materials of plenty, i.e. a fruitful soil, apt to produce 
in abundance, what might serve for food, raiment, and delight; 
yet for want of improving it by labour, have not one hundredth 
part of the conveniencies we enjoy: and a king of a large and 
fruitful territory there, feeds, lodges, and is clad worse than a 
day-labourer in England.  

     Sec. 42.  To make this a little clearer, let us but trace 
some of the ordinary provisions of life, through their several 
progresses, before they come to our use, and see how much they 
receive of their value from human industry.  Bread, wine and 
cloth, are things of daily use, and great plenty; yet 
notwithstanding, acorns, water and leaves, or skins, must be our 
bread, drink and cloathing, did not labour furnish us with 

these more useful commodities: for whatever bread is more worth 
than acorns, wine than water, and cloth or silk, than leaves, 
skins or moss, that is wholly owing to labour and industry; 
the one of these being the food and raiment which unassisted 
nature furnishes us with; the other, provisions which our 
industry and pains prepare for us, which how much they exceed the 
other in value, when any one hath computed, he will then see how 
much labour makes the far greatest part of the value of things 
we enjoy in this world: and the ground which produces the 
materials, is scarce to be reckoned in, as any, or at most, but a 
very small part of it; so little, that even amongst us, land that 
is left wholly to nature, that hath no improvement of pasturage, 
tillage, or planting, is called, as indeed it is, waste; and we 
shall find the benefit of it amount to little more than nothing.

 This shews how much numbers of men are to be preferred to 
largeness of dominions; and that the increase of lands, and the 
right employing of them, is the great art of government: and that 
prince, who shall be so wise and godlike, as by established laws 
of liberty to secure protection and encouragement to the honest 
industry of mankind, against the oppression of power and 
narrowness of party, will quickly be too hard for his neighbours: 
but this by the by.  To return to the argument in hand,

     Sec. 43.  An acre of land, that bears here twenty bushels of 
wheat, and another in America, which, with the same husbandry, 
would do the like, are, without doubt, of the same natural 
intrinsic value: but yet the benefit mankind receives from the 
one in a year, is worth 5l.  and from the other possibly not 
worth a penny, if all the profit an Indian received from it were 
to be valued, and sold here; at least, I may truly say, not one 
thousandth.  It is labour then which puts the greatest part of 
value upon land, without which it would scarcely be worth any 
thing: it is to that we owe the greatest part of all its useful 
products; for all that the straw, bran, bread, of that acre of 
wheat, is more worth than the product of an acre of as good land, 
which lies waste, is all the effect of labour: for it is not 
barely the plough-man's pains, the reaper's and thresher's toil, 
and the baker's sweat, is to be counted into the bread we eat; 
the labour of those who broke the oxen, who digged and wrought 
the iron and stones, who felled and framed the timber employed 
about the plough, mill, oven, or any other utensils, which are a 
vast number, requisite to this corn, from its being feed to be 
sown to its being made bread, must all be charged on the