THE NUTRITION of a Commonwealth consisteth in the plenty and distribution of materials conducing to life:in concoction or preparation,and,when concocted,in the conveyance of it by convenient conduits to the public use.
As for the plenty of matter,it is a thing limited by nature to those commodities which,from the two breasts of our common mother,land and sea,God usually either freely giveth or for labour selleth to mankind.
For the matter of this nutriment consisting in animals,vegetables,and minerals,God hath freely laid them before us,in or near to the face of the earth,so as there needeth no more but the labour and industry of receiving them.Insomuch as plenty dependeth,next to God's favour,merely on the labour and industry of men.
This matter,commonly called commodities,is partly native and partly foreign:native,that which is to be had within the territory of the Commonwealth;foreign,that which is imported from without.And because there is no territory under the dominion of one Commonwealth,except it be of very vast extent,that produceth all things needful for the maintenance and motion of the whole body;and few that produce not something more than necessary;the superfluous commodities to be had within become no more superfluous,but supply these wants at home,by importation of that which may be had abroad,either by exchange,or by just war,or by labour:for a man's labour also is a commodity exchangeable for benefit,as well as any other thing:and there have been Commonwealths that,having no more territory than hath served them for habitation,have nevertheless not only maintained,but also increased their power,partly by the labour of trading from one place to another,and partly by selling the manufactures,whereof the materials were brought in from other places.
The distribution of the materials of this nourishment is the constitution of mine,and thine,and his;that is to say,in one word,propriety;and belonged in all kinds of Commonwealth to the sovereign power.For where there is no Commonwealth,there is,as hath been already shown,a perpetual war of every man against his neighbour;and therefore everything is his that getteth it and keepeth it by force;which is neither propriety nor community,but uncertainty.Which is so evident that even Cicero,a passionate defender of liberty,in a public pleading attributeth all propriety to the law civil:"Let the civil law,"saith he,"be once abandoned,or but negligently guarded,not to say oppressed,and there is nothing that any man can be sure to receive from his ancestor,or leave to his children."And again:"Take away the civil law,and no man knows what is his own,and what another man's."Seeing therefore the introduction of propriety is an effect of Commonwealth,which can do nothing but by the person that represents it,it is the act only of the sovereign;and consisteth in the laws,which none can make that have not the sovereign power.And this they well knew of old,who called that Nomos (that is to say,distribution),which we call law;and defined justice by distributing to every man his own.
In this distribution,the first law is for division of the land itself:wherein the sovereign assigneth to every man a portion,according as he,and not according as any subject,or any number of them,shall judge agreeable to equity and the common good.The children of Israel were a Commonwealth in the wilderness;but wanted the commodities of the earth till they were masters of the Land of Promise;which afterward was divided amongst them,not by their own discretion,but by the discretion of Eleazar the priest,and Joshua their general:who when there were twelve tribes,making them thirteen by subdivision of the tribe of Joseph,made nevertheless but twelve portions of the land,and ordained for the tribe of Levi no land,but assigned them the tenth part of the whole fruits;which division was therefore arbitrary.And though a people coming into possession of a land by war do not always exterminate the ancient inhabitants,as did the Jews,but leave to many,or most,or all of them their estates;yet it is manifest they hold them afterwards,as of the victor's distribution;as the people of England held all theirs of William the Conqueror.
From whence we may collect that the propriety which a subject hath in his lands consisteth in a right to exclude all other subjects from the use of them;and not to exclude their sovereign,be it an assembly or a monarch.For seeing the sovereign,that is to say,the Commonwealth (whose person he representeth),is understood to do nothing but in order to the common peace and security,this distribution of lands is to be understood as done in order to the same:and consequently,whatsoever distribution he shall make in prejudice thereof is contrary to the will of every subject that committed his peace and safety to his discretion and conscience,and therefore by the will of every one of them is to be reputed void.It is true that a sovereign monarch,or the greater part of a sovereign assembly,may ordain the doing of many things in pursuit of their passions,contrary to their own consciences,which is a breach of trust and of the law of nature;but this is not enough to authorize any subject,either to make war upon,or so much as to accuse of injustice,or any way to speak evil of their sovereign;because they have authorized all his actions,and,in bestowing the sovereign power,made them their own.But in what cases the commands of sovereigns are contrary to equity and the law of nature is to be considered hereafter in another place.