=The law.=--If occupation of itself alone is insufficient in founding the right of property, will it not become legitimate by adding to it _convention_--that is to say, the _law_? Property, we have seen, is necessary; but if every one is free to appropriate to himself what he needs, it becomes anarchy; it is, as Hobbes said, "the war of all against all." It is necessary that the law should fix the property of each in the interest of all. Property, under this new hypothesis, would then mean the part which public authority has fixed or recognized, whether we admit a primitive division made by a magistrate, or a primitive occupation more or less due to chance, but consecrated by law.
Certainly, the reason of social utility plays a great part in the establishment and consecration of property; and it would be absurd not to take this consideration into account. Certainly, even if property were but a fact consecrated by time, by necessity, and by law, it would already by that alone have a very great authority; but we believe that that is not saying enough. Property is not only a _consecrated fact_, it is also a _right_. It finds in the law its _guaranty_, but not its _foundation_.
The true principle of property is _work_; and property becomes blended with liberty itself: "_liberty_ and _property_," say the English.
_Work._--If all the things man has need of were in unlimited number, and if they could be acquired without effort, there would be no property. This, for example, takes place in the case of the atmosphere, of which we all have need, but which belongs to no one. But if the question is of things that cannot be _acquired_ except by a certain effort (as in the case of animals running wild), or even that can be _produced_ only by human effort (as a harvest in a barren ground), these things belong by right to him who conquers them or brings them about.
"I take wild wheat into my hand, I sow it in soil I have dug, and I wait for the earth, aided by rain and sunshine, to do its work. Is the growing crop my property? Where would it be without me? I created it. Who can deny it?... This earth was worth nothing and produced nothing: I dug the soil; I brought from a distance friable and fertilizing earth; I enriched it with manure; it is now fertile for many years to come. This fertility is my work.... The earth belonged to no one; in fertilizing it, I made it mine. According to Locke, nine tenths at least of the produce of the soil should be attributed to human labor."[20]