SECTION III.
OF RUDE NATIONS UNDER THE IMPRESSIONS OF PROPERTY AND INTEREST.
It was a proverbial imprecation in use among the hunting nations on the
confines of Siberia, that their enemy might be obliged to live like a
Tartar, and have the folly of troubling himself with the charge of cattle.
[Footnote: Abulgaze's Genealogical History of the Tartars] Nature, it
seems, in their apprehension, by storing the woods and desert with game,
rendered the task of the herdsman unnecessary, and left to man only the
trouble of selecting and of seizing his prey.
The indolence of mankind, or rather their aversion to any application in
which they are not engaged by immediate instinct and passion, retards the
progress of industry and of impropriation. It has been found, however, even
while the means of subsistence are left in common, and the stock of the
public is yet undivided, that property is apprehended in different
subjects; that the fur and the bow belong to the individual; that the
cottage, with its furniture, are appropriated to the family.
When the parent begins to desire a better provision for his children than
is found under the promiscuous management of many co-partners, when he has
applied his labour and his skill apart, he aims at an exclusive possession,
and seeks the property of the soil, as well as the use of its fruits.
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