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516 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap, xliv whose nature is tractable to the arts of education, he acquires a perpetual title to the use and service of their numerous progeny, which derives its existence from him alone. If he in- closes and cultivates a field for their sustenance and his own, a barren waste is converted into a fertile soil ; the seed, the manure, the labour, create a new value; and the rewards of harvest are painfully earned by the fatigues of the revolving year. In the successive states of society, the hunter, the shep- herd, the husbandman, may defend their possessions by two reasons which forcibly appeal to the feelings of the human mind: that whatever they enjoy is the fruit of their own in- dustry; and, that every man who envies their felicity may purchase similar acquisitions by the exercise of similar diligence. Such, in truth, may be the freedom and plenty of a small colony cast on a fruitful island. But the colony multiplies, while the space still continues the same; the common rights, the equal inheritance of mankind, are engrossed by the bold and crafty ; each field and forest is circumscribed by the landmarks of a jealous master ; and it is the peculiar praise of the Eoman juris- prudence that it asserts the claim of the first occupant to the wild animals of the earth, the air, and the waters. In the pro- gress from primitive equity to final injustice, the steps are silent, the shades are almost imperceptible, and the absolute monopoly is guarded by positive laws and artificial reason. The active insatiate principle of self-love can alone supply the arts of life and the wages of industry ; and, as soon as civil government and exclusive property have been introduced, they become necessary to the existence of the human race. Except in the singular institutions of Sparta, the wisest legislators have dis- approved an agrarian law as a false and dangerous innovation. Among the Eomans, the enormous disproportion of wealth surmounted the ideal restraints of a doubtful tradition and an obsolete statute : a tradition that the poorest follower of Romu- lus had been endowed with the perpetual inheritance of two jugera : I42 a statute which confined the richest citizen to the measure of five hundred jugera, or three hundred and twelve acres of land. The original territory of Home consisted only 142 The Jieredium of the first Romans is defined by Varro (de Re Rustica, 1. i. c. ii. p. 141, c. x. p. 160, 161, edit. Gesner), and clouded by Pliny's declamation (Hist. Natur. xviii. 2). A just and learned comment is given in the Administration des Terres chez les Romains (p. 12-66).