| It is only a general sense of common interest; which sense all the members of the society express to one another, and which induces them to regulate their conduct by certain rules. |
| I observe, that it will be for my interest to leave another in the possession of his goods, provided he will act in the same manner with regard to me. |
| He is sensible of a like interest in the regulation of his conduct. |
| When this common sense of interest is mutually expressed, and is known to both, it produces a suitable resolution and behaviour. |
| And this may properly enough be called a convention or agreement betwixt us, though without the interposition of a promise; since the actions of each of us have a reference to those of the other, and are performed upon the supposition, that something is to be performed on the other part. |
| Two men, who pull the oars of a boat, do it by an agreement or convention, though they have never given promises to each other. |
| Nor is the rule concerning the stability of possession the less derived from human conventions, that it arises gradually, and acquires force by a slow progression, and. |
| by our repeated experience of the inconveniences of transgressing it. |
| On the contrary, this experience assures us still more, that the sense of interest has become common to all our fellows, and gives us a confidence of the future regularity of their conduct: And it is only on the expectation of this, that our moderation and abstinence are founded. |
| In like manner are languages gradually established by human conventions without any promise. |
| In like manner do gold and silver become the common measures of exchange, and are esteemed sufficient payment for what is of a hundred times their value. |
| After this convention, concerning abstinence from the possessions of others, is entered into, and every one has acquired a stability in his possessions, there immediately arise the ideas of justice and injustice; as also those of property, right, and obligation. |
| The latter are altogether unintelligible without first understanding the former. |
| Our property is nothing but those goods, whose constant possession is established by the laws of society; that is, by the laws of justice. |
| Those, therefore, who make use of the words property, or right, or obligation, before they have explained the origin of justice, or even make use of them in that explication, are guilty of a very gross fallacy, and can never reason upon any solid foundation. |
| A man's property is some object related to him. |
| This relation is not natural, but moral, and founded on justice. |
| It is very preposterous, therefore, to imagine, that we can have any idea of property, without fully comprehending the nature of justice, and shewing its origin in the artifice and contrivance of man. |
| The origin of justice explains that of property. |
| The same artifice gives rise to both. |
| As our first and most natural sentiment of morals is founded on the nature of our passions, and gives the preference to ourselves and friends, above strangers; it is impossible there can be naturally any such thing as a fixed right or property, while the opposite passions of men impel them in contrary directions, and are not restrained by any convention or agreement. |