We now speak of property in land; and there is a difficulty in explaining the origin of this property consistently with the law of nature; for the land was once, no doubt, common; and the question is, how any particular part of it could justly be taken out of the common and so appropriated to the first owner as to give him a better right to it than others; and what is more, a right to exclude others from it. Moralists have given many different accounts of this matter, which diversity alone, perhaps, is a proof that none of them are satisfactory.
— ARCHDEACON PALEY, Moral and Political Philosophy (1785), Book III., Part I., Chap 4.
See also January 28 and 29, and Kate Kennedy's "Paley's Pigeons."
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