40. Such is the doctrine of this celebrated civilian. Let us now hear PUFFENDORF; and you will please to bear in mind, that both these writers are of the greatest authority upon all subjects connected with the laws of nature and of nations. We read in their works the result of an age of study: they have been two of the great guides of mankind ever since they wrote: and, we are not to throw them aside, in order to listen exclusively to Parson HAY, to HULTON OF HULTON, or to NICHOLAS GRIMSHAW. They tell us what they, and what other wise men, deemed to be right; and, as we shall by and by see, the laws of England, so justly boasted of by our ancestors, hold precisely the same language with these celebrated men. After the following passage from PUFFENDORF, I shall show you what our own lawyers say upon the subject; but I request you to read the following passage with the greatest attention. 41. "Let us inquire, in the next place, whether the necessity of preserving our life can give us any right over other men's goods, so as to make it allowable for us to seize on them for our relief, either secretly, or by open force, against the owner's consent. For the more clear and solid determination of which point, we think it necessary to hint in short on the causes upon which distinct _properties_ were first introduced in the world; designing to examine them more at large in their proper place. Now the main reasons on which _properties_ are founded, we take to be these two; that the feuds and quarrels might be appeased which arose in the _primitive communion_ of things, and that men might be put under a kind of necessity of being industrious, every one being to get his maintenance by his own application and labour. This division, therefore, of goods, was not made, that every person should sit idly brooding over the share of wealth he had got, without assisting or serving his fellows; but that any one might dispose of his things how he pleased; and if he thought fit to communicate them to others, he might, at least, be thus furnished with an opportunity of laying obligations on the rest of mankind. Hence, when properties were once established, men obtained a power, not only of exercising commerce to their mutual advantage and gain, but likewise of dispensing more largely in the works of humanity and beneficence; whence their diligence had procured them a greater share of goods than others: whereas before, when all things lay in common, men could lend one another no assistance but what was supplied by their corporeal ability, and could be charitable of nothing but of their _strength_. Further, such is the force of _property_, that the _proprietor_ hath a right of delivering his goods with his own hands; even such as he is obliged to give to others. Whence it follows, that when one man has anything owing from another, he is not presently to seize on it at a venture, but ought to apply himself to the owner, desiring to receive it from his disposal.