(c) If we may trust the simple record in Genesis, the whole earth was given of God to the whole race, under the direction that they "_replenish and subdue it_." All the lands were then certainly valueless, although some of them were doubtless possessed of Utility, that is, a capacity to gratify human desires through a direct appropriation, which is a very different thing from Value, which last is the rendering and receiving of equivalents as between two persons. It seems very plain, that under this word, "Subdue," and under the human services implied in that, came in the first idea of ownership in land. When a family or tribe commenced the work of subjugation upon a piece of land, when they enclosed it, settled on it, tilled it, in any way whatever improved it by their own toil, then _could_ first the idea of ownership dawn upon their minds, then first began that land to be capable of value, since now that family might reasonably say to another, If you want this field, you must give us an equivalent for what we have expended on it to improve it. If the transfer took place, what was it that was sold? What was it that was paid for by the party of the second part? It could not be the inherent quality of the soil, it could not be anything that the first family had gratuitously entered upon, because similar free land with all its inherent qualities lay open to occupation on every hand, and the second family would surely say, For as much effort as you have put upon your land to better it, we can make other free land as good as yours, consequently we can give you no more at the most than a fair equivalent for your efforts already expended. If the parcel were sold, therefore, the _value_ of it must have been determined, not by the _gratuitous_ elements involved but the _onerous_ elements involved. The physical thing, land, which cost nothing, has now become the valuable thing, land, through a series of human efforts expended of such kind as call out human desires for the results reached, and justify the rendering of return-services for them; and that which the buyer pays for is never the free _old_ but always the onerous _new_; new utilities, that cost something, have been added to and intermixed with old utilities, that cost nothing; and solely in consequence of this expenditure of efforts on the part of some men, answering to the desires and calling out the efforts of other men, do parcels of land pass out from the first great class into the second great class. So far as it can be gathered from the nature of the case, and from the known steps of past experience, this is the simple and rational process by which valueless lands become valuable, and _less_ valuable become _more_ valuable lands.