And in accordance with this
principle, every one is justified or entitled to exercise that
compulsion by which it alone becomes possible to pass out of the state
of nature and to enter into that state of civil society which alone
can make all acquisition peremptory.
It is a question as to how far the right of taking possession of the
soil extends. The answer is, So far as the capability of having it
under one's power extends; that is, just as far as he who wills to
appropriate it can defend it, as if the soil were to say: "If you
cannot protect me, neither can you command me." In this way the
controversy about what constitutes a free or closed sea must be
decided. Thus, within the range of a cannon-shot no one has a right to
intrude on the coast of a country that already belongs to a certain
state, in order to fish or gather amber on the shore, or such like.
Further, the question is put, "Is cultivation of the soil, by
building, agriculture, drainage, etc., necessary in order to its
acquisition?" No. For, as these processes as forms of specification
are only accidents, they do not constitute objects of immediate
possession and can only belong to the subject in so far as the
substance of them has been already recognized as his. When it is a
question of the first acquisition of a thing, the cultivation or
modification of it by labour forms nothing more than an external
sign of the fact that it has been taken into possession, and this
can be indicated by many other signs that cost less trouble.
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