This mode of acquiring the soil is,
therefore, to be repudiated.
The indefiniteness of external acquirable objects in respect of
their quantity, as well as their quality, makes the problem of the
sole primary external acquisition of them one of the most difficult to
solve. There must, however, be some one first acquisition of an
external object; for every Acquisition cannot be derivative. Hence,
the problem is not to be given up as insoluble or in itself as
impossible. If it is solved by reference to the original contract,
unless this contract is extended so as to include the whole human
race, acquisition under it would still remain but provisional.
16. Exposition of the Conception of a Primary
Acquisition of the Soil.
All men are originally in a common collective possession of the soil
of the whole earth (communio fundi originaria), and they have
naturally each a will to use it (lex justi). But on account of the
opposition of the free will of one to that of the other in the
sphere of action, which is inevitable by nature, all use of the soil
would be prevented did not every will contain at the same time a law
for the regulation of the relation of all wills in action, according
to which a particular possession can be determined to every one upon
the common soil.
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