founding the state, and such a state as the 'Leviathan' that he described. The irrelevance of a good many of the author's particular criticisms of Hobbes cannot but strike the reader.
The controversial part of the treatise, however, is not that with which we are mainly concerned, so we pass on to Cumberland's own deduction of the right to property. It is somewhat important to notice the exact form of the argument. "It has been proved," he says, "that in the common happiness are contained both the highest honor of God, and the perfections both of the minds and bodies of men; moreover, it is well known from the Nature of Things that, in order to these ends, are necessarily required both many actions of men, and uses of things which cannot, at the same time, be subservient to other uses. From whence it follows that men, who are obliged to promote the common good, are likewise necessarily obliged to consent that the use of things and labor of persons, so far as they are necessary to particular men to enable them to promote the public good, should be so granted them, that they may not lawfully be taken from them, whilst the aforesaid necessity continues; that is, that those things should, at least during such time, become their property and be called their own. But such necessity continuing, by reason of the continuance of like times and circumstances, a perpetual property, or right to the use of things, and to the assistance of persons necessary, will follow to each person during life."[1]
It is to be noticed that there are two parts in this deduction: (1) the argument for the original partition of goods; (2) the argument for the permanence of that partition.[2] These should be carefully distinguished. It is precisely in the confusion of the two that the obscurity of Cumberland's treatment of property lies.
(1) As regards the (original) temporary right to the use of things and the services of other people, there seems to be no
