But even though all this were admitted, it would not be satisfactory.  Positive laws can certainly transfer property.  It is by another original instinct, that we recognize the authority of kings and senates, and mark all the boundaries of their jurisdiction?  Judges too, even though their sentence be erroneous and illegal, must be allowed, for the sake of peace and order, to have decisive authority, and ultimately to determine property.  Have we original innate ideas of praetors and chancellors and juries?  Who sees not, that all these institutions arise merely from the necessities of human society?

All birds of the same species in every age and country, built their nests alike:  In this we see the force of instinct.  Men, in different times and places, frame their houses differently:  Here we perceive the influence of reason and custom.  A like inference may be drawn from comparing the instinct of generation and the institution of property.

How great soever the variety of municipal laws, it must be confessed, that their chief outlines pretty regularly concur; because the purposes, to which they tend, are everywhere exactly similar.  In like manner, all houses have a roof and walls, windows and chimneys; though diversified in their shape, figure, and materials.  The purposes of the latter, directed to the conveniencies of human life, discover not more plainly their origin from reason and reflection, than do those of the former, which point all to a like end.

I need not mention the variations, which all the rules of property receive from the finer turns and connexions of the imagination, and from the subtilties and abstractions of law-topics and reasonings.  There is no possibility of reconciling this observation to the notion of original instincts.

What alone will beget a doubt concerning the theory, on which I insist, is the influence of education and acquired habits, by which we are so accustomed to blame injustice, that we are not, in every instance, conscious of any immediate reflection on the pernicious consequences of it.  The views the most familiar to us are apt, for that very reason, to escape us; and what we have very frequently performed from certain motives, we are apt likewise to continue mechanically, without recalling, on every occasion, the reflections, which first determined us.  The convenience, or rather necessity, which leads to justice is so universal, and everywhere points so much to the same rules, that the habit takes place in all societies; and it is not without some scrutiny, that we are able to ascertain its true origin.  The matter, however, is not so obscure, but that even in common life we have every moment recourse to the principle of public utility, and ask, what must become of the world, if such practices prevail?  How could society subsist under such disorders?  Were the distinction or separation of possessions entirely useless, can any one conceive, that it ever should have obtained in society?