Excerpt from Essays on Property and Labour as Connected With Natural Law and the Constitution of Society Having been requested by the author and his publishers to introduce this volume with a few prefatory remarks, I take pleasure in complying with the request, but without any hope that I shall be able to add either to the interest or the utility of Essays pro ceeding from one so well known and so justly distinguished as Mr. Lieber. Studious men, who are accustomed to in vestigate the nature and foundation of our rights, are well aware that the theory of property, as unfolded by some of the great est writers of modern times, is incomplete. By some, as Hobbes, for instance, property is represented as a gift or grant from the government, and as held, therefore, subject, of right and without reserve, to its disposal. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.