Unlike the Putney soldiers and Hobbes, Locke held that, although originally God gave the Earth to humankind as a common possession, private property rights arose prior to government and need not be surrendered at the threshold upon entering civil society. This doctrine is widely (but mistakenly) taken as a thesis of “the sanctity of private property.” This chapter traces Locke’s argument, the main thread of which proceeds from self-ownership, to ownership of one’s labor, to ownership of whatever one mixes one’s labor with – with two provisos, a nonspoilation proviso and a enough-and-as-good-left-for-others proviso. With the invention of money, unequal accumulation of wealth without limit was tacitly consented to, and tacit consent is also invoked by Locke to explain why all who inhabit a territory consent to be governed.