Two Books of the Elements of Universal Jurisprudence

Definition 5

43 u d e f i n i t i o n v u A moral thing is a thing regarded in respect of its pertinence to persons. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. How manifold is the respect of the pertinence of actions? Eminent domain, and direct ownership both ordinary and for purposes of utilization. Plenary ownership, and limited. What is one’s own, and what is common property. The proper goods of societies. Whether it be possible for a state to exclude outsiders from things of innocent utility. Is the sea subject to claims of proprietorship? The sea which is very close to the coasts is private property. The wide spaces of ocean seem to have been regarded by the nations as derelict. How navigation and commerce upon the ocean are free. Possession is a complement of proprietorship. The origin of ownership over things from the divine law. How far the ownership of man over brute creation extends by divine law. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. How far it extends by the law of nature. Origin of proprietorship. Occupation the original mode of acquisition. How property has passed from the first owner to later owners. How are goods to be divided among sons? Lucrative modes of acquisition. Burdensome modes. Returns and profits of a thing are acquired for the owner. Should species follow matter, or matter species? False modes of acquisition. Whether a fault in acquisition is eliminated through passage of time. Whether it passes over to a third party. How proprietorship may be lost, as also about wills. Insanity does not destroy proprietorship of property. No man’s property; different kinds of property. Corporeal property. Incorporeal. 44 book i, definition v 1. The respect of pertinence, considered indeterminately and absolutely, as it is the formal reason for moral things, is either affirmative or negative. Affirmative respect extends to proprietorship and common ownership, whence moral things are called proper or common; negative respect is uniform , as it were, and takes on the aspect of neutrality, whence moral things are called no man’s. Now considered determinately respect of pertinence has established the significance of mine and thine. Considered materially, moreover, and in themselves, things are divided into corporeal and incorporeal. 2. Men divide ownership commonly into three species, which you may call modes of possession; that is, eminent domain, and direct ownership both common and for purposes of utilization. By the first is meant that authority which belongs to a state or its head over the property of citizens for the commonweal. Its effect is, that it can effectively restrain, as far as it may seem advisable to do so for the common good, the force of ordinary ownership. By ordinary ownership private persons possess their goods, in regard to which they have full faculty of making disposal, except in so far as that faculty is restrained by the eminent authority. There, if the usufruct be with another, it is called direct ownership, such as that which the owner has of a piece of land given in implantation. Finally we are said to have ownership for the purposes of utilization over those goods whose usufruct alone belongs to us, but the direct ownership to another; such as what we possess as lessees in the tenure of implantation.* 3. Ownership is also either plenary or limited. Itis plenarywhenthesame person actually possesses both the proprietorship of the thing and of its usufructs. In this way are possessed not merely those things over which we have eminent domain united with ordinary ownership (just as sometimes a certain region is acquired by a prince or a people together with every kind of ownership rights, over parts of which afterwards a limited ownership is granted to individuals), but also those things over which we have merely ordinary ownership, from which the usufruct has notbeenseparatedexcept * I have translated this paragraph (and its heading) literally, but the logical division seemstobeatfault.Theauthorclearlywantstomakeathreefolddivision.Thatispossible only thus: (1) eminent domain; (2) ordinary ownership; (3) limited ownership: (a)direct ownership, (b) ownership for purposes of utilization.—Tr. a moral thing 45 temporarily by way of a revocable benefaction. Ownership is limited when either the usufruct of my property belongs to another, or, on the other hand, the usufruct of another’s property falls to...