![handle is hein.beal/clefba0002 and id is 1 raw text is:
COMMENTARIES
ON
THE LAWS OF ENGLAND.
BOOK THE SECOND.
OF THE RIGHTS OF THINGS.
CHAPTER I.
OF PROPERTY, IN GENERAL.
THE former book of these Commentaries having treated at large of the
jura personarum, or such rights and duties as are annexed to the persons of
men, the objects of our inquiry in this second book will be the jura rerum,
or those rights which a man may acquire in and to such external things
as are unconnected with his person. These are what the writers in natu-
ral law style the rights of dominion, or property, concerning the nature
and original of which I shall first premise a few observations, before I pro-
ceed to distribute and consider its several objects.
There is nothing which so generally strikes the imagination, [ *2 ]
and engages the affections of mankind, as the right of property ;
or that sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises
over the external things of the world, in total exclusion of the right of
any other individual in the universe. And yet there are very few that
will give themselves the trouble to consider the original and foundation of
this right. Pleased as we are with the possession, we seem afraid to look
back to the means by which it was acquired, as if fearful of some defect
in our title ; or at best we rest satisfied with the decision of the laws in
our favour, without examining the reason or authority upon which those
laws have been built. We think it enough that our title is derived by
the grant of the former proprietor, by descent from our ancestors, or by the
last will and testament of the dying owner ; not caring to reflect that (ac-
curately and strictly speaking) there is no foundation in nature or in natu-
ral law, why a set of words upon parchment should convey the dominion
of land ; why the son should have a right to exclude his fellow-creatures
from a determinate spot of ground, because his father had done so before
him: or why the occupier of a particular field or of a jewel, when lying
on his death-bed, and no longer able to maintain possession, should be en-
titled to tell the rest of the world which of them should enjoy it after him.
These inquiries, it must be owned, would be useless and even troublesome
in common life. It is well if the mass of mankind will obey the laws
when made, without scrutinizing too nicely into the reason for making
VOL. 1. 56](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.beal/clefba0002&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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