no difference in the length of the month for legal purposes.

(3) In reckoning the duration of a period for legal purposes, the first and the last days were both reckoned as part of the interval of duration, and a portion of a day was reckoned as a whole day. This was an obvious convenience, as a calculation of hours and minutes would have largely increased the area of litigation. But there

might be cases in which the time was reckoned with exactitude from one hour to another, or from the beginning or middle of one day to the end of another. In the matter of prescription it was expressly said that "the L. 6, D. (xli. reckoning was not from moment to moment, 3). L. 15, pr. but the whole of the last day was counted in." D. (xliv. 3). This privilege seems to have been accorded in favour of the acquisition of a right. Where a right could be lost by mere non-usage, the time would have to run out to the end of the last day.

(7) In calculating the lapse of time there was a distinction made between a continuous series of divisions of time, as days, months, and years, and a series not continuous. In some cases either custom or positive law recognized breaks in the duration of a period, so that there were intervals not included in the calculation. One main reason for these exceptions was the practical impossibility of doing, on days so excepted, acts which had to be performed. Thus the term utiles (available) was applied to days which, on one ground or another, were not so excepted, and continui to days which ran on without such breaks. The common grounds for recognizing days as not utiles or available were, (1) the fact of the magistrate not sitting; L. 2, § 1, D. (xxxviii. 15). (2) the absence of an adverse party—illness, L. I, D. (xliv. absence on good grounds, and in some cases ignorance of facts.

3).

7).

(8) The notion of immemorial time (cujus origo memoriam L. 3, D. (xliii. excessit) was a familiar one, especially in reference to local roads (via vicinales), barriers erected to prevent the escape of rain water (aquæ pluvio arcendæ causa), and aqueducts. It was sufficient, in order

to repel a presumption of a right being immemorial, for a witness to have heard from others who L. 2, § 8, D. remembered its origin. The question was of (xxxix. 3). some public importance, as it related to the person on whom the charge of repairing a public work could be cast, and this might depend on who originally constructed it for the benefit of his estate.

§ 4.-Rights.

Inasmuch as the bulk of Roman law, like all other systems of law, is concerned with describing the nature, modifications, modes of originating and of protecting rights, it is rather to the detailed treatment of the subject than to any general introductory observations that reference must be made in order to comprehend what a right, in the true and comprehensive meaning of the term, really was in the eye of the best Roman lawyers. There is no doubt, however, that the term jus did represent a somewhat abstract conception to the Roman lawyers; though they did not handle it in an abstract way, and most of the abstract expressions, such as jus ad rem, jus in personam, though fashioned after forms supplied in the original authorities, are really the creation of middle-age commentators, and betoken a far more advanced or reflective mode of thought than existed in Roman times.

However, the Romans recognized or created some notions respecting abstract rights, which are of permanent. value for scientific law. Thus the distinction between a right good against all the world equally and a right good against a certain person or certain persons alone, which afterwards took the form of the opposition of jus in rem to jus in personam, was undoubtedly firmly held in the best times of Roman law, though the conception was in the case of neither of the opposed notions fully carried out. The jus in rem was little more than co-extensive with rights of ownership, instead of including, as it strictly does, rights to reputation, to titles of honour, to personal security, and to the immunity of family relationships. In the same

L

way the essential notion of jura in personam as co-extensive with obligations was firmly held, but there were large classes of jura in personam, such as rights in respect of guardianship, and a variety of rights arising out of judicial and quasi-judicial proceedings, which were never included among obligations.

The Roman conception of rights will best appear from the detailed examination of all the classes of rights actually recognized in the law.

§ 5-Remedics.

The subject of Remedies in its general aspect will be most appropriately considered in the historical part of the chapter on Procedure.

CHAPTER II.

OWNERSHIP.

§ 1. Rights of Ownership Gencrally.

A RIGHT of ownership is a right in respect to the use of things available against all the world. According as the right is greater or less, the use is less or more limited, is more or less well assured in point of independence, and is enjoyable for a greater or less duration of time.

The fullest right of ownership of a thing is a right to use the thing in all available ways, to part with it, and to destroy it. Such a right was called dominium. In Justinian's time the conception of pure ownership was reduced to a much simpler form than at, or before, the period of the great jurists. Then a distinction was drawn. between the ownership which was possible in the case of lands in Italy, and of some other special classes of things (res mancipi), and the ownership of all other things. It was only the former sort of ownership which was called dominium. This distinction, however, seems to have vanished even in Gaius' time. Another distinction, Gaius (ii. 40). also abolished by Justinian, had existed between Ulp. 19, Cod. technically completed ownership as recognized (vii. 25, vii. 31). by the common law (lex jure Quiritium) and a certain incomplete ownership (in bonis habere), to which the prætor attached almost all the legal advantages of completed ownership.

Nevertheless, in Justinian's time, it necessarily happened that the highest and simplest form of ownership was very far from being as vague and unlimited as the

term dominium seems to suggest ; and besides ownership of the highest kind, there was a graduated list of rights of ownership differing from each other in respect of the time, the mode, and the degree, of the limitations which defined. and restricted them. It thus came about that the same thing might at one and the same moment be the object of dominium vested in one person, and of a variety of lesser rights of ownership vested in a series of others. So far as this could be the case, dominium no longer carries with it that indefinite capacity of using the thing owned which is theoretically attributed to that supreme right.

Thus, in the case of a partnership, the partners cannot, indeed, all, that is severally,-consume for their own private purposes anything forming an element of the common goods; yet, when the thing has been appropriately used by one, or some, or all, of the partners for the common object, each member of the association has his own particular rights in respect of the profits. Such a partnership was informally created by the mere accidental mixture or blending (confusio) of things belonging to different people. Precise rules were laid down as to how, and by whom, the resulting product was to be used, and in what way any profits arising from its use were to be distributed.

J. (ii. 1, 27 sq.).

Other essential limitations to the fullest right of ownership are due to the claims of the general community, either as grounded on the maxim-to which the prætor, by his interdict, was always ready to give effect-that every one must use his own in such a way as not to injure what belongs to some one else, or as grounded on the supreme authority of the State, exercised for the purpose of taxation, or of making roads, harbours, arsenals, and marketplaces (that is, of converting res private into res publicæ or res communes).

§ 2.-Restricted Rights of Ownership.

The practically most important limitations on the fullest rights of ownership are those which constitute