possessor, twenty years against claimants living in any other province of the empire. It was necessary to make out so many years of actual possession. If a man, some time after coming into possession, was dispossessed for a year, he could not claim a ten years' usucapion until the end of the eleventh year. And if any man asserted a claim of ownership against the possessor, the possession was held to be suspended as soon as the legal proceedings commenced, so that the claimant was in no danger of losing his right by a usucapion completed during the course of the proceedings.

The possession thus far described, as requisite to usucapion, had bona fides and justa causa as indispensable conditions. But possession without these conditions was also recognized as a foundation for legal rights. Indeed, we may reckon among the most remarkable features of the Roman law, the explicitness with which it acknowledged, and the elaborate machinery with which it defended, the possible rights connected even with a wrongful possession. Possession, to be effectual against a real owner, to give rights against an owner, must be accompanied by bona fides and justa causa. But possession which lacked one or both these elements might give rights against other would-be possessors. The principle was that an actual possessor, without reference to the ground or origin of his possession, should be defended by law against all persons whose title was no better than his own. If

Aulus had settled down upon a piece of land, knowing that he had no claim to it whatever, and when he had occupied it for a time, Titius stepped in without any better claim and drove him from the place, Aulus could invoke the help of the law, stating merely the facts of his possession and his forcible ejectment from it, and could thus obtain restoration to the ground on which he had squatted. The case would have been very different, if Titius had been the real owner of the land, or if he had been even a former possessor, whom Aulus without legal right had deprived of his possession Aulus then could have found no assistance or protection in the law. Again, let us suppose that Aulus had received a horse as a precarium, or temporary gift to be recalled at pleasure of the giver. this case, there is nothing wrong in the possession of Aulus, but it is a possession which could never lead to usucapion, for he does not believe himself to be owner, and he has no cause to believe it. It is a possession of which the owner can rightly deprive him at any moment. But if Titius, a third party, attempts to do so, the law will interpose in behalf of Aulus, to maintain his right, precarious as it is.

In

In treating of possession, as it appears in such cases, the Roman jurists distinguished a corpus and an animus (a body and a spirit). The corpus (or body) of possession consisted in the physical power to exercise control over the object, to treat it as one's prop

erty. The animus (or spirit) consisted in the disposition to do so, to treat it as one's property. Both were alike essential to real possession. If a man borrowed a horse, he had the physical power to treat it as his own property; but while he regarded himself as a borrower, he could have no idea of treating it thus, and therefore had no possession in the sense we are now considering. If he was deprived of the horse, he could not obtain redress on the ground that he was a possessor: he must plead the right of keeping and using, which he had derived from the owner. His right was founded on an agreement with the owner, and not on a possession vested in himself.

There are many interesting points connected with this subject of possession (i. e., possession without bona fides or justa causa); but to point them out and make them clear would lead into too much detail. I will only add a word as to the causes by which the Romans were led to make so much of this doctrine, and to give it so full a development. One of these is to be found in the custom of the precarium, just adverted to. In early times, when a piece of property belonging to a debtor was pledged as a security for the debt, it usually passed at once into the ownership of the creditor, and remained his property until the debt was to be paid. Meantime, however, it was often suffered to remain in the possession and use of the debtor, as a precarium, or temporary concession, which the credi

tor (the present owner) could recall whenever he chose. The frequency of this procedure made it necessary to recognize and protect the possession allowed in it. Again, when an action (or suit) was commenced to determine who was owner of a piece of property, the first question was, who should have possession of the property while the suit was pending, of course with the obligation of surrendering it if the suit should go against him. Thus every suit that turned on a disputed title furnished a case of temporary possession which required to be recognized and protected. Still again, the occupants of the public lands, the domain of the state, were not owners but possessors of their holdings. These lands, chiefly acquired by conquest in war, were sometimes divided among the citizens, and then became the property of individuals. More commonly, they remained the property of the state, but were occupied and enjoyed with public permission, by members of the ruling aristocracy. This occupancy or possession could never give rise to usucapion: it was always subject to the superior claims of the state. Though strong enough to maintain itself against the assaults of the Gracchi, and other popular leaders, it was in theory like a precarium, a temporary concession, which the state could recall whenever it chose. Here, then, possession had the widest field for legal as well as economical and political development.

The subject of the next lecture will be Rights in the property of others.

LECTURE VIII.

RIGHTS IN THE PROPERTY OF OTHERS,

JURA IN RE (Sc. aliena) were rights naturally included in the dominıum of the owner, but cut off and given to some one else. One property might be so related to another, that the first was subject to some power or control of any person who owned the second: such relations were called servitutes praediorum rusticorum or urbanorum, according as they pertained to lands or to buildings. Among the former were three rights of way, viz., iter (of simple passing), actus (of driving animals), via (of keeping up a road), across the ground of another; also servitutes aquaeductus, aquaehaustus, pascendi, arenae fodiendae, lapides eximendi, calcis coquendae, etc. Among the latter were servitutes oneris ferendi, tigni immissi, projiciendi or protegendi, stillicidii, fluminis, cloacae, luminum, altius non tollendi, ne luminibus (or prospectui) officiatur. General principles: 1. The two estates must generally (not always) be contiguous; 2. The right secured must be an advantage to the ruling estate, not to its owner merely; 3. The advantage to the ruling estate was a measure of the right; 4. The servitus could never consist in faciendo (by owner of subject estate), but usually in patiendo, sometimes in non faciendo.

Besides the praedial, there were personal servitutes, pertaining to the person, and hence limited to the life, of an individual. The most important was the ususfructus, full right to use and enjoy some property of another. The property, however, must be put to its natural use; and must be so used as to suffer no substantial injury. Hence, in articles of food there could be no usufruct; and none in money (quasi-usufruct). The usufruct might be created for a term of years, and must then cease at the end of the term. It might always be transferred from one person to another. But in no case could it survive the original usufructuary. And if by any transfer it came back to the owner of the property, it