It is
therefore an assumption a priori of the practical reason to regard and
treat every object within the range of my free exercise of will as
objectively a possible mine or thine.
This postulate may be called "a permissive law" of the practical
reason, as giving us a special title which we could not evolve out
of the mere conceptions of right generally. And this title constitutes
the right to impose upon all others an obligation, not otherwise
laid upon them, to abstain from the use of certain objects of our free
choice, because we have already taken them into our possession. Reason
wills that this shall be recognised as a valid principle, and it
does so as practical reason; and it is enabled by means of this
postulate a priori to enlarge its range of activity in practice.
3. Possession and Ownership.
Any one who would assert the right to a thing as his must be in
possession of it as an object. Were he not its actual possessor or
owner, he could not be wronged or injured by the use which another
might make of it without his consent. For, should anything external to
him, and in no way connected with him by right, affect this object, it
could not affect himself as a subject, nor do him any wrong, unless he
stood in a relation of ownership to it.
4.
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