III. In respect of the ground of right or the title (titulus) of
acquisition- which, properly, is not a particular member of the
division of rights, but rather a constituent element of the mode of
exercising them- anything external is acquired by a certain free
exercise of will that is either unilateral, as the act of a single
will (facto), or bilateral, as the act of two wills (pacto), or
omnilateral, as the act of all the wills of a community together
(lege).
SECTION I. Principles of Real Right.
11. What is a Real Right?
The usual definition of real right, or "right in a thing" (jus
reale, jus in re), is that "it is a right as against every possessor
of it." This is a correct nominal definition. But what is it that
entitles me to claim an external object from any one who may appear as
its possessor, and to compel him, per vindicationem, to put me
again, in place of himself, into possession of it? Is this external
juridical relation of my will a kind of immediate relation to an
external thing? If so, whoever might think of his right as referring
not immediately to persons but to things would have to represent it,
although only in an obscure way, somewhat thus. A right on one side
has always a duty corresponding to it on the other, so that an
external thing, although away from the hands of its first possessor,
continues to be still connected with him by a continuing obligation;
and thus it refuses to fall under the claim of any other possessor,
because it is already bound to another.
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