In this way my right, viewed
as a kind of good genius accompanying a thing and preserving it from
all external attack, would refer an alien possessor always to me! It
is, however, absurd to think of an obligation of persons towards
things, and conversely; although it may be allowed in any particular
case to represent the juridical relation by a sensible image of this
kind, and to express it in this way.
The real definition would run thus: "Right in a thing is a right
to the private use of a thing, of which I am in possession- original
or derivative- in common with all others." For this is the one
condition under which it is alone possible that I can exclude every
others possessor from the private use of the thing (jus contra
quemlibet hujus rei possessorem). For, except by presupposing such a
common collective possession, it cannot be conceived how, when I am
not in actual possession of a thing, I could be injured or wronged
by others who are in possession of it and use it. By an individual act
of my own will I cannot oblige any other person to abstain from the
use of a thing in respect of which he would otherwise be under no
obligation; and, accordingly, such an obligation can only arise from
the collective will of all united in a relation of common
possession. Otherwise, I would have to think of a right in a thing, as
if the thing has an obligation towards me, and as if the right as
against every possessor of it had to be derived from this obligation
in the thing, which is an absurd way of representing the subject.
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