For, let it be supposed that the soil belongs to no one. Then I
would be entitled to remove every moveable thing found upon it from
its place, even to total loss of it, in order to occupy that place,
without infringing thereby on the freedom of any other; there being,
by the hypothesis, no possessor of it at all. But everything that
can be destroyed, such as a tree, a house, and such like- as regards
its matter at least- is moveable; and if we call a thing which
cannot be moved without destruction of its form an immoveable, the
mine and thine in it is not understood as applying to its substance,
but to that which is adherent to it and which does not essentially
constitute the thing itself.
13. Every Part of the Soil may be Originally Acquired; and
the Principle of the Possibility of such Acquisition
is the Original Community of the Soil Generally.
The first clause of this proposition is founded upon the postulate
of the practical reason (SS 2); the second is established by the
following proof.
All men are originally and before any juridical act of will in
rightful possession of the soil; that is, they have a right to be
wherever nature or chance has placed them without their will.
Possession (possessio), which is to be distinguished from
residential settlement (sedes) as a voluntary, acquired, and permanent
possession, becomes common possession, on account of the connection
with each other of all the places on the surface of the earth as a
globe.
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