This forms a purely intellectual conception of the
understanding. Now we can leave out or abstract from the sensible
conditions of possession, as relations of a person to objects which
have no obligation. This process of elimination just gives the
rational relation of a person to persons; and it is such that he can
bind them all by an obligation in reference to the use of things
through his act of will, so far as it is conformable to the axiom of
freedom, the postulate of right, and the universal legislation of
the common will, conceived as united a priori. This is therefore the
rational intelligible possession of things as by pure right,
although they are objects of sense.
It is evident that the first modification, limitation, or
transformation generally, of a portion of the soil cannot of itself
furnish a title to its acquisition, since possession of an accident
does not form a ground for legal possession of the substance.
Rather, conversely, the inference as to the mine and thine must be
drawn from ownership of the substance according to the rule:
Accessarium sequitur suum principale. Hence one who has spent labour
on a piece of ground that was not already his own, has lost his effort
and work to the former owner. This position is so evident of itself
that the old opinion to the opposite effect, that is still spread
far and wide, can hardly be ascribed to any other than the
prevailing illusion which unconsciously leads to the personification
of things; and, then, as if they could be bound under an obligation by
the labour bestowed upon them to be at the service of the person who
does the labour, to regard them as his by immediate right.
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