Hence such a mode of attaining
to possession is to be regarded as a mere practical idea of reason.
There are three modes of ideal acquisition:
I. Acquisition by usucapion;
II. Acquisition by inheritance or succession;
III. Acquisition by undying merit (meritum immortale), or the
claim by right to a good name at death.
These three modes of acquisition can, as a matter of fact, only have
effect in a public juridical state of existence, but they are not
founded merely upon the civil constitution or upon arbitrary statutes;
they are already contained a priori in the conception of the state
of nature, and are thus necessarily conceivable prior to their
empirical manifestation. The laws regarding them in the civil
constitution ought to be regulated by that rational conception.
33. I. Acquisition by Usucapion.
(Acquisitio per Usucapionem).
I may acquire the property of another merely by long possession
and use of it (usucapio). Such property is not acquired, because I may
legitimately presume that his consent is given to this effect (per
consensum praesumptum); nor because I can assume that, as he does
not oppose my acquisition of it, he has relinquished or abandoned it
as his (rem derelictam). But I acquire it thus because, even if
there were any one actually raising a claim to this property as its
true owner, I may exclude him on the ground of my long possession of
it, ignore his previous existence, and proceed as if he existed during
the time of my possession as a mere abstraction, although I may have
been subsequently apprized of his reality as well as of his claim.
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