ABSTRACT
Here we are getting near to what is truly specific in the right of property, if we complete and define this concept of usage by
adding to it a distinguishing characteristic. One of the features that identify the right of usage which is peculiar to the owner of all similar rights, is that it excludes any concurrent right. Not only does the owner have use of a thing, but he is alone in that use; or, if there are several simultaneous users, it means that there are several owners. Every owner has the right to remove all other individuals from any thing of his own. The way in which he enjoys what belongs to him is of little importance: the main thing is that no other is able to enjoy it in his place. The thing is withdrawn from common usage for his own personal use. It is this, in part, that lies at the root of the idea of appropriation. However, we have not yet grasped the most fundamental element in this notion. Exclusive usage is to be found in many cases where there are, properly speaking, no rights of ownership: I mean those cases where the right of usage is established in a certain way agreed upon as between a given object and one or more given subjects (or individuals), to the exclusion of all others. The right of usufruct is typical of these rights. The proof that this primary feature is already inherent in the right of property is that the usufruct itself is an element in this right; as a rule it is looked on as the result of a breaking up of the right of property. At this stage, then, we have got into the region of things that have to be defined: but we have not yet reached the heart of the matter. There is something that still eludes us. Since the owner can co-exist alongside the usufructuary, this means that the right of usage does not form the whole of the right of property. What does the relation consist in, as between the true or bare owner and the thing owned? It is a moral and juridical bond which makes the status of the thing depend on what befalls the person. If he should die, it is his heirs who inherit. In general, there is a kind of moral community between the thing and the person which makes the one have a share in the social life and social status of the other. It is the person who gives his name to the thing or, conversely, the thing that gives its name to the person. It is the person who raises the status of the thing, or it is the thing, the domain, which-if it has privileges deriving from its origin-transmits them to the person. An entailed estate (or majorat) involves the transmission of special rights and a title to the inheritor. If we suppose family inheritance to be abolished as from to-morrow,
this bond, characteristic of the right of property, would none the less survive; for there would then be a different kind of hereditary transference: it might, for instance, be the society which would inherit and thus the death of the actual owner would continue to affect the social status of the things owned by him.
