I shall address myself particularly to titles as engendering or extinguishing rights in rem considered per se: that is to say, as not combined with rights in personam.

Titles as engendering or extinguishing rights in personam, and as engendering combinations (simple or complex) of rights in rem and rights in personam, I shall discuss particularly hereafter.

Title by succession ab intestato, and by succession ex testamento, I shall also pass over for the present; even in respect of the cases, (as, for example, a specific legacy) wherein it engenders a singular or particular right availing against the world at large. For the acquisition of a particular right (or of a res singula) by descent or testament, cannot be explained conveniently, unless acquisition by descent or testament of the university or aggregate of the intestate's or testator's rights be also explained at the same time.

Being engaged with the consideration of the Law of Things, I shall also for the present postpone the consideration of titles, in so far as they engender or extinguish status or conditions, and in so far as they are any way implicated with status or conditions.

Being engaged with the consideration of primary rights and duties, I shall also postpone delicts considered as titles, with the titles which arise from delicts in the way of consequence, till I come to treat of the rights and duties which I style sanctioning or secondary.

But though, in considering titles, I shall address myself particularly, for the present, to titles as engendering and extinguishing rights in rem considered per se, I shall preface my remarks on titles, as engendering and extinguishing the rights in question, by certain remarks which apply to titles generally.

From these remarks, applicable to titles generally, I shall proceed to the leading distinctions between titles as engendering or extinguishing rights of the class in question:

though, in considering those leading distinctions, and, indeed, throughout the course of my present disquisition, I shall often be obliged to advert to titles as engendering rights of other classes.

Having made certain remarks applicable to titles generally, and on the leading distinctions between titles as engendering and extinguishing the rights particularly in question, I shall consider seriatim certain titles, (as engendering and extinguishing (that is) the rights particularly in question,) which, in some shape or other, are found in every system, and are therefore appropriate matter for General Jurisprudence. The titles which are peculiar to particular systems, or such modifications of the titles common to all systems as are peculiar to particular systems, are foreign to the subject and scope of my Course; And when I mention them, I shall merely advert to them for the purpose of illustration.

Of the titles which I shall thus consider singly and seriatim, the following are the principal :

1st. The acquisition of jus in rem by occupancy: i. e. by the apprehension or occupation of a thing which has no owner, with the purpose of acquiring it as one's own.

2ndly. The acquisition of jus in rem by labour: i. e. by labour expended on a subject which has no previous owner, or even on a subject which has.

3rdly. The acquisition of jus in rem by accession: that is to say, through the medium of a thing of which one is owner already.

4thly. The acquisition of jus in rem by occupancy or labour combined with accession.

5thly. The various modes of acquiring jus in rem which fall under the generic name of title by alienation: meaning by alienation, the intentional and voluntary transfer of a right (or of a fraction of a right) by the party in whom the right resides, to another party.

6thly. The acquisition of jus in rem by præscription: the

consideration of which title will involve a previous consideration of the so-called right of possession.

7thly and lastly. Such inodes of losing rights as are not involved by implication in modes of acquiring them. For as every mode of acquisition is not derived from a pre-existing title, so may a title end without engendering another. Occupancy, for example, is not a title derived from a previous title for title by occupancy, strictly and pre-eminently so called, is a title consisting in the apprehension of what was previously no man's, with an intent to make it one's own. And so, where absolute property terminates by the annihilation of its subject, the mode by which the owner loses his right is not at the same time a title to a right in another.

In considering the titles to which I have now adverted, I shall commonly assume that the right which is the subject of the acquisition or loss, is absolute property, or dominion strictly so called, over a singular or particular thing in the proper acceptation of the name: noting from time to time, as I may see occasion, the effect of the title in question in engendering or extinguishing rights which are not rights of that class or description.

LECTURE LV.

AGREEABLY to the method or order which I announced in my last Lecture, I shall offer a few remarks applicable to titles in general, before I especially discuss them as engendering or extinguishing the rights to which I have now adverted.

Considered with reference to the modes wherein they respectively begin, or wherein the entitled persons are respectively invested with them, Rights, it appears to me, may be

divided into two kinds.

1o. Some are conferred by the law, upon the persons invested with them, through intervening facts to which it annexes them as consequences.

2o. Others are conferred by the law, upon the persons invested with them, immediately or directly: that is to say, not through the medium of any fact distinguishable from the law or command which confers or imparts the right.

Taking the term "title" in a large and loose signification, (and also as meaning a fact investing a person with a right,) a right of either kind may be said to begin in a title. For, taking the term "title," with that large and loose signification, it is applicable to any fact by which a person is invested with a right it is applicable to a law or command which confers a right immediately, as well as to an intervening fact through which a law or command confers a right mediately.

For, though, to some purposes, we oppose law and fact, a law or other command is of itself a fact: And where a law confers a right immediately, the law is the only fact

whereon the right arises, and is therefore the title (in the large and loose signification of that expression) by which the person is invested with the right. For example: By a special act of parliament, a monopoly, or a right of vending exclusively commodities of a given class, might be granted to a given person, for his own life, or for a term of years. Now, in this case, the privilege conferred by the special act of parliament might be strictly personal: that is to say, limited exclusively to the specifically determined grantee, and not transmissible to the heirs or assigns of the grantee, or to any persons of a given generic description.

And if it were strictly personal, it might be conferred by the act immediately or directly: that is to say, it might not be annexed by the act to any fact distinguishable from the act itself. And in this case, the act would be styled the title (in the loose signification of the term) from which the grantee derived the privilege.

But, taking the term "title" with a narrower and stricter signification, it is not applicable to laws which confer rights immediately, but is applicable only to the mediate or intervening facts through which rights are conferred by laws. In respect of this narrower and stricter signification, the rights of the two kinds which I am now considering may be distinguished by the following expressions: A right which is annexed by a law to a mediate or intervening fact, may be said to originate in a title: A right which is conferred by a law without the intervention of a fact distinct from the law that confers it, may be said to arise from the law directly or immediately; to arise ipso jure; to arise by operation of law, or by mere operation of law.

"Rights ex lege immediatè," "rights arising ipso jure," or "rights arising by operation of law," are terms (as I shall show hereafter) which are often misapplied. They are often applied to rights (as I shall show hereafter) which are annexed by the law to mediate or intervening facts. And the terms as thus applied, or as thus misapplied, denote, not