ted with more generality than was allowed to it
by its author, and that no sound or safe conclusion can be looked for
from investigations into any system of laws which are pushed farther
back than the point at which these combined ideas constitute the
notion of proprietary right. Meantime, so far from bearing out the
popular theory of the origin of property, Savigny's canon is
particularly valuable as directing our attention to its weakest point.
In the view of Blackstone and those whom he follows, it was the mode
of assuming the exclusive enjoyment which mysteriously affected the
minds of the fathers of our race. But the mystery does not reside
here. It is not wonderful that property began in adverse possession.
It is not surprising that the first proprietor should have been the
strong man armed who kept his goods in peace. But why it was that
lapse of time created a sentiment of respect for his possession--which
is the exact source of the universal reverence of mankind for that
which has for a long period _de facto_ existed--are questions really
deserving the profoundest examination, but lying far beyond the
boundary of our present inquiries.

Before pointing out the quarter in which we may hope to glean some
information, scanty and uncertain at best, concerning the early
history of proprietary right, I venture to state my opinion that the
popular impression in reference to the part played by Occupancy in the
first stages of civilisation directly reverses the truth. Occupancy is
the advised assumption of physical possession; and the notion that an
act of this description confers a title to "res nullius," so far from
being characteristic of very early societies, is in all probability
the growth of a refined jurisprudence and of a settled condition of
the laws. It is only when the rights of property have gained a
sanction from long practical inviolability and when the vast majority
of the objects of enjoyment have been subjected to private ownership,
that mere possession is allowed to invest the first possessor with
dominion over commodities in which no prior proprietorship has been
asserted. The sentiment in which this doctrine originated is
absolutely irreconcilable with that infrequency and uncertainty of
proprietary rights which distinguish the beginnings of civilisation.
Its true basis seems to be, not an instinctive bias towards the
institution of Property, but a presumption arising out of the long
continuance of