neficial character, have been so
loath to adopt and to carry to its legitimate consequences as that
which was known to the Romans as Usucapion, and which has descended to
modern jurisprudence under the name of Prescription. It was a positive
rule of the oldest Roman law, a rule older than the Twelve Tables,
that commodities which had been uninterruptedly possessed for a
certain period became the property of the possessor. The period of
possession was exceedingly short--one or two years according to the
nature of the commodities--and in historical times Usucapion was only
allowed to operate when possession had commenced in a particular way;
but I think it likely that at a less advanced epoch possession was
converted into ownership under conditions even less severe than we
read of in our authorities. As I have said before, I am far from
asserting that the respect of men for _de facto_ possession is a
phenomenon which jurisprudence can account for by itself, but it is
very necessary to remark that primitive societies, in adopting the
principle of Usucapion, were not beset with any of the speculative
doubts and hesitations which have impeded its reception among the
moderns. Prescriptions were viewed by the modern lawyers, first with
repugnance, afterwards with reluctant approval. In several countries,
including our own, legislation long declined to advance beyond the
rude device of barring all actions based on a wrong which had been
suffered earlier than a fixed point of time in the past, generally the
first year of some preceding reign; nor was it till the middle ages
had finally closed, and James the First had ascended the throne of
England, that we obtained a true statute of limitation of a very
imperfect kind. This tardiness in copying one of the most famous
chapters of Roman law, which was no doubt constantly read by the
majority of European lawyers, the modern world owes to the influence
of the Canon Law. The ecclesiastical customs out of which the Canon
Law grew, concerned as they were with sacred or quasi-sacred
interests, very naturally regarded the privileges which they conferred
as incapable of being lost through disuse however prolonged; and in
accordance with this view, the spiritual jurisprudence, when
afterwards consolidated, was distinguished by a marked leaning against
Prescriptions. It was the fate of the Canon Law, when held up by the
clerical lawyers as a pattern to secular legislation, to have a
peculia