ght to use and abuse one's own
within the limits of the law--jus utendi et abutendi re sua, guatenus
juris ratio patitur. A justification of the word ABUSE has been
attempted, on the ground that it signifies, not senseless and immoral
abuse, but only absolute domain. Vain distinction! invented as an excuse
for property, and powerless against the frenzy of possession, which it
neither prevents nor represses. The proprietor may, if he chooses, allow
his crops to rot under foot; sow his field with salt; milk his cows
on the sand; change his vineyard into a desert, and use his
vegetable-garden as a park: do these things constitute abuse, or not? In
the matter of property, use and abuse are necessarily indistinguishable.

According to the Declaration of Rights, published as a preface to the
Constitution of '93, property is "the right to enjoy and dispose at
will of one's goods, one's income, and the fruit of one's labor and
industry."

Code Napoleon, article 544: "Property is the right to enjoy and dispose
of things in the most absolute manner, provided we do not overstep the
limits prescribed by the laws and regulations."

These two definitions do not differ from that of the Roman law: all
give the proprietor an absolute right over a thing; and as for the
restriction imposed by the code,--PROVIDED WE DO NOT OVERSTEP THE LIMITS
PRESCRIBED BY THE LAWS AND REGULATIONS,--its object is not to limit
property, but to prevent the domain of one proprietor from interfering
with that of another. That is a confirmation of the principle, not a
limitation of it.

There are different kinds of property: 1. Property pure and simple, the
dominant and seigniorial power over a thing; or, as they term it, NAKED
PROPERTY. 2. POSSESSION. "Possession," says Duranton, "is a matter of
fact, not of right." Toullier: "Property is a right, a legal power;
possession is a fact." The tenant, the farmer, the commandite', the
usufructuary, are possessors; the owner who lets and lends for use, the
heir who is to come into possession on the death of a usufructuary, are
proprietors. If I may venture the comparison: a lover is a possessor, a
husband is a proprietor.

This double definition of property--domain and possession--is of the
highest importance; and it must be clearly understood, in order to
comprehend what is to follow.

From the distinction between possession and property arise two sorts of
rights: the jus in re, the right in a thing, the righ