SESSION.] Thirdly, dominion, as taken with one of its significations, is exactly eo-extensive with jus in rem, and applies to every right that is not jus in personam." The first sense of the word property is expounded by determining, as hereafter explained, the quantity and quality of an estate as understood in English law. As to the second, possession is of itself no right, but a bare fact, and its relation to rights in rem is the same as the physical to the legal power to operate on a thing. The doctrine of possession is therefore distinct from and should precede the doctrine of property. [PossEssIoN.] The third sense of property has reference to the legal modes of obtaining the possession of a thing in which a man can prove that he has property and a present right to possess.
A complete view of property, as recognised by any given system of law, would embrace the following heads, which it would be necessary to exhaust, in order that the view should be complete. It would embrace an enumeration of all the kinds or classes of things which are objects-of property : the exposition of the greatest amount of power over such things as are objects of property, which a man can legally exercise—and connected with this, the different parts or portions into which the totality of the right of property may be divided, or con ceived to be divided : the modes in which property is legally trans ferred from one person to another—that is, acquired and lost : the capacity of particular classes of persons to acquire and transfer property as above understood ; or, to take the other view of this division, an enumeration of persons who labour under legal incapacities as to the acquisition and loss of property.
The following general outline of property is adapted to the English system of Law ; it may be filled up by references to other articles in this work, or to treatises : 1. The kinds or classes of things which are objects of property.
The general division is into Things Real and Things Personal, the incidents to which are so different in the system of English law that they must be separately considered.
Things Real are comprehended under the terms of Lands, Tenements, and Hereditaments. The word hereditaments is the most compre hensive of these terms, because it comprehends every thing which may be an object of inheritance, both things real and also some personal things, such as heirlooms, which are objects of inheritance.
Ilereditaments are divided into Things Corporeal and Incorporeal. A Corporeal Hereditament is land, in the legal sense of the term. An Incorporeal Hereditament is defined by Blackstone to be "a right issuing out of a thing corporate (corporeal), whether real or personal, or concerning or annexed to, or exercisable within the same." Perhaps the definition is not quite exact, and it would not be easy to make an exact definition. The Things Incorporeal of the English law correspond in their general character to the res incoiTorales of the Roman law, one distinguishing character of which is that they are incapable of tradition or delivery (Gains, ii. 28): the res corporates of the Roman law aro things which are capable of tradition, whether moveable, as a horse, or immoveable, as a house. The incorporeal hereditaments enumerated
by Blackstone aro, advowsons, tithes, commons, ways, offices, dignities, franchises, eorodies or pensions, annuities, and rents.
2. The greatest amount of power over such things as are objects of property which a man can legally exercise. To this head belongs the English doctrine of Tenure, or the various ways in which land is said to be held. Though this was a much more important part of English law than it now is, it is still of importance ; for tenure always exists wherever there is the relation of landlord and tenant. As all land in the kingdom is held mediately lar immediately of the crown, it follows that a man cannot have a property in land which shall not be subject to this right of the crown. He cannot operate upon his property in land in any way so as to destroy this right; and consequently the utmost amount of property in land which a man can have is limited. The interest which a man can have in any land, tenement, or hereditament, is called an Estate ; and this word comprises the greatest amount of power and enjoyment, both as to time and manner, which a man can legally have over and in any of the three things just enumerated, as well as the smallest legal amount of such power and enjoyment : it also comprises, under the notion of time, the determination of the period when his power and enjoyment shall commence, as well as when they shall cease. Lands, tenements, and hereditaments then being objects of property, a man may either have the most complete property in such things which is legally allowed, or he may have the least property in them which the law allows ; and both this complete and this limited property is expressed by the word estate. An estate in a thing is property in a thing, and property in a thing is legally considered to be capable of division into dcfineablo parts, called estates, each of which estates has its defineablo legal incidents. With reference to an estate, the time during which tho right of enjoyment continues is usually expressed by the term quantity of estate. The manner in which the enjoyment is to be exer• cised during tit's time is often expressed by the term quality of estate: thus a man may enjoy an estate solely or in joint-tenancy ; his enjoy ment may be ce-extensive with the largest amount of legal enjoyment of any estate, or it may be limited by the contomporaneoue righta of others in or to the property in which be has an estate ; that is, he may I have the legal enjoyment for a determinate time, subject to various limitations and abridgmenta of the fulled enjoyment of property. The time when the enjoyment of the estate shall commence is also con Adored a part of its quality ; and the time of enjoyment commencing is either present—that is, contemporaneous with the acquisition of the estate—or future. It may not be useless to remark, that here and elsewhere, where the word estate is used in its technical sense, it does not mean the thing enjoyed, but the quantity and quality of enjoyment of the thing.