Theoretical writers have classified fictions as of five sorts: abeyance, when the fee of land is supposed to exist for a time without any particular owner during an outstanding freehold estate; 2 Bla. Cora. 107; 1 Cruise, Dig. 67 ; 1 Com. Dig. 175 ; 1•Viner, Abr. 104 ; the doctrine of remitter, by which a party who has been disseised of his freehold, and afterwards acquires a defective title, is re mitted to his former good title ; that one thing done to-day is considered as done at a preceding time 'by the doctrine of relation; that, because one thing is proved, another shall be presumed to be true, which is the case in all presumptions; that the heir, ex ecutor, br administrator stand by representa tion In place of the deceased.
Again, they have been classified as of three kinds: positive, when a fact which does not exist is assumed ; negative, when a fact which does exist is ignored; and fictions by rela tion, when the act of one person is taken as if it were the act of a different person,— e. g., that of a servant as the act of his mas ter; when an act at one time or place is treated as if performed at a different time or place; and when an at in relation to a cer tain thing is treated as if it were done in relation to another thing which the former represents,—e. g., where delivery of a portion
of goods sold is treated as giving possession of the whole ; Best, Pres. 27. Fictions being resorted to simply for the furtherance of jus tice ; Co. Litt. 150 ; 10 Co. 42 ; 1 Cowp. 177 ; several maxims are fundamental to them. First, that that which is impossible shall not be feigned; D'Aguesseau, CEuvres, tome iv. pp. 427, 447 c, Plaidoyer; 2 Rolle 502. Sec ond, that no fiction shall be allowed to work an injury ; 3 Bla. Com. 43 ; Low v. Little, 17 Johns. (N. Y.) 348. Third, a fiction is not to be carried further than the reasons which in troduced it necessarily require ; 1 Lilly, Abr. 610; 2 Hawk. Pl. Cr. 320 ; Best, Pres. § 20.
Consult Dalloz, Dict.; Burg. Ins. 139 ; Fer guson, Moral Phil. pt. 5, c. 10, § 3 ; 1 Toul her 171, n. 203 ; 2 id. 217, n. 203 ; 11 id. 10, n. 2; Maine, Anc. Law; Benth. Jud. Ev.; 1 Poll. & Maitl. 469.