The Transference Of Property By Consent

The stability of possession has very considerable inconveniences, no matter how useful or necessary it is to human society. The relation of suitableness should never enter the distribution of mankind’s properties. But we must govern ourselves by rules which are: more general in their application, and more free from doubt and uncertainty. Examples of these rules are: The rule on present possession on the first establishment of society, and The rules on occupation, prescription, accession, and succession after the establishment of society. These depend very much on chance. They thus must be frequently contradictory to men’s wants and desires. Persons and possessions must often be very ill-adjusted. This is a grand inconvenience which calls for a remedy. Society would be destroyed if every man were allowed to seize whatever he wanted by violence. Thus, the rules of justice seek some medium between: a rigid stability, and this changeable and uncertain adjustment. The best medium is the obvious one: possession and property should always be stable except when the proprietor consents to bestow them on another person. This rule cannot cause wars and dissentions, since the proprietor’s consent is taken. It may serve many good purposes in adjusting property to persons. Different parts of the earth produce different commodities.

By nature, different men:

• are fitted for different employments, and
• attain greater perfection in an employment they confine themselves to alone.

All this requires a mutual exchange and commerce.

This is why:

• the translation of property by consent is founded on a law of nature, and
• the stability of property is founded without such a consent.

All this is determined by a plain utility and interest.

‘Delivery’ is a sensible transference of the object. Delivery is commonly required by civil laws and the laws of nature, perhaps from more trivial reasons.

When taken without any reference to morality or the mind’s sentiments, an object’s property is perfectly insensible and even inconceivable. We cannot form any distinct notion of its stability or transfer.

This imperfection of our ideas is less sensibly felt with regard to the property’s stability, because it:

• does not engage our attention, and
• is easily past over by the mind without any scrupulous examination.

But property transfer is a more remarkable event.

The defect of our ideas:

• becomes more sensible on that occasion, and
• obliges us to look for some remedy.

Nothing more enlivens any idea than a present impression and a relation between that impression and the idea. It is natural for us to seek some false light from this quarter. To aid the imagination in conceiving the transference of property, we take the sensible object and actually transfer it to the person. The mind is deceived by: the supposed resemblance of the actions, and the presence of this sensible delivery. These make the mind fancy that it conceives the mysterious transition of the property. This explanation is just. Men have invented a symbolical delivery to satisfy the fancy, where the real one is impractical. Thus, the giving the keys of a granary is understood to be the delivery of the corn contained in it. The giving of stone and earth represents the delivery of a manor. This is a kind of superstitious practice in civil laws and in the laws of nature. It resembles the Roman catholic superstitions in religion. The Roman Catholics represent Christianity’s inconceivable mysteries and render them more present to the mind by a taper, habit, or grimace which is supposed to resemble them. Lawyers and moralists have run into similar inventions for the same reason. They have endeavoured to satisfy themselves on the transference of property by consent.