Judgment on the End Result

The most curious of all these kinds of questions is the one which divided the disciples of Proculus and Sabinus for so many ages.
    Suppose that:
        a person makes a cup from another person's metal, or a ship from his wood, and then
        the proprietor of the metal or wood demands his goods.
            Does he acquire a title to the cup or ship?
    Sabinus said yes.
        He asserted that the matter or substance is:
            the foundation of all the qualities,
            incorruptible and immortal, and
            therefore, superior to the form.
                Form is casual and dependent.
    Proculus observed that the form is the most obvious and remarkable part.
        From the form, bodies are denominated to be of this or that kind.
        He could have added that the matter or substance is so fluctuating and uncertain in most bodies, that it is impossible to trace it in all its changes.
I do not know from what principles such a controversy can be certainly determined.
    But I think that Trebonian's decision seems ingenious:
        The cup belongs to the proprietor of the metal, because it can be brought back to its first form.
        But the ship belongs to the shipbuilder because it cannot be brought back.
    No matter how ingenious this reason may seem, it plainly depends on the fancy.
    Through the possibility of such a reduction, the imagination finds a closer relation:
        between a cup and the proprietor of its metal, than
        between a ship and the proprietor of its wood, where the substance is more fixed and unalterable.


Mankind's general interest requires that people's possessions should pass to those dearest to them to render them more industrious and frugal.
The right of succession is a very natural one, coming from:
    that general interest, and
    the presumed consent of the parent or near relation.
Perhaps these causes are seconded by the influence of relation.
    Relation naturally directs us to:
        consider the son after the parent's death, and
        ascribe to him a title to his father's possessions.
    Those goods must become somebody's property.
        But of whom is the question.
    The person's children naturally present themselves to the mind.
        They are already connected to those possessions through their deceased parent.
        Thus, we are apt to connect them further by the relation of property.
    There are many parallel instances of this.20

Footnote 20:

Many reasons can convince us that the right of succession of government authority depends on the imagination.
Suppose that a person dies without children.
    A dispute arises among his relations concerning his inheritance.
    If his riches are derived partly from his father and partly from his mother, the most natural way of determining such a dispute is to:
        divide his possessions, and
        assign each part to the family it is derived from.
    The person who died was once the full proprietor of those goods.
        Only in the imagination can we find a certain equity and natural reason in this partition.
        His affection to these families does not depend on his possessions.
            This is why his consent can never be presumed precisely for such a partition.
        Public interest is not concerned on the one side or the other.