Disputation — Bontempi, Palladium Theologicum V · from Schola Thomistica
Disputation II: On the Acquisition of Dominion over Persons and Other Things through the Division of Things
NATURE instituted the common use of things, and also left to each one free dominion over his own person; but with covetousness creeping in through sin, and the lust of dominating, by the Law of Nations there was first introduced Mine and Thine, both in Things and in persons, lest anyone with excessive license should endeavor to seize everything for himself; from these two titles, as from a double rivulet of the same fountain, there flowed unceasingly a thousand arts of acquiring, which long usage at last established, and the laws of many places sanctioned. Hence we cannot make contracts unless we have dominion over the things contracted about; therefore, before the disputations on the individual contracts, there must be treated the acquisition of dominion over things by the law of nations.
De acquisitione Dominii in Personas, et Res alias, per Divisionem Rerum Acquisitas.
COMMUNEM rerum usum natura instituit, cuique etiam suae personae dominium liberum reliquit; verum subintrante per peccatum cupiditate, ac dominandi libidine, Iure Gentium primo invectum est Meum, ac Tuum tam in Res, quam in personas, ne nimia licentia totum quisque sibi arripere moliretur; e duobus his titulis, tanquam e duplici eiusdem fontis rivulo, manarunt iugiter mille acquirendi artes, quas tandem longa firmavit consuetudo, ac multa locorum Iura sanxerunt. Hinc non possumus contractus inire, nisi dominium rerum contractarum habeamus, ideo ante disputationes de contractibus singulis, agendum de acquisitione dominii rerum, iure gentium.