Article — Konings, Theologia Moralis
ARTICLE I: ON DOMINION
- Dominion is a perfect right, acquired through legitimate acts, of disposing at will of some thing and of its utility with the exclusion of others. - It is said:
1° Right (see n. 584).
2° Perfect right (see n. 586. 3°).
3° Acquired through legitimate acts. What those acts are, see below n. 638.
4° Of disposing: this word signifies three rights contained in dominion, namely:
a) The right of retaining or possessing the thing (concerning the notion of possession see n. 662): I say right, because the right of possessing a thing is to be distinguished from actual possession or the physical faculty of using and enjoying a thing; for legitimate possession can be lost while dominion and the right of possessing are preserved. Thus possession of a flooded field, or of a thing lost, or of a thing taken away by force or fraud, is lost, and nevertheless the right of possessing is retained; and this is not lost except from the express, or legitimately presumed, will of the owner.
b) The right of disposing of the thing as one pleases, so that he can change, consume, and alienate the thing; for "we are said to possess that which we have quietly and fully,"2 and concerning which "we are able to do what we wish."3
c) The right of vindicating the thing, or reclaiming it, if perhaps, against the owner's will or without his knowledge, it has passed into the hands of others.
5° At will: yet this is not to be understood as if in civil society that right could not or should not sometimes be circumscribed by certain limits, as below, where there will be discussion concerning the dominion of children of a family, wives, etc., we shall see.
6° Of some thing, so that dominion of property may be distinguished from dominion of jurisdiction, which is referred especially to persons.
7° And of its utility: for the right of disposing of the utility of the thing is contained in the right of disposing of the thing itself, above under 4°. 2).
8° With the exclusion of others: therefore the object of dominion is not those things which are never exhausted by use, such as air, light, and the heat of the sun; for exclusion of others from these cannot even be imagined (n. 592).
Note. - Dominion is defined here as dominion taken subjectively and morally; understood objectively and materially, it is the thing itself of which someone is owner.1
Notes to n. 589. (1) L. V. 106. 107. Notes to nn. 589-593 - note sequence 1. (1) Amendm. to the Const. of U. S. art. V. (2) Sap. 16. 13. Deut. 32. 39. (3) Gen. 1. 28. Ps. 8. 8. Notes to nn. 589-593 - note sequence 2. (1) Walker, § 122. (2) Walker, § 21. (3) Walker, § 122. (4) a. 460-480.
- Division. - Dominion is principally divided into perfect or full, which in our law is called Fee simple if it is a question of immovables; if of movables, more commonly the complete and absolute ownership; and imperfect or not full, according as it is the right of disposing both of the thing itself and of its utility, or of only one of the two. But imperfect, or not full, is subdivided into direct and indirect or useful, according as it regards only the property of the thing, or only its utility. Thus an owner (the landlord) has direct dominion of an estate which he has leased to another; but the lessee or tenant has indirect or useful dominion.
They also commonly distinguish eminent dominion (the right of eminent domain) and lowly dominion. The former is called the right which supreme authority has of sometimes disposing, from a very grave cause, of the goods of private persons for the good of the community; the latter is the dominion of private persons.
The former properly is dominion only of jurisdiction, since the republic has no dominion of property in the goods of private persons, but only a right of administration, or the right of commanding when and how much from the goods of private persons is to be contributed to the common good. For the republic makes laws by which the dominion of private persons is governed not as supreme and universal owner of the territory, but as supreme administrator of the common good. "All things belong to princes for governing, not for retaining them to themselves," etc. St. Thomas, Quodl. 12. a. 24 ad 1.
That this right belongs to the supreme power is clear from this: that a right to an end necessarily implies the right to those means without which the end cannot be obtained. But the public good sometimes requires that someone be deprived of his thing, for example of a field for constructing a public road, etc.
But in the use of this right, not the utility of private persons, but only public utility is to be considered, nor is it licit to take away from someone what public utility does not require: "nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation."1
We must treat 1° of the object; 2° of the subject; 3° of the acquisition of dominion.
Within this article
- § I. On the object of dominion
- § II. On the subject of dominion
- § I. Whether and of what temporal things the Church can have dominion, and in what way this is recognized by our law
- § II. What is the subject in which direct dominion of ecclesiastical goods resides, and what is required so that they may be legitimately acquired and held
- § III. To whom the administration of ecclesiastical goods pertains, and in what way it is to be conducted
- § IV. What are the various species of ecclesiastical goods, and what is to be observed here concerning each
- § III. On the acquisition of dominion