Chapter — Marc, Institutiones Morales
CHAPTER III: On the Modes of Acquiring Ownership
St. Alphonsus, III, 493 seq.; ed. G., II, p. 17; H. Ap., tr. X, n. 9; Lugo, o.c., disp. 6; Lessius, l. 2, c. 5; Molina, disp. 55; Lehmkuhl, I, n. 1079; Noldin, II, n. 382; Cas. consc. apud Lehmkuhl, Genicot, Bucceroni; Pelt, Legisl. civ., p. 66; Tanquerey, II, n. 210; Vermeersch, o.c., n. 211, 267.
- Things to be noted beforehand. There are three titles by which ownership is acquired:16 a) a natural title, founded in natural law, to which the determination of positive law accedes, namely through occupation and accession; - b) a legal title, resting on human law, which sometimes, by reason of the common good, transfers ownership from one to another, for example through usucapion or prescription, or through the sentence of a judge;17 - c) a conventional title, or the will of the prior owner, either presumed (as in hereditary succession), or express, as in the various contracts entered according to the norm of laws.
This last title being omitted, which will be explained in Dissertation IV, here we shall treat: 1. concerning occupation; - 2. concerning accession; - 3. concerning prescription.
(16) We do not speak of labor, as though labor were the sole source of ownership, as socialists suppose. A title taken from labor is reduced either to occupation, which labor completes, or to specification, which labor perfects, or finally to a conventional title from free contract. See what is to be said in n. 1149. (17) The sentence of a judge, which imposes a fine for juridic fault, does not in every case of itself transfer ownership. There is indeed an obligation of paying, but this urges from legal justice alone; the faculty of later compensating oneself is lacking. See n. 930 seqq. Cf. however n. 1028.