Question Third. On the Acquisition of Ownership

382. Preliminary notions. 1. By a mode of acquiring ownership is understood a title or cause apt of itself to confer ownership. Five diverse modes of acquiring ownership are distinguished: occupation (invention), accession, labor, prescription, contract.

a. These modes have the force of conferring ownership either immediately from the law of nature, such as occupation (invention), accession, and labor; or from human law, such as prescription; or from the private will of men, such as contract.

Modes of acquiring ownership are distinguished into original and derived. By original modes there is acquired ownership of things which have never had ownership, or at least actually do not have it, of which sort are occupation, (natural) accession, and labor; by derived modes there is acquired ownership of things which already fall under ownership, as by prescription and contract.

2. The distinction among vacant, abandoned, and lost things must be noted. Those are called vacant which never had an owner, whether they are animate, as wild animals in forests, or inanimate, as gems in the sea. Those are called abandoned which had an owner, but actually do not have one, as treasures once hidden, and things of an owner who died without legitimate heirs. Those are called lost or uncertain which have an owner, but an unknown one, as a gold ring found in a street.

Lost things are held as abandoned: a. when the owner from certain circumstances no longer has any hope of recovering his thing; b. when the owner neglects recovery of the lost thing, even if he could recover it; c. when the thing is not of great price, so that the owner is not judged to demand its restitution.

Note. Now the individual modes of acquiring ownership must be treated. But because the treatment concerning contracts became longer, we refer that matter to its own chapter (the fourth of this book).