Immanuel Kant

“ It would be absurd to think that a dead Person could possess anything after his death, when he no longer exists in the eye of the Law, if the matter in question were a mere Thing. But a good Name is a congenital and external, although merely ideal possession, which attaches inseparably to the individual as a Person. ”

“ Whether, when neither Nature nor Chance, but merely our own Will, brings us into the neighbourhood of a people that gives no promise of a prospect of entering into Civil Union with us, we are to be considered entitled in any case to proceed with force in the intention of founding such a Union, and bringing into a juridical state such men as the savage American Indians, the Hottentots, and the New Hollanders ”

“ For what is thus produced is a Person, and it is impossible to think of a Being endowed with personal Freedom as produced merely by a physical process. And hence, in the practical relation, it is quite a correct and even a necessary Idea to regard the act of generation as a process by which a Person is brought without his consent into the world, and placed in it by the responsible free will of others. This Act, therefore, attaches an obligation to the Parents to make their Children—as far as their power goes—contented with the condition thus acquired. ”

“ There is therefore, literally, no direct Right in a Thing, but only that Right is to be properly called 'real' which belongs to any one as constituted against a Person, who is in common possession of things with all others in the Civil state of Society. ”

“ This forms a purely intellectual conception of the Understanding. Now we can leave out or abstract from the sensible conditions of Possession, as relations of a Person to objects which have no obligation. This process of elimination just gives the rational relation of a Person to Persons; and it is such that he can bind them all by an obligation in reference to the use of things through his act of Will, so far as it is conformable to the Axiom of Freedom, the Postulate of Right, and the universal Legislation of the common Will conceived as united a priori. ”

“ For by a single Will there cannot be imposed upon others an obligation by which they would not have been otherwise bound.—But the fact formed by Wills actually and universally united in a Legislation, constitutes the Civil state of Society. Hence, it is only in conformity with the idea of a Civil state of Society, or in reference to it and its realization, that anything External can be acquired. Before such a state is realized, and in anticipation of it, Acquisition, which would otherwise be derived, is consequently only provisory. ”

“ Now, Occupancy is the Acquisition of an external object by an individual act of Will. The original Acquisition of such an object as a limited portion of the Soil, can therefore only be accomplished by an act of Occupation. ”

“ For a Contract by which the one party renounced his whole freedom for the advantage of the other, ceasing thereby to be a person and consequently having no duty even to observe a Contract, is self-contradictory, and is therefore of itself null and void. ”

“ It is evident that the first modification, limitation, or transformation generally of a portion of the Soil cannot of itself furnish a Title to its Acquisition, since possession of an Accident does not form a ground for legal possession of the Substance. Rather, conversely, the inference as to the Mine and Thine must be drawn from ownership of the Substance according to the rule, ' Accessarium sequitur suum principale.' Hence one who has spent labour on a piece of ground that was not already his own, has lost his effort and work to the former Owner. ”

“ From the Duty of Man towards himself—that is, towards the Humanity in his own Person—there thus arises a personal Right on the part of the Members of the opposite sexes, as Persons, to acquire one another really and reciprocally by Marriage. ”

“ For the Acquisition of a public juridical state by union of the Wills of all in a universal Legislation, would be such an original Acquisition, seeing that no other of the kind could precede it, and yet it would be derived from the particular Wills of all the individuals, and consequently become all-sided or omnilateral; for a properly primary Acquisition can only proceed from an individual or unilateral Will. ”

“ I have become the richer in possession (locupletior) by the Acquisition of an active Obligation that I can bring to bear upon the Freedom and Capability of another.—This my Right, however, is only a personal Right, valid only to the effect of acting upon a particular physical Person and specially upon the Causality of his Will, so that he shall perform something for me. It is not a Real Right upon that Moral Person, which is identified with the Idea of the united Will of All viewed a priori, and through which alone I can acquire a Right valid against every Possessor of the Thing. ”

“ Now that a Man when dead can yet acquire such a Right is a peculiar and, nevertheless, an undeniable manifestation in fact, of the a priori law-giving Reason thus extending its Law of Command or Prohibition beyond the limits of the present life. If some one then spreads a charge regarding a dead person that would have dishonoured him when living, or even made him despicable, any one who can adduce a proof that this accusation is intentionally false and untrue, may publicly declare him who thus brings the dead person into ill repute to be a Calumniator, and affix dishonour to him in turn. ”

“ And considering these as illustrative examples in this connection, it will be shown that the conception of Money as the greatest and most useable of all the Means of human intercommunication through Things, in the way of Purchase and Sale in commerce, as well as that of Books as the greatest Means of carrying on the interchange of Thought, resolve themselves into relations that are purely intellectual and rational. ”

“ Hence national Wealth, in so far as it can be acquired by means of Money, is properly only the sum of the Industry or applied Labour with which men pay each other, and which is represented by the Money in circulation among the people.
The Thing which is to be called Money must, therefore, have cost as much Industry to produce it, or even to put it into the hands of others, as may be equivalent to the Industry or Labour required for the acquisition of the Goods or Wares or Merchandise, as natural or artificial products, for which it is exchanged. ”

“ And this Law as being not only a Right, but also as constituting Possession in reference to a Person, is a Right rising above all mere Real and Personal Right. It must, in fact, form the Right of Humanity in our own Person; and, as such, it has as its consequence a natural Permissive Law, by the favour of which such Acquisition becomes possible to us. ”

“ And even assuming that enjoyment in the reciprocal use of the sexual endowments is an end of marriage, yet the Contract of Marriage is not on that account a matter of arbitrary will, but is a Contract necessary in its nature by the Law of Humanity. ”

“ Monogamy and Equality in Marriage. For the same reasons, the relation of the Married Persons to each other is a relation of Equality as regards the mutual possession of their Persons, as well as of their Goods. Consequently Marriage is only truly realized in Monogamy; for in the relation of Polygamy the Person who is given away on the one side, gains only a part of the one to whom that Person is given up, and therefore becomes a mere res. ”

“ An Acquisition is original and primary, when it is not derived from what another had already made his own.
There is nothing External that is as such originally mine; but anything external may be originally acquired when it is an object that no other person has yet made his.—A state in which the Mine and Thine are in common, cannot be conceived as having been at any time original. Such a state of things would have to be acquired by an external juridical Act, although there may be an original and common possession of an external object. ”

“ For an individual, unilateral Will—and the same applies to a Dual or other particular Will—cannot impose on all an Obligation which is contingent in itself. This requires an omnilateral or universal Will, which is not contingent, but a priori, and which is therefore necessarily united and legislative. Only in accordance with such a Principle can there be agreement of the active free-will of each individual with the freedom of all, and consequently Rights in general, or even the possibility of an external Mine and Thine. ”

“ But from another point of view, a Book is not merely an external Thing, but is a Discourse of the Publisher to the public, and he is only entitled to do this publicly under the Mandate of the Author (praestatio operae) ; and this constitutes a Personal Right. The error underlying the impression referred to, therefore, arises from an interchange and confusion of these two kinds of Right in relation to Books. ”

“ I. What is Money? Money is a thing which can only be made use of, by being alienated or exchanged. This is a good Nominal Definition, as given by Achenwall; and it is sufficient to distinguish objects of the Will of this kind from all other objects. But it gives us no information regarding the rational possibility of such a thing as money is. Yet we see thus much by the Definition: (1) that the Alienation in this mode of human intercommunication and exchange is not viewed as a Gift, but is intended as a mode of reciprocal Acquisition by an Onerous Contract ”

“ Hence a man may be his own Master (sui juris) but not the Proprietor of himself (sui dominus) , so as to be able to dispose of himself at will, to say nothing of the possibility of such a relation to other men; because he is responsible to Humanity in his own person. This point, however, as belonging to the Right of Humanity as such, rather than to that of individual men, would not be discussed at its proper place here, but is only mentioned incidentally for the better elucidation of what has just been said. ”

“ But as there is no Site for Occupation upon the wide sea itself, possible possession cannot be extended so far, and the open sea is free (mare liberum) . But in the case of men, or things that belong to them, becoming stranded on the Shore, since the fact is not voluntary, it cannot be regarded by the owner of the shore as giving him a Right of Acquisition. For shipwreck is not an act of Will, nor is its result a lesion to him; and things which may have come thus upon his Soil, as still belonging to some one, are not to be treated as being without an Owner or Res nullius. ”

“ But on account of the opposition of the free Will of one to that of the other in the sphere of action, which is inevitable by nature, all use of the soil would be prevented did not every will contain at the same time a Law for the regulation of the relation of all Wills in action, according to which a particular possession can be determined to every one upon the common soil. ”

“ It is only within a Civil Constitution that anything can be acquired peremptorily, whereas in the State of Nature Acquisition can only be provisory. A Civil Constitution is objectively necessary as a Duty, although subjectively its reality is contingent. ”

“ For it is only the Common Will in the Civil state that maintains the possession of the Inheritance or Succession, while it hangs between Acceptance or Rejection and specially belongs to no particular individual. ”

“ A Title to act the part of the Vindicator of the dead person does not require to be established; for every one necessarily claims this of himself, not merely as a Duty of Virtue regarded ethically, but as a Right belonging to him in virtue of his Humanity. ”

“ The answer is, So far as the capability of having it under one's power extends, that is, just as far as he who wills to appropriate it can defend it, as if the Soil were to say, 'If you cannot protect me, neither can you command me.' In this way the controversy about what constitutes a free or closed Sea must be decided. ”

“ Consequently such an unauthorized Publication is a wrong committed upon the authorized and only lawful Publisher, as it amounts to a pilfering of the Profits which the latter was entitled and able to draw from the use of his proper Right (furtum usus) . Unauthorized Printing and Publication of Books is therefore forbidden—as an act Counterfeit and Piracy—on the ground of Right.
There seems, however, to be an impression that there is a sort of common Right to print and publish Books; but the slightest reflection must convince any one that this would be a great injustice. ”

“ Through their relations and influence as Persons upon one another, in accordance with the principle of external Freedom as the cause of it, they form a Society composed as a whole of members standing in community with each other as Persons; and this constitutes the Household.—The mode in which this social status is acquired by individuals, and the functions which prevail within it, proceed neither by arbitrary individual action (facto) , nor by mere Contract (pacto) , but by Law (lege) . ”

“ But everything that can be destroyed, such as a Tree, a House, and such like—as regards its matter at least—is moveable; and if we call a thing which cannot be moved without destruction of its form an immoveable, the Mine and Thine in it is not understood as applying to its substance, but to that which is adherent to it, and which does not essentially constitute the thing itself. ”

“ From the fact of Personality in the Children, it further follows that they can never be regarded as the Property of the Parents, but only as belonging to them by way of being in their possession, like other things that are held apart from the possession of all others and that can be brought back even against the will of the Subjects. ”

“ Otherwise it is probable that the natural question—already discussed—would not have been passed over with so light a tread, namely, 'How is a Right in a thing possible?' For, Right as against every possible possessor of a Thing, means only the claim of a particular Will to the use of an object so far as it may be included in the All-comprehending universal Will, and can be thought as in harmony with its law. ”