Posset

“ And if these, in the majority of cases, are below par, then the nation's wealth is below par also; its great possessions are overshadowed by the greater dispossession which stands imposed upon the lives of its people.
The word possession itself has, in our use of it, a double significance. When we speak of a man "having a possession," we may mean two things—either that he possesses, or else that he is possessed. ”

“ The Corpus of Possession. To constitute possession the animus domini is not in itself sufficient, but must be embodied in a corpus. The claim of the possessor must be effectively realised in the facts; that is to say, it must be actually and continuously exercised. The will is sufficient only when manifested in an appropriate environment of fact, just as the fact is sufficient only when it is the expression and embodiment of the required intent and will. Possession is the effective realisation in fact of the animus sibi habendi. ”

“ The chances surely are that his right to possession would be exactly coextensive with his power to keep it, and that he would be constantly liable to disturbance by the first comer who coveted the spot and thought himself strong enough to drive away the possessor. But the truth is that all such cavil at these positions is perfectly idle from the very baselessness of the positions themselves. What mankind did in the primitive state may not be a hopeless subject of inquiry, but of their motives for doing it it is impossible to know anything. ”

“ That blood-poisoning of the mediæval saint’s was a reaction, violent and unkind, against the wrongful version of possession which, in their day as in our own, was destroying the peaceful possibilities of human society.
Yet without a certain quality of possessiveness the human mind cannot grow. Wordsworth pictures for us very beautifully that natural possessive element in its age of innocence. ”

“ To find this area well developed is a sure sign that the possessor is a conscientious individual; it shows that he has a high sense of duty, and his life will center around actions that are based on what he thinks is right.
If this area is over-developed, the possessor will never progress far because he will be always stopping and wondering whether what he proposes to do is right; if under-developed, the possessor is one who does not care whether what he does is wrong or right, so long as it brings him pleasure and gain.
6.—At the base of the skull, at the back, where it joins the backbone. ”

“ Possession (here the author follows Paulus and Labeo in the Digest) is as when one’s feet are set upon a thing, when body naturally rests on body. To acquire possession is to begin to possess. Herein one considers both the fact and the right. The fact arises through ourselves or our representative. ”

“ If you ever scratched those pretty hands of yours getting a glow-worm out of a hedge, you know that, when you have brought it home, you wondered why you had given yourself so much inconvenience to acquire the little impostor. Possession strains—it depresseth her that gives, and him that takes. ”

“ You’ve an idea that the possession may hinder you in your quest. You must grant the quest real. I know it is. Now, I can’t see the smallest reason why it should prevent you actually finding what you seek. It couldn’t. But I fancy,” went on Elizabeth thoughtfully, “that there may be two reasons for that idea of yours. The first, and most obvious, seems that there is probably a bigger moral obligation to give up the possession than appears on the surface of things, in fact that the possession isn’t yours, and that this queer idea is a sort of inner voice telling you so. ”

“ Runnington, "that 'possession is nine-tenths of the law;' which means, that your mere possession will entitle you to retain it against all the world, till a stronger title than yours to the right of possession be made out. You stand on a mountain; and it is for your adversary to displace you, not by showing merely that you have no real title, but that he has. ”

“ It is interesting also to note in this connection how the etymology of the Latin words possessus and possideo, namely, po and sideo, to sit by or on, and from which in turn we have the English word possession—the common definition of property being something possessed—curiously harmonize with and confirm the conclusion that property must be always a physical actuality. For it is clear that it is only a material something, a visible and tangible entity, that one can sit down on, and not an invisible, intangible nothing, the fiction of law or of the imagination. ”

“ What is a Peer of the Realm, gentlemen—yes, I will even go further, and with all respect say, what is the Sovereign in comparison with the man who has made himself out of nothing? Our worthy mayor-elect——"
"Why," said another man, interrupting the wordy one and espying me, "I believe Mr. Poskitt there used to drive Abraham into school in Sicaster here when they were lads together. Wasn't that so, Mr. Poskitt, sir?" ”

“ Philosophically, it may be said, that it is the right each man has to make something his own, that is to say, to attribute to himself the exclusive right to enjoy something outside of himself.
We must distinguish between possession and property. Possession is nothing else than actual custody: I may have in my hands an object that is not mine, which has either been loaned to me, or which I may have found; this does not make me its proprietor. Property is the right I have to exclude all others from the use of a thing, even if I should not be in actual possession of it. ”

“ The third error in the popular view is the confusion of Guardianship with Possession; the real state of men of property being, too commonly, that of curators, not possessors, of wealth.
A man's power over his property is, at the widest range of it, fivefold; it is power of Use, for himself, Administration, to others, Ostentation, Destruction, or Bequest; and possession is in use only, which for each man is sternly limited; so that such things, and so much of them as he can use, are, indeed, well for him, or Wealth ”

“ It is evident, then, that their first difficulty, in this situation, after the general convention for the establishment of society, and for the constancy of possession, is, how to separate their possessions, and assign to each his particular portion, which he must for the future inalterably enjoy. This difficulty will not detain them long; but it must immediately occur to them, as the most natural expedient, that every one continue to enjoy what he is at present master of, and that property or constant possession be conjoined to the immediate possession. ”

“ Then Eve would dig for clams.
“What matter, Eve?” I asked. “The clams will be the bigger for waiting. We have seen the dawn, and we may see the day grow.”
“Yes,” she said, “we have seen the dawn. I did not dream it could be like that. There are no words, Adam. And I would see the day grow. But for my conscience’ sake I must dig.”
[55] “Eve,” I said, “a conscience is a most distressing comrade. Does a governess have a conscience—a governess to the Rich?”
“Does not a fisherman?” she asked.
“He cannot afford it,” I replied. “It is a luxury not for the poor nor for the very rich.” ”

“ When there is a possessor, there is something possessed. 203 The preposition, therefore, which marks the relation between the possessor and the possessed, stands ambiguously between the active and the passive power. It, therefore, partakes more of the active or the passive signification, according to the position of the words which it is employed to connect. ”

“ When esquire South has got possession of his title and honour, is not John Bull to be his clothier? Who, then, but John, ought to put him in possession? Ask but any indifferent gentleman, who ought to bear his charges at law? and he will readily answer, his tradesmen. I do therefore affirm, and I will go to death with it, that, being his clothier, you ought to put him in quiet possession of his estate, and, with the same generous spirit you have begun it, complete the good work. If you persist in the bad measures you are now in, what must become of the three poor orphans? ”

“ And it is a very real possession, far more real, as I shall hope presently to show, than any mere power to thwart, hinder, or control the freedom of others, which is the form of possession at which too often man aims. ”

“ In all these cases possession is a gentle term for enslavement, bestowing the sort of felicity attained to by the helot drunk. You can have the joy, the pride, the intoxication of possession; you can have no free soul.
But there is one instance of possession, and that the most perfect, which leaves us free, under not a shadow of obligation, receiving ever, never giving, or if giving, giving only of our waste ”

“ Watch the sky and the water while the colors last. See, it is almost dark.”
“The water and the sky are from everlasting to everlasting, Eve, so far as I am concerned. But you—no, I must make the most of what I have.”
“Fisherman,” she said, “you must not speak so to me.”
“And why not, governess? Does it displease you? May a fisherman not say his say to a governess? If I were a—what must I be, to rank with a governess? Would my speech offend you then?”
[35] “Adam,” she answered, “I came here to dig for clams.” ”

“ POSSESSION is a conception which is only less important than contract. But the interest attaching to the theory of possession does not stop with its practical importance in the body of English law. The theory has fallen into the hands of the philosophers, and with them has become a corner-stone of more than one elaborate structure. It will be a service to sound thinking to show that a far more civilized system than the Roman is framed upon a plan which is irreconcilable with the a priori doctrines of Kant and Hegel. ”

“ You take possession of timper-lant, by lookin' at it, you say—"
"Even lookin' at isn't necessary," returned the squatter, eager to widen the grasp of his rights. "It's enough that a man wants the land, and he comes, or sends to secure it. Possession is everything, and I call it possession, to crave a spot, and to make some sort of calkerlation, or works, reasonably near it. That gives a right to cut and clear, and when a clearin's begun, it's betterments, and everybody allows that betterments may be both bought and sold." ”

“ However, under all these circumstances, I rejoiced to find my children increasingly amused by these pranks, and established in the belief that one or more wicked persons liked the house so well, that they resolved 51to gain possession, and to eject by dint of sundry noises, and other annoyances, any persons who desire its occupation. It is, however, a more serious matter to poor Lálah-Zár than to us; for it is very certain that the legacy of the late possessor will never prove a great benefit either to her or the mosque. ”

“ Another Form of the same Desire.—The desire of possession may be regarded, also, as a modification of the desire of power. That influence over others which power implies, and which is, to some extent, commanded by superiority of personal strength or prowess, by genius, by skill, by the various arts and address of life, or by the accident of birth and hereditary station, is still more directly and generally attainable, by another, and perhaps a shorter route—the possession of wealth. This, as the world goes, is the key that unlocks, the sceptre that controls, all things. ”

“ It is quite clear that a man has no possession in posterity. Posterity may possess him; but deuce a bit will he ever be the better for his great great-grandchildren!”
Squills.—“Hear, hear!”
Pisistratus (warming) .—“But a man’s ancestry is a positive property to him. How much, not only of acres, but of his constitution, his temper, his conduct, character, and nature, he may inherit from some progenitor ten times removed! ”

“ The adjectival expression of the idea of possession.—All the world over, a property is a possession; and persons, at least, may be said to be the owners of their attributes. Whatever may be the nature of words like mine and thine, the adjectival character of their Latin equivalents, meus and tuus, is undoubted.
The ideas of partition and possession merge into one another.—A man's spade is the possession of a man; a man's hand is the part of a man. ”

“ Here to-day, it is gone to-morrow when those upon whose subjection it rested have discovered a strength of their own—or, because of their weakness, have failed in its support.
True possession can only be had in relation and in proportion to the self-possession of others; the man who reduces the self-possession of others never adds to his own; and where self-possession is absent, no real or strength-giving possession remains possible. ”

“ He had married this woman, conquered her, made her his own, and it seemed to him contrary to the most fundamental of all laws, the law of possession, that he could do no more than own her body—if indeed he could do that, which he was beginning to doubt. ”

“ Possession not essentially the Physical Power of Exclusion. According to a widely accepted theory the essence of corporeal possession is to be found in the physical power of 259exclusion. The corpus possessionis, it is said, is of two kinds, according as it relates to the commencement or to the continuance of possession. The corpus required at the commencement is the present or actual physical power of using the thing oneself and of excluding all other persons from the use of it. ”

“ But if it often happens that the title of first possession becomes obscure through time, and that 'tis impossible to determine many controversies which may arise concerning it; in that case, long possession or prescription naturally takes place, and gives a person a sufficient property in any thing he enjoys. The nature of human society admits not of any great accuracy; nor can we always remount to the first origin of things, in order to determine their present condition. ”