Recte additum est ‘videri’ propter translationem ut diximus vocabuli. Communio autem ista ad usum referebatur:[48a]
Cuius ratione dominium quoddam erat, sed universale, et indefinitum; Deus enim res omnes non huic aut illi dederat, sed humano generi, atque eo modo plures in solidum eiusdem rei domini esse non prohibebantur; quod si hodierna significatione sumamus dominium, contra omnem est rationem. Hoc enim proprietatem includit, quae tunc erat penes neminem. Aptissime autem illud dictum est:[49a]
Ad eam vero, quae nunc est, dominiorum distinctionem non impetu quodam, sed paulatim ventum videtur, initium eius monstrante natura. Cum enim res sint nonnullae, quarum usus in abusu consistit, aut quia conversae in substantiam utentis nullum postea usum admittunt, aut quia utendo fiunt ad usum deteriores, in rebus prioris generis, ut cibo et potu, proprietas statim quaedam ab usu non seiuncta emicuit.[50a] Hoc enim est proprium esse, ita esse cuiusquam ut et alterius esse non possit; quod deinde ad res posterioris, generis, vestes puta, et res mobiles alias aut se moventes ratione quadam productum est.
Quod cum esset, ne res quidem immobiles omnes, agri
But that kind of common possession relates to use, as is seen from a quotation from Seneca:[48]
According to his reasoning there was a kind of sovereignty, but it was universal and unlimited. For God had not given all things to this individual or to that, but to the entire human race, and thus a number of persons, as it were en masse, were not debarred from being substantially sovereigns or owners of the same thing, which is quite contradictory to our modern meaning of sovereignty. For it now implies particular or private ownership, a thing which no one then had. Avienus has said very pertinently:[49] ‘All things belonged to him who had possession of them’.
It seems certain that the transition to the present distinction of ownerships did not come violently, but gradually, nature herself pointing out the way. For since there are some things, the use of which consists in their being used up, either because having become part of the very substance of the user they can never be used again, or because by use they become less fit for future use, it has become apparent, especially in dealing with the first category, such things as food and drink for example, that a certain kind of ownership is inseparable from use.[50] For ‘own’ implies that a thing belongs to some one person, in such a way that it cannot belong to any other person. By the process of reasoning this was next extended to things of the second category, such as clothes and movables and some living things.
When that had come about, not even immovables, such,