concessio praeiisset. Quare cum nemo sit dominus totius generis humani, qui ius illud adversus homines omnes homini, aut populo alicui potuisset concedere, sublato illo colore, necesse est etiam praescriptionem interimi. Et sic ex illorum etiam sententia inter reges aut populos liberos prodesse nihil potest lapsus infiniti temporis.
Vanissimum autem et illud est quod Angelus docuit, etiamsi ad dominium praescriptio proficere non potest, tamen dandam esse possidenti exceptionem. Nam Papinianus disertis verbis exceptionem negat:[123a] et aliter non potuit sentire, cum ipsius saeculo praescriptio nihil esset aliud quam exceptio. Verum igitur est quod et leges Hispanicae exprimunt[124a] in his rebus quae communi hominum usui sunt attributae, nullius omnino temporis praescriptionem procedere, cuius definitionis illa praeter ceteras ratio reddi potest, quod qui re communi utitur, ut communi uti videtur, non autem iure proprio, et ita praescribere non magis quam fructuarius potest vitio possessionis.[125a]
Altera haec etiam non contemnenda est, quod in praescriptione temporis cuius memoria non exstat, quamvis titulus et bona fides praesumantur, tamen si re ipsa appareat titulum omnino nullum dari posse, et sic manifesta sit fides mala, quae in populo maxime quasi uno corpore perpetua esse
have to be admitted on that ground, exactly as if there had been a previous grant from a Prince. But inasmuch as there is no one who is sovereign of the whole human race with competence to grant to any man or to any nation such a right against all other men, with the annihilation of that pretext, title by prescription is also necessarily destroyed. Therefore the opinion of the jurists is that not even an infinite lapse of time is able to set up a right as between kings or independent nations.
Moreover Angeli brought forward a most foolish argument, affirming that even if prescription could not create ownership, still an exception ought to be made in favor of a possessor. Papinian however in unmistakable words says there is no exception,[123] nor could he think otherwise, because in his day prescription was itself an exception. It is therefore true, as expressed also in the laws of Spain,[124] that prescription based on no matter how immemorial a time, sets up no title to those things which are recognized as common to the use of mankind. One reason among others which can be given for this definition is that any one who uses a res communis does so evidently by virtue of common and not private right, and because of the imperfect character of possession he can therefore no more set up a legal title by prescription than can a usufructuary.[125]
A second reason not to be overlooked is that although a title and good faith are presumed in a prescriptive right created by the efflux of immemorial time, nevertheless if it appears from the nature of the thing itself that no title at all can be established, and if thus there becomes evident bad faith—a thing held to be permanent in a nation as well as in an individual—then prescription fails because of a