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Ideas there are but two sorts: Ideas which are copies of external objects perceptible to the senses — Ideas if Sensation Images: Ideas which are copies of the ideas excited in the mind by the 1st sort mentioned — Ideas of Reflection.
For a word to be understood, any a word I mean that expresses any thing else besides the bare internal operations of the mind, it must raise up an internal image a copy of certain the visible & tangible objects in a certain situation: till the mind a man upon hearing of that word has learnt to raises up to to itself in his mind that groupe of images he cannot be said to understand it. or raise up If you would explain a word, [+] some image or images must be raised up [+] in the [+] which there is no way no of doing but by means of other words to which the images in question are already attested mind of him to whom it is to be explained. To do this, and at the same time to intimate that the word in question is to be understood as representation of these images, is to explain it.
Almost all the words terms used in Law, those I mean that belong to it as a science, after all the Institutes and the Dictionaries that have been written, remain to this hour unexplained.
Among these terms is the word Possession. Lawyers talk as glibly of Possession, as if they understood it. A word that people are incessantly repeating, it never enters into their heads to suspect that they do not understand. Meantime if ever Lawyer arrived of at this point of knowledge, it is more than he ever yet communicated to the public.
I am in a my house: my Servant is in it too. He walks about, , and runs up and down in it, as much (or more) than as I do.
Yet the House is in my Possession, in mine alone, and not in his.
Round about my House as a farm of mine belonging to it. One of the fields is a field if turnips. I never was in it. Yet has it been all along in my possession. My servant has often been in it to gather turnips. Yet it never was in his.
At fifty miles distance his another farm. I manage never was in it in my life. I manage it by my Bailiff. It is in my Possession as against my Bailiff and against all the world besides.
Further on I have another. I let it to a Tenant; He is in possession of it as against me, and all all the world in amongst the rest. I am at the same time in possession if it, as against all but him, or any one by him appointed.
But I am in Possession have taken rent for it. I am now in possession of the Rent. This rent was money: not one farthing of which am I in possession of at present.
What I have a man has under Lock and Key he has in his possession. What a man has in his possession at the instant preceding that in which it is alledged he stole it, he cannot according to Law be said to have stolen committed Theft upon. A Butler had having his master's plate under Lock and Key, stole it. For this he was indicted as for a Theft. and the Judges who ever they were determined it to be a Theft. They thought they had said a very acute thing, in saying making a distinction, and saying, That what the Butler had in his care ws not the possession, but the custody. Meantime at bottom this
Law Terms not understood — Possession. | 1.
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civil code |
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law terms not understood - possession |
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jeremy bentham |
[[watermarks::gr [crown motif] [britannia with shield motif]]] |
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