59. The object taken into my possession receives the predicate “mine,” and the will is related to it positively. Yet in this identity the object is established as something negative, and my will becomes particularized as a want or desire. But the particular want of one separate will is the positive, which satisfies itself; while the object is negative in itself, and exists only for my want and serves it. Use is the realization of my want through the change, destruction, or consumption of the object, which in this way reveals that it has no self, and fulfils its nature.
Note.— The view that use is the real nature and actuality of property floats before the mind of those who consider that property is dead and ownerless, if it is being put to no use. This they advance as reason for laying violent and unlawful hands upon property. But the will of an owner, by virtue of which a thing is his own, is the fundamental principle, of which use is only an external, special, and subordinate manifestation.
Addition.— In use is involved a wider relation than in possession by symbol, because the object, when used, is not recognized in its particular existence, but is by me negated. It is reduced to a means for the satisfaction of my wants. When the object and I come together, one of the two must lose its qualities, if we are to become identical. But I am a living thing who wills and truly affirms himself, while the object is only a natural thing. Therefore it must go to ground and I preserve myself. This constitutes the superiority and reason of the organic world.
60. Using an object in direct seizure is a single separate act. But when we have a recurring need, use repeatedly a product which replaces itself, and seek to preserve its power to replace itself, a direct and single act of seizure becomes a sign. It is universalized and denotes the possession of the elemental or organic basis, the conditions of production.
61. A thing has in contrast with me, its possessor, no end of its own (§42). Its substance as an independent thing is thus a purely external and unsubstantial existence. As this externality when realized is the use, to which I put it, so the total use or service of the object is the object itself in its whole extent. When I am admitted to the complete use of a thing, I am the owner of it. Apart from the entire range of use, nothing is left over to be the possession of another.
Addition.— The relation of use to property is the same as that of substance to accident, of internal to external, of force to its manifestation. But the force must be manifested; a farm is a farm only as it bears produce. He who has the use of a farm is the possessor of the whole, and to suppose another ownership in addition is an empty abstraction.
62. Partial or temporary use, and partial or temporary possession, or possibility of use, however, are to be distinguished from actual ownership. The total use of a thing cannot be mine, while the abstract property is somebody else’s. The object would in that case contain a contradiction. It would be wholly penetrated by my will and yet contain something impenetrable, namely, the empty will of another. The relation of my positive will to the thing would be objective and yet not objective. Accordingly, possession is essentially free and complete.
Note.— The distinction between right to total use and abstract possession is due to the empty and formal understanding. To it the idea, which in this case is the unity of possession or the personal will with the realization of this will, is not true. On the contrary, it holds as true these two elements in their separation. This distinction of the understanding implies that an empty mastership of things is an actual relation. If we could extend the term “aberration” beyond the mere imagination of the subject, and the reality, with which he is directly at variance, we might call such a view of property an aberration of personality. How can what is mine in one single object be without qualification my individual exclusive will, and also the individual exclusive will of someone else?
In the “Institut.” libr. ii. tit. iv. it is said: “Usufructus est jus alienis rebus utendi, fruendi salva rerum substantia,” and again: “Ne tamen in universum inutiles essent pro-prietates, semper abscendente usufructu: placuit certis modis extingui usumfructum et ad proprietatem reverti.” “Placuit” — as though it were optional, whether or not to give sense to the formal distinction of the understanding. A pro-prietas semper abscendente usufructu would not only be inutiles, but no longer a proprietas. Many distinctions regarding property, such as that into re s mancipi and nec mancipi, and that into dominium Quiritarium and Bonitarium, are merely historical dainties and do not belong to this place, because they have no relation to the conception of property. But the relation of the dominium directum to the dominium utile, and that of the contract which gives heritable right in another ’s land, and also the various ways of dealing with estates in fee, with their ground rents and other rents and impositions, have a clear bearing upon the distinction now under discussion. When these charges are irredeemably imposed, this formal distinction is indeed present, but it is again transcended when by the association of certain charges with the dominium utile, the dominium utile and the dominium directum become the same. If these relations contained no more that the formal distinction of the understanding, there would be opposed to each other not two masters (domini), but an owner and an empty master. But by virtue of the charges or taxes it is two owners, who stand in relation to each other, though they are not related by a common possession. In this relation is to be found the transition from property to use, a transition already operating when ownership, which was formerly reckoned as the more honourable, is given a secondary place, while the utile or produce of a dominium directum is regarded as the essential and rational.
It is fully fifteen hundred years since through the influence of Christianity the freedom of the person began to flourish, and at least in a small section of the human race take rank as a universal principle. But the recognition here and there of the principle of the freedom of property is, as it were, a thing of yesterday. This is a good illustration from worldhistory, of the length of time needed by the spirit to reach self-consciousness, and is a rebuke also to the impatience of opinion.
63. In use the object is a single one, definite in quality and quantity, and answers to a special need. But its special usefulness, when fixed quantitatively, can be compared with other objects capable of being put to the same use, and a special want, served by the object, and indeed any want may be compared with other wants; and their corresponding objects may be also compared. This universal characteristic, which proceeds from the particular object and yet abstracts from its special qualities is the value. Value is the true essence or substance of the object, and the object by possessing value becomes an object for consciousness. As complete owner of the object, I am owner of its value as well as of its use.
Note.— The feudal tenant is the owner of use only, not of the value.
Addition.— Quality here becomes quantity. Want is a term common to the greatest variety of things, and enables me to compare them. Thought in its progress starts from the special quality of an object, passes through indifference with regard to the quality, and finally reaches quantity. So in mathematics the circle, ellipse and parabola are specifically different, and yet the distinction of one curve from another is merely quantitative, being reduced to a mere quantitative difference in the largeness of their coefficients. In property the quantitative aspect, which issues from the qualitative, is value. The qualitative determines the quantum, however, and is therefore quite as much retained as superseded. When we consider the conception of value, the object is regarded only as a sign, counting not for what it is but for what it is worth. A letter of credit, e.g., is not a kind of paper, but a sign of another universal, namely, its face value. The specific value of an object varies according to the want, but in order to express abstract worth, we use money. Money represents things, but since it does not represent want itself, but is only a sign of it, it is again governed by the specific value, which it merely stands for. One can be owner of an object without being master of its value. A family, which can neither sell nor pawn its goods, is not master of their value. But since the restrictions characterizing this form of property, such as fiefs, property conveyed in trust, etc., are not adequate to the conception of it, they are largely disappearing.
64. The form of the object and the mark are themselves external circumstances, deprived of meaning and worth if taken apart from use, employment, or some such manifestation of the subjective will. The presence of the will, however, is in time, and its objective reality is continuance of the subjective manifestation. If the manifestation lapses, the object, abandoned by the real essence of the will and of possession, becomes ownerless. Hence I may lose or acquire property through prescription.
Note.—Prescription does not run counter to strict, right and is not introduced into law merely to cut short the strife and confusion, which would naturally arise out of old claims. It is founded on the reality of property, in other words upon the necessity that the will, in order to keep a thing, must manifest itself in it.—Public monuments are property of the nation, or rather they, like all works of art intended for use, are living and self-sufficient ends because of their indwelling soul of remembrance and honour. Deprived of this soul they are, so far as the nation is concerned, without a master, and become casually a private possession, as has happened with the Greek and Egyptian works of art in Turkey.—The private right of an author ’s family to his works is prescribed for similar reasons. These works become in a sense masterless, since they, like the monuments, though in an opposite way, become first common property, and then through various channels, private property. To set apart land for a cemetery and then not use it, or to set apart land never to be used, contains an empty unreal caprice. As to traverse this action does no injury, respect for it cannot be guaranteed.
Addition.— Prescription rests upon the supposition that I have ceased to look upon the object as mine. If a thing is to remain mine, there must be a continuous act of will, and this act reveals itself through use or preservation.— The decline in the value of public monuments was frequently illustrated during the Reformation in institutions founded for the saying of masses. The spirit of the old confession and therefore of these buildings had fled, and the buildings could be taken as private property.