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It is most evidently true of these ceremonies, which our divines say of the gestures and rites used in the mass, “They are all frivolous and hypocritical, stealing away true devotion from the heart, and making men to rest in the outward gestures of the body.” There is more sound religion among them who refuse, than among them who receive the same, even our enemies themselves being judges, the reason whereof let me give in the words of one of our opposites Supervacua hoec occupatio circa traditiones humanas, gignit semper ignorantiam et contemptum proeceptorum divinorumThis needless business about human traditions doth ever beget the ignorance and contempt of divine commandments. 2.

It will be necessary for us to attend to one only among these "natural modes of acquisition," Occupatio or Occupancy. Occupancy is the advisedly taking possession of that which at the moment is the property of no man, with the view (adds the technical definition) of acquiring property in it for yourself. The objects which the Roman lawyers called res nullius things which have not or have never had an owner can only be ascertained by enumerating them. Among things which never had an owner are wild animals, fishes, wild fowl, jewels disinterred for the first time, and lands newly discovered or never before cultivated. Among things which have not an owner are moveables which have been abandoned, lands which have been deserted, and (an anomalous but most formidable item) the property of an enemy. In all these objects the full rights of dominion were acquired by the Occupant who first took possession of them with the intention of keeping them as his own an intention which, in certain cases, had to be manifested by specific acts. It is not difficult, I think, to understand the universality which caused the practice of Occupancy to be placed by one generation of Roman lawyers in the Law common to all Nations, and the simplicity which occasioned its being attributed by another to the Law of Nature. But for its fortunes in modern legal history we are less prepared by

"Placet mihi occupatio, ad quam me hortatur, et spero me nonnihil effecturum DIGNUM LECTIONE; sed, ut ad eum scribo, ad haec est opus quiete et otio literarum." II. The expression of his hope that he would "produce something worth reading," and the mention of his want, in order that he should accomplish what was required of him, "retirement and leisure for literary work," quite set at rest Mr.