The Philosophy of Law: Private Right, § 18: Nature and Acquisition of Personal Right
ertain action, Wording to Laws of Freedom » a form of BWit relating to the external Mine and Thine, as dfected by the Causality of another. It is possible to £ several such Right, in reference to the, «ne Person or to different persons. The Principle of the System of Laws, according to which I can be in such possession, is that of Personal Hight, and there is only one
Principle. ,
The Acquisition of a Personal Right can never be primary or arbitrary; for such a mode of acquiring it would not be in accordance with the Principle of the harmony of the freedom of my will with the freedom of every other, and it would therefore be wrong. -Nor can such a Right be acquired by means of my unjust act of another (faoto injusti alterius), as being itself contrary to Right/, for if such a wrong as it implies were perpetrated on me, and I could demand satisfaction from the other, in accordance with Right, yet in such a case I would only be entitled to maintain undiminished what was mine, and not to acquire anything more than what I formerly had.
Acquisition by means of the action of another, to which I determine his Will according to Laws of Right, is therefore always derived from what that other has as his own. This derivation, as a Juridical act, cannot be effected by a mere negative relinquiskmcnt or renunciation of what is his (per derelict ionem aut renunciationem); because such a negative Act would only amount to a cessation of his Right, and not to the acquirement of a 1 tight on the part of another. It is therefore only by positive TRANSFERENCE (translatio), or CONVEYANCE, that a Personal Right can be acquired; and this is only possible by means of a common Will, through which objects come into the power of one or other, so that as one renounces a particular thing which he holds under the common Right, the same object when accepted by another, in consequence of a positive act of Will, becomes his. Such transference of the Property of one to another is termed its ALIENATION. The act of the united Wills of two Persons, by which what belonged to one passes to the other, constitutes CONTRACT.