Page:Some Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning.pdf/7

22 meaning to the other. At times, also, the term is used in such a "blended" sense as to convey no definite meaning whatever.

For the purpose of exemplifying the looser usage just referred to, we may quote from Wilson v. Ward Lumber Co.:

"The term 'property', as commonly used denotes any external object over which the right of property is exercised. In this sense it is a very wide term, and includes every class of acquisitions which a man can own or have an interest in."

Perhaps the ablest statement to exemplify the opposite and more accurate usage is that of Professor Jeremiah Smith (then Mr. Justice Smith) in the leading case of Eaton v. B. C. & M. R. R. Co.: "In a strict legal sense, land is not 'property', but the subject of property. The term 'property', although in common parlance frequently applied to a tract of land or a chattel, in its legal signification 'means only the rights of the owner in relation to it'. 'It denotes a right over a determinate thing'. 'Property is the right of any person to possess, use, enjoy, and dispose of a thing'. Selden, J., in Wynehamer v. People, 13 N. Y., 378, p. 433; 1 Blackstone's com., 138; 2 Austin's Jurisprudence, 3rd ed., 817, 818. * * * The right of indefinite user (or of using indefinitely) is an essential quality of absolute property, without which absolute property can have no existence. * * * This right of user necessarily includes the right and power of excluding others from using the land. See 2 Austin on Jurisprudence, 3rd ed., 836; Wells, J., in Walker v. O. C. W. R. R., 103 Mass., 10, p. 14."

Another useful passage is to be found in the opinion of Sherwood, J., in St. Louis v. Hall: "Sometimes the term is applied to the thing itself, as a horse, or a tract of land; these things, however, though the subjects of"