[340] LECTURE X.

SUCCESSIONS AFTER DEATH.

In the Lecture on Possession, I tried to show that the notion of possessing a right as such was intrinsically absurd.  All rights are consequences attached to filling some situation of fact.  A right which may be acquired by possession differs from others simply in being attached to a situation of such a nature that it may be filled successively by different persons, or by any one without regard to the lawfulness of his doing so, as is the case where the situation consists in having a tangible object within one’s power.

When a right of this sort is recognized by the law, there is no difficulty in transferring it; or, more accurately, there is no difficulty in different persons successively enjoying similar rights in respect of the subject-matter.  If A, being the possessor of a horse or a field, gives up the possession to B, the rights which B acquires stand on the same ground as A’s did before.  The facts from which A’s rights sprang have ceased to be true of A, and are now true of B. The consequences attached by the law to those facts now exist for B, as they did for A before.  The situation of fact from which the rights spring is continuing one, and any one who occupies it, no matter how, has the rights attached to it.  But there is no possession possible of a contract.  The [341] fact that a consideration was given yesterday by A to B, and a promise received in return, cannot be laid hold of by X, and transferred from A to himself.  The only thing can be transferred is the benefit or burden of the promise, and how can they be separated from the facts which gave rise to them?  How, in short, can a man sue or be sued on a promise in which he had no part?

Hitherto it has been assumed, in dealing with any special right or obligation, that the facts from which it sprung were true of the individual entitled or bound.  But it often happens, especially in modern law, that a person acquires and is allowed to enforce a special right, although that facts which give rise to it are not true of him, or are true of him only in part.  One of the chief problems of the law is to explain the machinery by which this result has been brought to pass.

It will be observed that the problem is not coextensive with the whole field of rights.  Some rights cannot be transferred by any device or contrivance; for instance, a man’s right a to bodily safety or reputation.  Others again are incident to possession, and within the limits of that conception no other is necessary.  As Savigny said, “Succession does not apply to possession by itself.” 1

But the notion of possession will carry us but a very little way in our understanding of the modern theory of transfer.  That theory depends very largely upon the notion of succession, to use the word just quoted from Savigny, and accordingly successions will be the subject of this and the following Lecture.  I shall begin by explaining the theory of succession to persons deceased, and after that is done shall pass to the theory of transfer between living [342] people, and shall consider whether any relation can be established between the two.