THE ESSENTIALS 



OF 



AMERICAN TIMBER LAW 



CHAPTER I 

 CLASSIFICATIONS OF PROPERTY 



1. Corporeal and Incorporeal Things. The term 

 "property" has been, and still is, used in more than one 

 sense. Thus at times the word is used to signify the thing 

 owned, and again the word denotes the right or interest 

 which one has in a thing that is susceptible of ownership. 

 The latter use of the term is better adapted to the require- 

 ments of a legal discussion. 



Some writers on English jurisprudence have made a 

 classification of property into corporeal things, or physical 

 objects that are visible and tangible, and incorporeal things, 

 or those that have no physical existence but are mere rights 

 or groups of rights which are related to and dependent upon 

 corporeal things. It will be noted that the word "thing" 

 is here used in a broad sense, and includes not only material 

 objects that have physical existence, but also immaterial 

 concepts that have only an ideal existence. The term 

 "thing" is here equivalent to the word "res," or the word 

 "chose," as used in legal parlance. 



2. The Development of the Terms Real Property 

 and Personal Property. While learned jurists were writ- 

 ing profound works upon the theory of corporeal and in- 

 corporeal rights, and attempting to explain the abstruse 

 and subtle distinctions between lands, tenements and heredit- 

 aments on the one hand and goods and chattels on the 



l 



