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No great chance of error would be incurred by describing him as having an equitable estate in the inheritance; but then, to secure ourselves against being deluded by the analogy, we must always recollect that in one year the Bonorum Possessio was operated upon a principle of Roman Law known as Usucapion, and the Possessor became Quiritarian owner of all the property comprised in the inheritance.

As I have said before, I am far from asserting that the respect of men for de facto possession is a phenomenon which jurisprudence can account for by itself, but it is very necessary to remark that primitive societies, in adopting the principle of Usucapion, were not beset with any of the speculative doubts and hesitations which have impeded its reception among the moderns.

What was the exact tenor of the rule of Usucapion in its earliest shape, it is not easy to say; but, taken with the limitations which we find attending it in the books, it was a most useful security against the mischiefs of a too cumbrous system of conveyance.

I know nothing in the practice of the Romans which testifies so strongly to their legal genius as the use which they made of Usucapion.

Usucapion did not lose its advantages till the reforms of Justinian.