BOOK III PART II
according to all the different degrees, which
can be imagined, there will result many cases,
where the reasons on both sides are so equally
balanced, that it is impossible for us to give any
satisfactory decision. Here then is the proper
business of municipal laws, to fix what the
principles of human nature have left undeter-
mined.
The superficies yields to the soil, says the
civil law: The writing to the paper: The can-
vas to the picture. These decisions do not well
agree together, and are a proof of the contra-
riety of those principles, from which they are
derived.
But of all the questions of this kind the most
curious is that, which for so many ages divided
the disciples of Proculus and Sabinus. Suppose
a person shoued make a cup from the metal of