The first question relates to the universitas juris; that is,a university (or bundle) of rights and duties. A universitasjuris is a collection of rights and duties united by the singlecircumstance of their having belonged at one time to some oneperson. It is, as it were, the legal clothing of some givenindividual. It is not formed by grouping together any rights andany duties. It can only be constituted by taking all the rightsand all the duties of a particular person. The tie which soconnects a number of rights of property, rights of way, rights tolegacies, duties of specific performance, debts, obligations tocompensate wrongs -- which so connects all these legal privilegesand duties together as to constitute them a universitas juris, isthe fact of their having attached to some individual capable ofexercising them. Without this fact there is no university ofrights and duties. The expression universitas juris is notclassical, but for the notion jurisprudence is exclusivelyindebted to Roman law; nor is it at all difficult to seize. Wemust endeavour to collect under one conception the whole set oflegal relations in which each one of us stands to the rest of theworld. These, whatever be their character and composition, makeup together a universitas juris; and there is but little dangerof mistake in forming the notion, if we are only careful toremember that duties enter into it quite as much as rights. Ourduties may overbalance our rights. A man may owe more than he isworth, and therefore if a money value is set on his collectivelegal relations he may be what is called insolvent. But for allthat the entire group of rights and duties which centres in himis not the less a "juris universitas."
We come next to a "universal succession." A universalsuccession is a succession to a universitas juris. It occurs whenone man is invested with the legal clothing of another, becomingat the same moment subject to all his liabilities and entitled toall his rights. In order that the universal succession may betrue and perfect, the devolution must take place uno ictu, as thejurists phrase it. It is of course possible to conceive one manacquiring the whole of the rights and duties of another atdifferent periods, as for example by successive purchases; or hemight acquire them in different capacities, part as heir, part aspurchaser, part as legatee. But though the group of rights andduties thus made up should in fact amount to the whole legalpersonality of a particular individual, the acquisition would notbe a universal succession. In order that there may be a trueuniversal succession, the transmission must be such as to passthe whole aggregate of rights and duties at the same moment andin virtue of the same legal capacity in the recipient. The notionof a universal succession, like that of a juris universitas, ispermanent in jurisprudence, though in the English legal system itis obscured by the great variety of capacities in which rightsare acquired, and, above all, by the distinction between the twogreat provinces of English property "realty" and "personalty."The succession of an assignee in bankruptcy to the entireproperty of the bankrupt is, however, a universal succession,though as the assignee only pays debts to the extent of theassets, this is only a modified form of the primary notion. Wereit common among us for persons to take assignments of all a man'sproperty on condition of paying all his debts, such transferswould exactly resemble the universal successions known to theoldest Roman Law. When a Roman citizen adrogated a son, i.e. tooka man, not already under Patria Potestas, as his adoptive child,he succeeded universally to the adoptive child's estate, i.e. hetook all the property and became liable for all the obligations.
Several other forms of universal succession appear in theprimitive Roman Law, but infinitely the most important and themost durable of all was that one with which we are moreimmediately concerned, Hareditas or Inheritance. Inheritance wasa universal succession occurring at a death. The universalsuccessor was Hares or Heir. He stepped at once into all therights and all the duties of the dead man. He was instantlyclothed with his entire legal person, and I need scarcely addthat the special character of the Hares remained the same,whether he was named by a Will or whether he took on anIntestacy. The term Hares is no more emphatically used of theIntestate than of the Testamentary Heir, for the manner in whicha man became Hares had nothing to do with the legal character hesustained. The dead man's universal successor, however he becameso, whether by Will or by Intestacy, was his Heir. But the Heirwas not necessarily a single person. A group of personsconsidered in law as a single unit, might succeed as co-heirs tothe Inheritance.
