[116]
Secondly
we may urge that the right to refuse payment could
not have been conferred by the victor because he
possesses only what he holds, but a right, being
incorporeal, cannot be grasped by the hand.1 It is
more difficult to discover this principle than, once
discovered, to defend it with arguments such as
that the position of an heir and a conqueror are
fundamentally different, since right passes to the
one and property to the other.
1 i.e. a right can only be transferred by the possessor, not by force or seizure.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1921.
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