VIII. From the natural affection which all men have for themselves, and their property, an objection may be taken against the presumption of any one's abandoning a thing which belongs to him, and consequently negative acts, even though confirmed by a long period of time, are not sufficient to establish the above named conjecture. Now considering the great importance deservedly attached to the settlement of CROWNS, all conjectures favourable to the possessors ought to be allowed. For if Aratus of Sicyon thought it a hard case, that PRIVATE possessions of fifty years' standing should be disturbed, how much weightier is that maxim of Augustus, that it is the character of a good man and a good subject to wish for no change in the present government, and, IN THE WORDS, WHICH THUCYDIDES HAS ASSIGNED TO ALCIBIADES, to support the constitution, under which he has been born? But if no such rules in favour of possession could be adduced, yet a more weighty objection might be found against the presumption, drawn from the inclination of every one to preserve his own right, which is the improbability of one man's allowing another to usurp his property for any length of time, without declaring and asserting his own right. IX. Perhaps it may reasonably be said, that this matter does not rest upon presumption only, but that it is a rule, introduced by the voluntary law of Nations, that uninterrupted possession, against which no claim has been asserted, will entirely transfer such property to the actual possessor. For it is most likely that all nations by consent gave their sanction to such a practice, as conducive to their common peace. The term uninterrupted possession therefore has been very properly used to signify, as Sulpitius says in Livy, "that which has been held by one uniform tenour of right, without intermission." Or as the same author, in another place, calls it, "perpetual possession, that has never been called in question." For a transitory possession creates no title. And it was this exception which the Numidians had urged against the Carthaginians, alleging that as opportunity offered, sometimes the Kings of the Numidians had appropriated to themselves the disputed possessions, which had always remained in the hands of the stronger party.