X. In the first place there is a difference between a loss DIRECTLY occasioned by any act, and one resulting but INDIRECTLY from it. Now it may be called a direct injury to deprive any one of what peculiarly belongs to him as his right. An indirect injury is that which prevents any one from possessing what he otherwise would have done, by destroying the condition or means, which gave him such a right. As an example, Ulpian says, "if any one has opened a well in his own ground, by which the subterraneous streams of water, that would have passed to the lands of another, are cut off, here no fault is imputable to the person who has only exercised his own right." And in another place, he says, it makes a great difference, whether any one directly does an injury, or is only indirectly and unintentionally instrumental in preventing another from reaping advantages, which he would otherwise have enjoyed. And it is absurd, says Paulus, another legal authority, for men to be called rich before they possess the means of being so. Thus when the property of parents is forfeited, it is felt as an inconvenience by their children; though it cannot be considered as a direct punishment inflicted upon them, because that property would never have been theirs, unless the parents had retained it to their last breath. On which Alphenus has made a just observation, in saying, that, by the punishment of the father, children lose that which would have come to them from him, but things, which they do not receive from him, such as the gifts of nature, or those derived from any other quarter, remain untouched. Cicero relates that in this manner the children of Themistocles were reduced to want, nor does he think it unjust that the children of Lepidus should share the same fate. And he says that it is an ancient custom, and the received usage of all states, the hardship of which nevertheless was greatly softened by the laws of Rome at a later period. Thus when a whole people is implicated in the misconduct of the majority, which holds the representative character of the state, and consequently loses its civil liberties, its fortifications, and other privileges, the loss affects innocent individuals, but only in those things, which they could not have enjoyed, except as belonging to that community.