(Lat. *proprietas*, ownership), as to its etymology, suggests the notion of a thing being a man's own (*proprie*); a notion, moreover, which is contained in every definition of property. It is defined by a foreign writer as "the right to deal with a corporeal thing according to a man's pleasure, and to the exclusion of all other persons." But this description of property errs by defect, inasmuch as it excludes incorporeal things, which are considered objects of property in English law, and were also regarded as such in Roman law. Property, as here understood, is "that which the positive law of a country recognises as property, and for the protection or recovery of which it gives a remedy, by legal forms, against every person who invades the property or has the possession of it." Property is divided into Things Real and Things Personal. Things Real include lands, tenements, and hereditaments. Hereditaments, again, are divided into Things Corporeal and Incorporeal. The hereditaments, as enumerated by Blackstone (book ii.), are advowsons, tithes, commons, ways, offices, dignities, franchises, corodies or pensions, annuities, and rents. The interest which one has in any land, tenement, or hereditament, is called an estate. (See Estate.) Personal property is frequently described by the term "moveables;" but this is inadequate, for certain estates in lands are personal property, and are comprehended under the term Chattels Real. (See Chattels.)

The legal capacity of persons to transfer and acquire estates in lands and tenements belongs to legal treatises. (Cyclopedia of Political Knowledge, 1853; Warren's Blackstone's Commentaries, book ii., 1855.)

**PROPHECY** is a word derived from *prophētea*, and in its original import signifies the prediction of future events. As God alone can perceive with certainty the future actions of men and the remote consequences of those laws of nature which he himself established, prophecy, when clearly fulfilled, affords convincing evidence of an intimate and supernatural communion between God and the person who uttered the prediction. (See Theology.)

**PROPORTIS.** See Marmora, Sea of.