Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/213

 Ch. 14. interwoven, and o contantly contemplated together, that we never hear of a conveyance, without at once receiving the idea as well of the grantor as the grantee.

methods therefore of acquiring on the one hand, and of loing on the other, a title to etates in things real, are reduced by our law to two: decent, where the title is veted in a man by the ingle operation of law; and purchae, where the title is veted in him by his own act or agreement.

, or hereditary ucceion, is the title whereby a man on the death of his ancetor acquires his etate by right of repreentation, as his heir at law. An heir therefore is he upon whom the law cats the etate immediately on the death of the ancetor: and an etate, o decending to the heir, is in law called the inheritance.

doctrine of decents, or law of inheritances in fee-imple, is a point of the highet importance; and is indeed the principal object of the laws of real property in England. All the rules relating to purchaes, whereby the legal coure of decents is broken and altered, perpetually refer to this ettled law of inheritance, as a datum or firt principle univerally known, and upon which their ubequent limitations are to work. Thus a gift in tail, or to a man and the heirs of his body, is a limitation that cannot be perfectly undertood without a previous knowlege of the law of decents in fee-imple. One may well perceive, that this is an etate confined in it's decent to uch heirs only of the donee, as have prung or hall pring from his body; but who thoe heirs are, whether all his children both male and female, or the male only, and (among the males) whether the eldet, younget, or other on alone, or all the ons together, hall be his heir; this is a point, that we mut reult back to the tanding law of decents in fee-imple to be informed of. Rh