Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/225

 Ch. 14. are to reflect, in the firt place, that all rules of ucceion to etates are creatures of the civil polity, and juris poitivi merely. The right of property, which is gained by occupancy, extends naturally no farther than the life of the preent poeor; after which the land by the law of nature would again become common, and liable to be eied by the next occupant: but ociety, to prevent the michiefs that might enue from a doctrine o productive of contention, has etablihed conveyances, wills, and ucceions; whereby the property originally gained by poeion is continued, and tranmitted from one man to another, according to the rules which each tate has repectively thought proper to precribe. There is certainly therefore no injutice done to individuals, whatever be the path of decent marked out by the municipal law.

we next conider the time and occaion of introducing this rule into our law, we hall find it to have been grounded upon very ubtantial reaons. I think there is no doubt to be made, but that it was introduced at the ame time with, and in conequence of, the feodal tenures. For it was an expres rule of the feodal law, that ucceionis feudi talis et natura, quod acendentes non uccedunt; and therefore the ame maxim obtains alo in the French law to this day. Our Henry the firt indeed, among other retorations of the old Saxon laws, retored the right of ucceion in the acending line : but this oon fell again into diue; for o early as Glanvil's time, who wrote under Henry the econd, we find it laid down as etablihed law, that haereditas nunquam acendit; which has remained an invariable maxim ever ince. Thee circumtances evidently hew this rule to be of feodal original; and, taken in that light, there are ome arguments in it's favour, beides thoe which are drawn merely from the reaon of the thing. For if the feud, of which the on died Rh