Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/23

 Ch. 1. the municipal law of the country then teps in, and declares who hall be the ucceor, repreentative, or heir of the deceaed; that is, who alone hall have a right to enter upon this vacant poeion, in order to avoid that confuion, which it's becoming again common would occaion. And farther, in cae no tetament be permitted by the law, or none be made, and no heir can be found o qualified as the law requires, till, to prevent the robut title of occupancy from again taking place, the doctrine of echeats is adopted in almot every country; whereby the overeign of the tate, and thoe who claim under his authority, are the ultimate heirs, and ucceed to thoe inheritances, to which no other title can be formed.

right of inheritance, or decent to the children and relations of the deceaed, eems to have been allowed much earlier than the right of deviing by tetament. We are apt to conceive at firt view that it has nature on it's ide; yet we often mitake for nature what we find etablihed by long and inveterate cutom. It is certainly a wie and effectual, but clearly a political, etablihment; ince the permanent right of property, veted in the ancetor himelf, was no natural, but merely a civil, right. It is true, that the tranmiion of one's poeions to posterity has an evident tendency to make a man a good citizen and a ueful member of ociety: it ets the paions on the ide of duty, and prompts a man to deerve well of the public, when he is ure that the reward of his ervices will not die with himelf, but be tranmitted to thoe with whom he is connected by the dearet and mot tender affections. Yet, reaonable as this foundation of the right of inheritance may eem, it is probable that it's immediate original aroe not from peculations altogether o delicate and refined; and, if not from fortuitous circumtances, at leat from a plainer and more imple principle. A man's children or nearet relations are uually about him on his death-bed, and are the Rh