Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/238

 224 vere antiquis, has in proces of time been forgotten, and is uppoed o to be in feuds that are held ut antiquis.

VI. rule or canon therefore is, that the collateral heir of the peron lat eied mut be his next collateral kinman, of the whole blood.

, he mut be his next collateral kinman, either peronally or jure repreentationis; which proximity is reckoned according to the canonical degrees of conanguinity before-mentioned. Therefore, the brother being in the firt degree, he and his decendants hall exclude the uncle and his iue, who is only in the econd. And herein conits the true reaon of the different methods of computing the degrees of conanguinity, in the civil law on the one hand, and in the canon and common laws on the other. The civil law regards conanguinity principally with repect to ucceions, and therein very naturally coniders only the peron deceaed, to whom the relation is claimed: it therefore counts the degrees of kindred according to the number of perons through whom the claim mut be derived from him; and make not only his great-nephew but alo his firt-couin to be both related to him in the fourth degree; becaue there are three perons between him and each of them. The canon law regards conanguinity principally with a view to prevent incetuous marriages, between thoe who have a large portion of the ame blood running in their repective veins; and therefore looks up to the author of that blood, or the common ancetor, reckoning the degrees from him: o that the great-nephew is related in the third canonical degree to the peron propoed, and the firt-couin in the econd; the former being ditant three degrees from the common ancetor, and therefore deriving only one fourth of his blood from the ame fountain with the propoitus; the latter, and alo the propoitus, being each of them ditant only two degrees from the common ancetor, and therefore having one half of each of their bloods the ame. The common law regards conanguinity principally with repect to decents; and, having therein the ame object in Rh