Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/239

 Ch. 14. view as the civil, it may eem as if it ought to proceed according to the civil computation. But as it alo repects the purchaing ancetor, from whom the etate was derived, it therein reembles the canon law, and therefore counts it's degrees in the ame manner. Indeed the deignation of peron (in eeking for the next of kin) will come to exactly the ame end (though the degrees will be differently numbered) whichever method of computation we uppoe the law of England to ue; lince the right of repreentation (of the father by the on, &c) is allowed to prevail in infinitum. This allowance was abolutely neceary, ele there would have frequently been many claimants in exactly the ame degree of kindred, as (for intance) uncles and nephews of the deceaed; which multiplicity, though no inconvenience in the Roman law of partible inheritances, yet would have been productive of endles confuion where the right of ole ucceion, as with us, is etablihed. The iue or decendants therefore of John Stiles's brother are all of them in the firt degree of kindred with repect to inheritances, as their father alo, when living, was; thoe of his uncle in the econd; and o on; and are everally called to the ucceion in right of uch their repreentative proximity.

right of repreentation being thus etablihed, the former part of the preent rule amounts to this; that, on failure of iue of the peron lat eied, the inheritance hall decend to the iue of his next immediate ancetor. Thus if John Stiles dies without iue, his etate hall decend to Francis his brother, who is lineally decended from Geoffrey Stiles his next immediate ancetor, or father. On failure of brethren, or iters, and their iue, it hall decend to the uncle of John Stiles, the lineal decendant of his grandfather George, and o on in infinitum. Very imilar to which was the law of inheritance among the antient Germans, our progenitors: "haeredes ucceoreque ui cuique liberi, et nullum tetamentum: i liberi non unt, proximus gradus in poeione, fratres, patrui, avunculi ." Rh