Lineal conſanguinity is that which ſubſiſts between perſons, of whom one is deſcended in a direct line from the other: as between John Stiles (the propoſitus in the table of conſanguinity) and his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and ſo upwards in the direct aſcending line; or between John Stiles and his ſon, grandſon, great-grandſon, and ſo downwards in the direct deſcending line. Every generation, in this lineal direct conſanguinity, conſtitutes a different degree, reckoning either upwards or downwards: the father of John Stiles is related to him in the firſt degree, and ſo likewiſe is his ſon; his grandſire and grandſon in the ſecond; his great-grandſire, and great-grandſon in the third. This is the only natural way of reckoning the degrees in the direct line, and therefore univerſally obtains, as well in the civil[1], and canon[2], as in the common law[3].
The doctrine of lineal conſanguinity is ſufficiently plain and obvious; but it is at the firſt view aſtoniſhing to conſider the number of lineal anceſtors which every man has, within no very great number of degrees: and ſo many different bloods[4] is a man ſaid to contain in his veins, as he hath lineal anceſtors. Of theſe he hath two in the firſt aſcending degree, his own parents; he hath four in the ſecond, the parents of his father, and the parents of his mother; he hath eight in the third, the parents of his two grandfathers and two grandmothers; and, by the ſame rule of progreſſion, he hath an hundred and twenty eight in the ſeventh; a thouſand and twenty four in the tenth; and at the twentieth degree, or the diſtance of twenty generations, every man hath above a million of anceſtors, as common arithmetic will demonſtrate[5]. This lineal conſanguinity, we may obſerve, falls ſtrictly within the definition of vinculum perſonarum ab eodem ſtipite deſ-
- ↑ Ff. 38. 10. 10.
- ↑ Decretal. l. 4. tit. 14.
- ↑ Co. Litt. 23.
- ↑ Ibid. 12.
- ↑ This will ſeem ſurprizing to thoſe who are unacquainted with the encreaſing power of progreſſive numbers; but is palpably evident from the following table of a geometrical progreſſion, in which the firſt term is 2, and the denominator alſo 2: or, to
