robation of all commerce of the sexes between near relations. Upon this principle the marriage^ as well as other cohabitation of brothers and sisters of lineal kindred, and of all, who usually live in the same fam- ily, may be said to be forbidden by the law of nature. Restrictions which extend to remoter degrees of kindred than what this reason makes it necessary to prohibit from intermarriage, are founded in the authority of the positive law which ordains them. — The Levitical law, from which the rule of the Roman law differs very little, prohibits marriage between relations within three degrees of kindred ; computing the generations not from, but through the common ancestor, and accounting affinity the same as consanguinity."[1]
If incest be a transgression, there must be a principle to which it refers ; there must be a law which fixes the standard and designates the crime ; for where there is no law, there is no transgression. The principle to which it refers is the nearness OF KINDRED substisiug bctwccn the incestuous persons. The law which establishes the prohibi
- ↑ PaUy's Mot. Phil. vol. 1. p. 316.
