if A be tenant for twenty years, remainder to B in fee; here B's is a veſted remainder, which nothing can defeat, or ſet aſide.
Contingent or executory remainders (whereby no preſent intereſt paſſes) are where the eſtate in remainder is limited to take effect, either to a dubious and uncertain perſon, or upon a dubious and uncertain event; ſo that the particular eſtate may chance to be determined, and the remainder never take effect[1].
First, they may be limited to a dubious and uncertain perſon. As if A be tenant for life, with remainder to B's eldeſt ſon (then unborn) in tail; this is a contingent remainder, for it is uncertain whether B will have a ſon or no: but the inſtant that a ſon is born, the remainder is no longer contingent, but veſted. Though, if A had died before the contingency happened, that is, before B's ſon was born, the remainder would have been abſolutely gone; for the particular eſtate was determined before the remainder could veſt. Nay, by the ſtrict rule of law, if A were tenant for life, remainder to his own eldeſt ſon in tail, and A died without iſſue born, but leaving his wife enſeint or big with child, and after his death a poſthumous ſon was born, this ſon could not take the land, by virtue of this remainder; for the particular eſtate determined before there was any perſon in eſſe, in whom the remainder could veſt[2]. But, to remedy this hardſhip, it is enacted by ſtatute 10 & 11 W. III. c. 16. that poſthumous children ſhall be capable of taking in remainder, in the ſame manner as if they had been born in their father's life-time: that is, the remainder is allowed to veſt in them, while yet in their mother's womb[3].
This ſpecies of contingent remainders, to a perſon not in being, muſt however be limited to ſome one, that may by common poſſibility, or potentia propinqua, be in eſſe at or before the particular eſtate determines[4]. As if an eſtate be made to A for
