a moderate term of years; for courts of juſtice will not indulge even wills, ſo as to create a perpetuity, which the law abhors[1]: becauſe by perpetuities, (or the ſettlement of an intereſt, which ſhall go in the ſucceſſion preſcribed, without any power of alienation[2]) eſtates are made incapable of anſwering thoſe ends, of ſocial commerce, and providing for the ſudden contingencies of private life, for which property was at firſt eſtabliſhed. The utmoſt length that has been hitherto allowed, for the contingency of an executory deviſe of either kind to happen in, is that of a life or lives in being, and one and twenty years afterwards. As when lands are deviſed to ſuch unborn ſon of a feme-covert, as ſhall firſt attain the age of twenty one, and his heirs; the utmoſt length of time that can happen before the eſtate can veſt, is the life of the mother and the ſubſequent infancy of her ſon: and this hath been decreed to be a good executory deviſe[3].
3. By executory deviſe a term of years may be given to one man for his life, and afterwards limited over in remainder to another, which could not be done by deed: for by law the firſt grant of it, to a man for life, was a total diſpoſition of the whole term; a life eſtate being eſteemed of a higher and larger nature than any term of years[4]. And, at firſt, the courts were tender, even in the caſe of a will, of reſtraining the deviſee for life from aliening the term; but only held, that in caſe he died without exerting that act of ownerſhip, the remainder over ſhould then take place[5]: for the reſtraint of the power of alienation, eſpecially in very long terms, was introducing a ſpecies of perpetuity. But, ſoon afterwards, it was held[6], that the deviſee for life hath no power of aliening the term, ſo as to bar the remainder-man: yet in order to prevent the danger of perpetuities, it was ſettled[7], that, though ſuch remainders may be limited to as many perſons ſucceſſively as the deviſor thinks proper, yet they muſt all be in eſſe
