interwoven, and ſo conſtantly contemplated together, that we never hear of a conveyance, without at once receiving the idea as well of the grantor as the grantee.
The methods therefore of acquiring on the one hand, and of loſing on the other, a title to eſtates in things real, are reduced by our law to two: deſcent, where the title is veſted in a man by the ſingle operation of law; and purchaſe, where the title is veſted in him by his own act or agreement[1].
Descent, or hereditary ſucceſſion, is the title whereby a man on the death of his anceſtor acquires his eſtate by right of repreſentation, as his heir at law. An heir therefore is he upon whom the law caſts the eſtate immediately on the death of the anceſtor: and an eſtate, ſo deſcending to the heir, is in law called the inheritance.
The doctrine of deſcents, or law of inheritances in fee-ſimple, is a point of the higheſt importance; and is indeed the principal object of the laws of real property in England. All the rules relating to purchaſes, whereby the legal courſe of deſcents is broken and altered, perpetually refer to this ſettled law of inheritance, as a datum or firſt principle univerſally known, and upon which their ſubſequent limitations are to work. Thus a gift in tail, or to a man and the heirs of his body, is a limitation that cannot be perfectly underſtood without a previous knowlege of the law of deſcents in fee-ſimple. One may well perceive, that this is an eſtate confined in it's deſcent to ſuch heirs only of the donee, as have ſprung or ſhall ſpring from his body; but who thoſe heirs are, whether all his children both male and female, or the male only, and (among the males) whether the eldeſt, youngeſt, or other ſon alone, or all the ſons together, ſhall be his heir; this is a point, that we muſt reſult back to the ſtanding law of deſcents in fee-ſimple to be informed of.
- ↑ Co. Litt. 18.
