However, I am inclined to think, that this rule of our laws does not owe it's immediate original to any view of conformity to thoſe which I have juſt now mentioned; but was eſtabliſhed in order to effectuate and carry into execution, the fifth rule or canon before laid down; that every heir muſt be of the blood of the firſt purchaſor. For, when ſuch firſt purchaſor was not eaſily to be diſcovered after a long courſe of deſcents, the lawyers not only endeavoured to inveſtigate him by taking the next relation of the whole blood to the perſon laſt in poſſeſſion; but alſo, conſidering that a preference had been given to males (by virtue of the ſecond canon) through the whole courſe of lineal deſcent from the firſt purchaſor to the preſent time, they judged it more likely that the land ſhould have deſcended to the laſt tenant from his male than from his female anceſtors; from the father (for inſtance) rather than from the mother; from the father's father, rather than the father's mother: and therefore they hunted back the inheritance (if I may be allowed the expreſſion) through the male line; and gave it to the next relations on the ſide of the father, the father's father, and ſo upwards; imagining with reaſon that this was the moſt probable way of continuing it in the line of the firſt purchaſor. A conduct much more rational than the preference of the agnati by the Roman laws: which, as they gave no advantage to the males in the firſt inſtance or direct lineal ſucceſſion, had no reaſon for preferring them in the tranſverſe collateral one: upon which account this preference was very wiſely aboliſhed by Juſtinian.
That this was the true foundation of the preference of the agnati or male ſtocks, in our law, will further appear if we conſider, that, whenever the lands have notoriouſly deſcended to a man from his mother's ſide, this rule is totally reverſed, and no relation of his by the father's ſide, as ſuch, can ever be admitted to them; becauſe he cannot poſſibly be of the blood of the firſt purchaſor. And ſo, e converſo, if the lands deſcended from the father's ſide, no relation of the mother, as ſuch, ſhall ever in-
