t, the
devolution must take place _uno ictu_, as the jurists phrase it. It is
of course possible to conceive one man acquiring the whole of the
rights and duties of another at different periods, as for example by
successive purchases; or he might acquire them in different
capacities, part as heir, part as purchaser, part as legatee. But
though the group of rights and duties thus made up should in fact
amount to the whole legal personality of a particular individual, the
acquisition would not be a universal succession. In order that there
may be a true universal succession, the transmission must be such as
to pass the whole aggregate of rights and duties at the _same_ moment
and in virtue of the _same_ legal capacity in the recipient. The
notion of a universal succession, like that of a juris universitas, is
permanent in jurisprudence, though in the English legal system it is
obscured by the great variety of capacities in which rights are
acquired, and, above all, by the distinction between the two great
provinces of English property, "realty" and "personalty." The
succession of an assignee in bankruptcy to the entire property of the
bankrupt is, however, a universal succession, though as the assignee
only pays debts to the extent of the assets, this is only a modified
form of the primary notion. Were it common among us for persons to
take assignments of _all_ a man's property on condition of paying
_all_ his debts, such transfers would exactly resemble the universal
successions known to the oldest Roman Law. When a Roman citizen
_adrogated_ a son, _i.e._ took a man, not already under Patria
Potestas, as his adoptive child, he succeeded _universally_ to the
adoptive child's estate, _i.e._ he took all the property and became
liable for all the obligations. Several other forms of universal
succession appear in the primitive Roman Law, but infinitely the most
important and the most durable of all was that one with which we are
more immediately concerned, Haereditas or Inheritance. Inheritance was
a universal succession occurring at a death. The universal successor
was Haeres or Heir. He stepped at once into all the rights and all the
duties of the dead man. He was instantly clothed with his entire legal
person, and I need scarcely add that the special character of the
Haeres remained the same, whether he was named by a Will or whether he
took on an Intestacy. The term Haeres is no more emphatically used of
the Intestate tha