inheritance, which, as a right, belongs to every man, over
and above the property he may have created, or inherited from those who
did. Such persons as do not choose to receive it can throw it into the
common fund.

Taking it then for granted that no person ought to be in a worse
condition when born under what is called a state of civilization, than
he would have been had he been born in a state of nature, and that
civilization ought to have made, and ought still to make, provision for
that purpose, it can only be done by subtracting from property a portion
equal in value to the natural inheritance it has absorbed.

Various methods may be proposed for this purpose, but that which appears
to be the best (not only because it will operate without deranging any
present possessors, or without interfering with the collection of taxes
or emprunts necessary for the purposes of government and the revolution,
but because it will be the least troublesome and the most effectual, and
also because the subtraction will be made at a time that best admits it)
is at the moment that.. property is passing by the death of one person
to the possession of another. In this case, the bequeather gives
nothing: the receiver pays nothing. The only matter to him is, that
the monopoly of natural inheritance, to which there never was a right,
begins to cease in his person. A generous man would not wish it to
continue, and a just man will rejoice to see it abolished.

My state of health prevents my making sufficient inquiries with respect
to the doctrine of probabilities, whereon to found calculations with
such degrees of certainty as they are capable of. What, therefore, I
offer on this head is more the result of observation and reflection
than of received information; but I believe it will be found to agree
sufficiently with fact.

In the first place, taking twenty-one years as the epoch of maturity,
all the property of a nation, real and personal, is always in the
possession of persons above that age. It is then necessary to know, as a
datum of calculation, the average of years which persons above that age
will live. I take this average to be about thirty years, for though
many persons will live forty, fifty, or sixty years after the age of
twenty-one years, others will die much sooner, and some in every year of
that time.

Taking, then, thirty years as the average of time, it will give, without
any material variation one way or other, the ave