ea of property is that of simple, uniform, and absolute
dominion. The subordinate exceptions of _use_, of _usufruct_, of
_servitude_, imposed for the benefit of a neighbor on lands and houses,
are abundantly explained by the professors of jurisprudence. The claims
of property, as far as they are altered by the mixture, the division,
or the transformation of substances, are investigated with metaphysical
subtilty by the same civilians.

The personal title of the first proprietor must be determined by
his death: but the possession, without any appearance of change, is
peaceably continued in his children, the associates of his toil, and the
partners of his wealth. This natural inheritance has been protected by
the legislators of every climate and age, and the father is encouraged
to persevere in slow and distant improvements, by the tender hope, that
a long posterity will enjoy the fruits of his labor. The _principle_ of
hereditary succession is universal; but the _order_ has been variously
established by convenience or caprice, by the spirit of national
institutions, or by some partial example which was originally decided
by fraud or violence. The jurisprudence of the Romans appear to have
deviated from the inequality of nature much less than the Jewish, the
Athenian, or the English institutions. On the death of a citizen, all
his descendants, unless they were already freed from his paternal
power, were called to the inheritance of his possessions. The insolent
prerogative of primogeniture was unknown; the two sexes were placed on a
just level; all the sons and daughters were entitled to an equal portion
of the patrimonial estate; and if any of the sons had been intercepted
by a premature death, his person was represented, and his share was
divided, by his surviving children. On the failure of the direct line,
the right of succession must diverge to the collateral branches. The
degrees of kindred are numbered by the civilians, ascending from the
last possessor to a common parent, and descending from the common parent
to the next heir: my father stands in the first degree, my brother in
the second, his children in the third, and the remainder of the series
may be conceived by a fancy, or pictured in a genealogical table. In
this computation, a distinction was made, essential to the laws and even
the constitution of Rome; the _agnats_, or persons connected by a line
of males, were called, as they stood in the nearest degree,