d to the rank of agnates, the praetor
calls the nearest cognates.

1 In this class or order natural or blood relationship alone is
considered: for agnates who have undergone loss of status and their
children, though not regarded as having a statutory title under the
statute of the Twelve Tables, are called by the praetor in the
third order of the succession. The sole exceptions to this rule are
emancipated brothers and sisters, though not in equal shares with them,
but with some deduction, the amount of which can easily be ascertained
from the terms of the constitution itself. But to other agnates of
remoter degrees, even though they have not undergone loss of status, and
still more to cognates, they are preferred by the aforesaid statute.

2 Again, collateral relations connected with the deceased only by the
female line are called to the succession by the praetor in the third
order as cognates;

3 and children who are in an adoptive family are admitted in this order
to the inheritance of their natural parent.

4 It is clear that illegitimate children can have no agnates, for in
law they have no father, and it is through the father that agnatic
relationship is traced, while cognatic relationship is traced through
the mother as well. On the same principle they cannot be held to be
consanguinei of one another, for consanguinei are in a way agnatically
related: consequently, they are connected with one another only as
cognates, and in the same way too with the cognates of their mother.
Accordingly, they can succeed to the possession of goods under that part
of the Edict in which cognates are called by the title of mere kinship.

5 In this place too we should observe that a person who claims as an
agnate can be admitted to the inheritance, even though ten degrees
removed from the deceased, both by the statute of the Twelve Tables, and
by the Edict in which the praetor promises the possession of goods to
heirs statutorily entitled: but on the ground of mere natural kinship
the praetor promises possession of goods to those cognates only who are
within the sixth degree; the only persons in the seventh degree whom
he admits as cognates being the children of a second cousin of the
deceased.

TITLE VI. OF THE DEGREES OF COGNATION

It is here necessary to explain the way in which the degrees of natural
relationship are reckoned. In the first place it is to be observed that
they can be counted either upwards, or downw