CHAP. VIII.: That Laws which appear the same, were not always made through the same Motive.

IN France they have received most of the Roman laws on substitutions, but through quite a different motive from the Romans. Among the latter the inheritance was accompanied with certain When the inheritance was too much encumbered, they eluded the pontifical law by certain sales, from whence come the words, fine sacris hæreditas. ^†847 sacrifices, which were to be performed by the inheritor, and were regulated by the pontifical law; hence it was, that they reckoned it a dishonour to die without heirs, that they made slaves their heirs, and that they devised substitutions. Of this we have a very strong proof in the vulgar substitution, which was the first invented, and took place only when the heir appointed did not accept of the inheritance. Its views were not to perpetuate the estate in a family of the same name, but to find somebody that would accept of it.