“pite descendentium;" the connexion or relation of persons descended from the same stock or common ancestor. This consanguinity is either lineal, or collateral (4).

[. * 203 ] *Lineal consanguinity is that which subsists between per- Lineal consansons, of whom one is descended in

direct line from the which subsists

guinity is that other, as between John Stiles (the propositus in the table between persons of consanguinity) and his father, grandfather, great-grand- descended in a father, and so upwards in the direct ascending line; or be- direct line from tween John Stiles and his son, grandson, great-grandson, and so downwards in the direct descending line. Every generation, in this lineal direct consanguinity, constitutes a different degree, reckoning either upwards or downwards: the father of John Stiles is related to him in the first degree, and so likewise is his son; his grandsire and grandson in the second; his great-grandsire and great grandson in the third. This is the only natural way of reckoning the degrees in the direct line, and therefore universally obtains, as well in the civil (e), and canon (f), as in the common law (g).

The doctrine of lineal consanguinity is sufficiently plain Lineal relations and obvious; but it is at the first view astonishing to con- are such asdesider the number of lineal ancestors which every man has, the other, and within no very great number of degrees; and so many different bloods (h) is a man said to contain in his veins, as he tor. hath lineal ancestors. Of these he hath two in the first ascending degree, his own parents; he hath four in the second, the parents of his father and the parents of his mother; he hath eight in the third, the parents of his two grandfathers and two grandmothers; and by the same rule of

both from one common ances.

(4) The reader will do well to ex- this subject: and the whole essay will amine the table of consanguinity in- abundantly repay the trouble of peruserted at the close of the third chapter sal; though all Mr. Watkin's proposiof Watkin's Essay on the Law of De- tions may not be implicitly acceded to. scents, for a graphical illustration of

progression, he hath an hundred and twenty-eight in the seventh; a thousand and twenty-four in the tenth; and at the twentieth degree, or the distance of twenty generations, every man hath above a million of ancestors, as common arithmetic will demonstrate (i). This lineal consanguinity,

we may observe, falls strictly within the definition of vin. [ *204 ] culum *personarum ab eodem stipite descendentium; since

lineal relations are such as descend one from the other, and both of course from the same common ancestor.

(i) This will seem surprising to those intelligibly, it is evident, for that each
who are unacquainted with the in- of us has two ancestors in the first de-
creasing power of progressive numbers: gree; the number of whom is doubled
but is palpably evident from the follow- at every remove, because each of our
ing table of a geometrical progression, ancestors has also two immediate an-
in which the first term is 2, and the cestors of his own.
denominator also 2: or, to speak more

Lineal Degrees. Number of Ancestors.
1

2
2

4 3

8 4

16 5

32 6

64 7

128
8

256
9
10

1024
11

2048 12

4096 13

8192 14

16384 15

32768 16

65536 17

131072 18

262144 19

524288 20

1048576 A shorter method of finding the num- of ancestors at two; 256 is the square ber of ancestors at any even degree is of 16; 65536 of 256; and the number by squaring the number of ancestors at of ancestors at 40 degrees would be the half that number of degrees. Thus 16 square of 1048576, or upwards of a (the number of ancestors at four de. million millions. grees) is the square of 4, the number

.. 512

common ances

Collateral kindred answers to the same description: col- of collateral lateral relations agreeing with the lineal in this, that they kindred. descend from the same stock or ancestor ; but differing in this, that they do not descend one from the other. Collateral kinsmen are such then as lineally spring from one and the same ancestor, who is the stirps, or root, the stipes, trunk, or common stock, from whence these relations are branched out. As if John Stiles hath two sons, who have *each a numerous issue; both these issues are lineally descended from John Stiles as their common ancestor; and they are collateral kinsmen to each other, because they are all descended from this common ancestor, and all have a portion of his blood in their veins, which denominates them

[ * 205 ] consanguineos.

We must be careful to remember, that the very being of Collateral concollateral consanguinity consists in this descent from one

sanguinity also

consists in the and the same common ancestor. Thus Titius and his bro- descent from one ther are related: why? because both are derived from one tor. father: Titius and his first cousin are related: why? because both descend from the same grandfather; and his second cousin's claim to consanguinity is this, that they both are derived from one and the same great-grandfather. In short, as many ancestors as a man has, so many common stocks he has, from which collateral kinsmen may be derived. And as we are taught by holy writ, that there is one couple of ancestors belonging to us all, from whom the whole race of mankind is descended, the obvious and undeniable consequence is, that all men are in some degree related to each other. For indeed, if we only suppose each couple of our ancestors to have left, one with another, two children; and each of those children on an average to have left two more; (and without such a supposition, the human species must be daily diminishing), we shall find that all of us have now subsisting near two hundred and seventy millions of kindred in the fifteenth degree, at the same distance from the several common ancestors as ourselves are; besides those that are

VOL. II.

BB

one or two descents nearer to or farther from the common stock, who may amount to as many more (k). And if this calculation should appear incompatible with the number of inhabitants on the earth, it is because, by intermarriages among the several descendants from the same ancestor, a hundred or a thousand modes of consanguinity may be consolidated in one person, or he may be related to us a hundred or a thousand different ways.

The method of computing these degrees in the canon

The method of

(k) This will swell more considerably since each couple of ancestors has two than the former calculation ; for here, descendants, who increase in a duplithough the first term is but one, the de- cate ratio, it will follow that the ratio, nominator is four: that is, there is one in which all the descendants increase kinsman (a brother) in the first degree, downwards, must be double to that in who makes, together with the proposi- which the ancestors increase upwards: tus, the two descendants from the first but we have seen that the ancestors couple of ancestors; and in every other increase upwards in a duplicate ratio : degree the number of kindred must be therefore the descendants must increase the quadruple of those in the degree downwards in a double duplicate, that which immediately precedes it. For, is, in a quadruple ratiot.

+ Mr. Christian observes, “that the This immense increase of the numlearned judge's reasoning is just and bers depends upon the supposition that correct; and that the collateral rela- no one marries a relation; but to avoid tions are quadrupled in each generation such a connexion it will very soon be may be thus demonstrated :-As we necessary to leave the kingdom. How are supposed, upon an average, to have these two tables of consanguinity may one brother or sister, the two children be reduced by the intermarriage of reby the father's brother or sister will lations, will appear from the following make two cousins, and the mother's simple case: If two men and two brother or sister will produce two more, women were put upon an uninhabited in all, four. For the same reason, my island, and became two married couple, father and mother must each have had if they had only two children each, a four cousins, and their children are my male and female, who respectively insecond cousins; so I have eight second termarried, and in like manner procousins by my father, and eight by my duced two children, who are thus conmother; together, sixteen. And thus tinued ad infinitum; it is clear, that again, I shall have 32 third-cousins on there would never be more than four my father's side, and 32 on my mo- persons in each generation; and if the ther’s; in all, 64. Hence it follows that parents lived to see their great grandeach preceding number in the series children, the whole number would must be multiplied by twice two, or four. never be more than sixteen; and thus