A CHAPTER ON LEGAL DEVELOPMENT. 807 



as the " livery of seisin/' the word " livery " meaning delivery, and 

 the word " seisin " meaning possession. 



Although from a comparatively early day delivery was, from 

 evidential considerations, usually accompanied by a deed, no writ- 

 ing was necessary until so made by the statute of Charles II ; and 

 the livery of seisin, though gradually simplified and softened into 

 a symbolic ceremony, was indispensable to a common-law trans- 

 fer of complete title until abolished by the statute of Victoria. 



As already pointed out, this exclusive mode of conveyance was 

 the natural result of the failure of early society to recognize any 

 estate in lands which did not rest upon subsisting possession. 



There are occasions upon which the possessor of lands desires 

 to at once invest another with an estate in them which shall not 

 commence in enjoyment or possession until a future day, as by 

 now conveying A an estate in lands to take effect in possession 

 when he shall become of age or marry, or upon the death of his 

 father. 



The tendency to create such future estates, representing as it 

 does a natural desire which has always operated with more or less 

 force since the idea of estates in land first obtained, has at times 

 been greatly stimulated by English social and political conditions. 

 Nor have such estates ever been deemed objectionable from the 

 standpoint of public policy. It will be observed, however, that 

 they are hard to reconcile with the doctrine that there can be no 

 estate without possession, and hence no transfer of estate without 

 transfer of possession. If, for example, in the case above sup- 

 posed, possession were withheld from A, he would, in the light of 

 that doctrine, fail to acquire any estate wh tever. If, on the 

 other hand, possession were immediately delivered, he would get 

 a present estate rather than a future. To what extent, then, was 

 it possible to create future estates consistently with the ancient 

 notion that without possession there could be no estate ? This 

 apparently simple question proved to be of almost incredible dif- 

 ficulty. Centuries of forensic discussion and adjudication were 

 required for such a solution of it as the interests of society seemed 

 to require. The answer, when complete, constituted the bulk 

 of the marvelously complex law of remainders and executory 

 devises. 



So great was the social pressure in favor of future estates that 

 there were doubtless points at which the reasoning was somewhat 

 strained in order to overcome the almost insuperable resistance of 

 the old notions respecting possession slight deflections from the 

 true line of logic being one of the indispensable agencies for 

 adapting early law to the exigencies of later society. Yet the in- 

 tention was to recognize future estates only so far as they were 

 compatible with the established doctrine that an estate unsup- 



