254 CASE OF IMPEACHMENT OF WASTE. 



Now as I make all these much in one degree, so there is 



none of them, not timber trees, not quarries, not minerals 



nor fossils, but hath a double nature; inheritable and real 



while it is contained within the mass of the earth, and 



transitory and personal when it is once severed. For even 



gold and precious stone, which is more durable out of earth 



than any tree is upon the earth, yet the law doth not hold 



of that dignity as to be matter of inheritance if it be once 



Nevil s case severed. And this is not because it becometh moveable, 



SreiEtaices f r t ! lere be poveable inheritances, as villains in gross, and 



which are not dignities which are judged hereditaments; but because by 



local. their severance they lose their nature of perpetuity, which 



is of the essence of an inheritance. 



The consent of And herein I do not a little admire the wisdom of the 

 jJjSkJJ jjfk laws of England, and the consent, which they have with 

 distinguishing tne wisdom of philosophy and nature itself: for it is a 

 between perpe- maxim in philosophy, that in regione elementari nihil est 

 tual and transi- aternum, nisi per propagationem speciei, aut per succes- 

 sionem partium. 



And it is most evident that the elements themselves, and 

 their products, have a perpetuity not in individuo, but by 

 supply and succession of parts. For example, the vestal 

 fire that was nourished by the virgins at Rome was not the 

 same fire still, but was in perpetual waste, and in perpetual 

 renovation. So it is of the sea and waters, it is not the 

 same water individually, for that exhales by the sun, and 

 is fed again by showers. And so of the earth itself, and 

 mines, quarries, and whatsoever it containeth, they are cor 

 ruptible individually, and maintained only by succession of 

 parts, and that lasteth no longer than they continue fixed 

 to the main and mother globe of the earth, and is destroyed 

 by their separation. 



According to this I find the wisdom of the law, by imi 

 tation of the course of nature, to judge of inheritances and 

 things transitory ; for it alloweth no portions of the earth, 

 no stone, no gold, no mineral, no tree, no mould to be 

 longer inheritance than they adhere to the mass, and so 

 are capable of supply in their parts ; for by their continu 

 ance of body stands their continuance of time. 



Neither is this matter of discourse, except the deep and 

 profound reasons of law, which ought chiefly to be searched, 

 shall be accounted discourse, as the slighter sort of wits, 

 Sdoli, may esteem them. 



And, therefore, now that we have opened the nature of 

 inheritable and transitory, let us see, upon a division of 



