The Moral of this Narrative. 521 



bequest was seldom recognised, and inheritance implied that all 

 those who shared in the pleasures and responsibilities of owner- 

 ship should continue to do so on the decease of one or more of 

 their original number. The substitution of the individual, how- 

 ever, for the feudal family made a considerable difference in the 

 grounds on which the disposal of property by inheritance should 

 rest. Where there are children of some proprietor who has died 

 intestate, the State has been induced to favour their claims of 

 inheritance on the supposition that they are more likely than 

 others to have been preferred by the deceased ; but where 

 there are no heirs, either in the descending or ascending line, 

 the property, in the case of intestacy, escheats to the feudal 

 superior, that is, speaking generally, the Crown. On the 

 institution of a feudal polity, where the seignorial rights 

 involved military service, the eldest son, as being most likely 

 to fulfil his deceased father's duties, became the recognised 

 heir in cases of intestacy. The State, however, has always 

 made a distinction between the bequest and the inheritance. 

 A man during his lifetime may arrange to leave what he 

 possesses to whom he pleases, but failing any such provision, 

 the State is the proper authority to decide who shall inherit 

 the vacated ownership. Mill claims as a right of proprietor- 

 ship full freedom of bequest, but not of inheritance. But he 

 cleverly makes a point of this contention against State inter- 

 ference with the freedom of bequest to justify the very reverse. 

 The right of bequest is so essentially an attribute of property 

 that the question arises whether the ownership of a thing can 

 be looked upon as complete without it, and this view of the 

 case raises the further and more important question, whether 

 the rights of present ownership, when they interfere with 

 those of future ownership, ought not to be curtailed. Thus, 

 for example, whether by an unlimited use of the power of 

 bequest it is lawful for a proprietor to deprive his successor of 

 the same power. 



Utilitarianism was, however, in Mill's mind when he thus 

 sought an excuse for the State to interfere with the rights of 

 the proprietor to tie up his lands. He noticed that in the 

 southern counties, where there were no leases, most improve- 



