THE FRENCH LAW OF INHERITANCE. 91 



by the deed of entail of the power either to mort- 

 gage or dispose of it the last surviving member of 

 the family to inherit the whole, and at his decease 

 the property to descend to the family nearest akin. 

 With the French Law of Inheritance thus modified, 

 and with the growing intelligence of a people conse- 

 quent upon a sound secular education in connection 

 with religious instruction teaching what is due to 

 God and due to mankind society might be able to 

 work out for itself the great desideratum in our 

 social condition, namely, a right adjustment between 

 food and numbers. In such a state of society it 

 would be better defined than it now is when a man 

 might marry and when he ought not. 



With an increase in the number of entailed pro- 

 perties, more of the agricultural produce would be 

 consumed by the rural population, and consequently, 

 less to dispose of to the inhabitants of towns. 

 Towns as they now are would, therefore, gradually 

 decline, and the country, with the increase of entailed 

 properties, would ultimately become as one great 

 rural city. In the remote past, human beings con- 

 gregated into towns surrounded with walls for self- 

 preservation. Latterly towns have been built with 

 a view to the convenience of carrying on the various 

 trades and professions ; but now that we have rail- 



