D E S 
downwards, falling, or finking ; defcent. A declenfion ; 
a degradation : 
From a god to a bull ! a heavy defccnji'on: 
It was Jove’s cafe. ' Shahefpeare. 
[In aftronomy.J Right defcenfion is the arch of the equa¬ 
tor, which defcends with tlie fign or ftar below the ho¬ 
rizon of a direbt Iphere.— : Oblique defcenjion is the arch of 
the equator, which defcends with the fign below the ho¬ 
rizon of an oblique fphere. Ozanam. 
DESCEN'SIONAL, adj. [from defcenfion .] Relating 
to defcent. 
DESCE'NT, /'. [,defcenfus, Lat. defecate, Fr.J Tlie act 
of palling from a higher to a lower place : 
Why do fragments, from a mountain rent, 
Tend to the earth with fuch a fwift defcent? Blackmore. 
Progrefs downwards.—Obferving fuch gradual and gen¬ 
tle defeents downwards, in thole parts of the creation 
that are beneath men, the rule of analogy may make it 
probable, that it is fo alfo in things above. Locke. —Ob¬ 
liquity ; incliiation.—The heads .and fources of rivers 
flow upon a defcent , or an inclining plane, without which 
they could not flow at all. IVoodw. —Lowed: place : 
From th’ extreme!! upward of thy head 
To the defcent and dud below thy feet. Shahefpeare. 
Fall from a higher date ; degradation : 
O fou[ defcent, that I, who erd contended 
With gods to fit the highelt, am now condrain’d 
Into a bead, and mix with bedial (lime 
This elfence to incarnate and imbrufe. Milton. 
Invalion ; hodile entrance into a kingdom : in allufion 
to the height of (flips.—At the fird defend on (bore, he 
was not immured with a wooden veflel, but he did coun¬ 
tenance the landing in his long-boat. Wotton. 
Arife, true judges, in your own defence, 
Controul thole fopTings, and declare for fenfe ; 
For, fiiould the fools prevail, they ftop not there, 
But make their next defcent upon the fair. Drydcn. 
TranfmilTion of any thing by fuccefiion and inheritance. 
■—If the agreement and confent of men fird gave a feep- 
tre into any one’s hand, that alfo mud direct its defcent 
and conveyance. Locke. —The date of proceeding from 
an original or progenitor.—All of them, even without 
fuch a particular claim, had great reafon to glory in 
their common defcent from Abraham, Ifaac, and Jacob, 
to whom the promife of the blelled deed was feverally 
made.— Atterbury. —Birth ; extraction ; procefs of line¬ 
age : 
I give my voice on Richard’s fide, 
To bar my mader’s heirs in true defcentl 
God knows, I will not do it. Shakefpeare. 
Offspring ; inheritors ; thofe proceeding in the line of 
generation : 
The care of, our defcent. perplexes mod, 
Which mud be born to certain woe. Milton. 
A fingle dep in the fade of genealogy ; a-generation.— 
No man living is a tkqufand.dfcents removed from Adam 
himfelf. Hooker. —A rank: in the (cale of fubordioation : 
How have I then with whom to hold converfe, 
Save with tine creatures which I made, and thofe 
To me inferior ; infinite dejeents 
Beneath what other creatures are to thee ? Milton. 
DESCE'NT,/’. in law, .is the doctrine of hereditary 
fuccefiion ; or, that title whereby a man, on the death of 
his aiicedor, obtains the freehold edate, by right of re- 
prefentation, as. his heir-at-law. An heir is he upon 
whom the law cads the edate immediately on thexleath 
of his ancedor; and the edate, fo defeending, is, in law',, 
called the inheritance. z.Ccmm. 200. lib. 2. c. 14. 
Defcent, being created by law, and the mod ancient 
title, it is termed the worthied means by which land can 
be acquired ; and an heir is in by that, in preference to. a 
CENT. 751 
grantor devife, See. which are called titles by purchafe. 
It is a rule in law, that a man cannot raife a fee-fimple 
to his own right heirs, by the name of heirs, as a pur¬ 
chafe, either by conveyance or devife ; for, if he devife 
lands to one who is the heir at law, the devife is void, 
and he lhall take by defcent. Dyer, 54,126. And it is the 
fame where the lands will come to the heir, either in a 
direbt or collateral line ; or, where the heir comes to an 
edate by way of limitation, when the word heirs is not a 
word of purchafe. A father hath two Tons by feveral 
venters, and devifes his land to his wife for life, and, 
after her deceafe, to his elded fon ; though the fon doth 
not take the edate prefently on the death of his father, 
he lhall he in by defcent, and not by purchafe, and the 
devife lhall be void as to him. 1 Nclf Abr. 645. But, it 
is faid, he may make his election, and take by devife, if 
lie pleafes. 
A man being feifed of lands, which he had by the mo¬ 
ther’s fide, deviled them to his heirs on the part of his 
mother, and it was adjudged, that the devifee lhall take 
by defcent. 3 Lev. 127. And, when the heir takes that 
which his ancefior would have taken if living, he (hall 
take it by defcent, and not by purchafe. 2 Danu. 557. 
But, generally, where an efiate is devifed to the heir at 
law, attended with a charge, as to pay money, debts,&c. 
i.n fuch cafe, he takes by purchafe, and not by defcent. 
Though conditions to pay money have been conftrued 
only a charge in equity, and that they do r.ot alter the 
defcent at common law. 1X2^.593. 1 Salk. 241. If one 
die feifed of land, in which another hath right to enter, 
and it defcends to his heir, fuch defcent (hall take away 
the other’s right of entry, and put him to his abtion for 
recovery thereof. 32 II. S. c. 33. But a defcent of fuch 
things as lie in grant, as advowfons, rents, commons in 
grofs, See. puis not him who hath right to his action. 
Co. Lit. 237. And a defcent (hall not take away the entry 
of an infant, nor of a feme covert, where the wrong was 
done to her during the coverture. 2 Danv. 563. 
The dobtrine of defeents, or law of inheritance, in fee- 
fimple, is a point of the highelt importance, and is in¬ 
deed the principal objebt of the laws of real property in 
England. All the rules relating to purchales, whereby 
the legal courfe of defeents is broken and altered, perpe¬ 
tually refer to this fettled law of inheritance, as,a datum 
or firlt principle univerfally known, and upon which 
their fubfequent limitations are to work. And as the 
law of defeents depends on the nature of kindred, and 
the feveral degrees of confanguinity, it will be neceflary 
to Hate, briefly, the true notion of this kindred or alli¬ 
ance in blood. 
Confanguinity or kindred is defined by the law writers, 
to be vinculum perfonaruni ab eodemfipite defeendentium, the 
connection or relation of perfons defeended from the fame 
Itock or common ancefior. This confanguinity is either 
lineal or collateral. Lineal confanguinity is that which 
fubfilts between perfons, of whom one is defeended in a 
direbt line from the other, as between a man and bis fa¬ 
ther, grandfather, and great grandfather, and fo upwards, 
in the direbt afeending line ; or, between a man and his 
fon, grandfon, great grandfon, and fo downwards, in the 
direct defeending line. Every generation, in this lineal 
direbt confanguinity, conftitutes a different degree, reck¬ 
oning either upwards or downwards: the father is re¬ 
lated in the firlt degree, and fo likewife is the fon ; grand- 
fire and grandfon in the fecond ; great grandfire and great 
grandfon in the third. This is the only natural way 
of reckoning the degrees in the direbt line, and therefore 
univerfally obtains,, as well in the civil and canon, as in 
the common law. 
Collateral kindred anfwers to the fame defeription: 
collateral relations agreeing with the lineal in this, that 
they defeend from the fame (lock or ancefior; but dif¬ 
fering, in. that they do not deicend one from the other. 
Collateral kinfmen are fuch as lineally lpri.ng fcpm one 
and the fame ancefior, who is th c flirps, or root, the fifes, 
trunk, or common Hock, from whence.theie relations are 
branched 
