THE THEORY OF INHERITANCE. 163 by no means follows that there are not underlying principles of law and policy to which they should conform. And I wish, in the few moments at my disposal, to direct your attention to what these principles are, and how far they are recognized by existing laws. I shall then consider briefly a class of legislation which is at present attracting much attention, the so-called Collateral Inheri- tance Taxes. What should be the purpose of laws regulating the succession to property on the death of the owner .? Fortunately this question, which would involve going into the fundamentals of Economics, has been answered many times, and by men of widely different views, with substantial unanimity. Mill, ^ Bentham, ^ and even Professor Ely, ^ who are in general as far apart as any three men that could be named, all agree on certain general principles to which the law should conform in distributing the estates of de- ceased persons. It seems fair to assume their conclusion to be correct ; it never, to my knowledge has been questioned. The law, they tell us, should aim, first, to consider the wishes of the former owner; second, to secure adequate provision to his family and those dependent on him ; third, to promote the equali- zation of fortunes, it being manifestly out of keeping with demo- cratic ideas for the State to foster the concentration of wealth. These propositions are by no means of equal importance. Mill and Bentham, for instance, almost ignore the first, and Professor Ely regards it of much less weight than either of the others. A scientific law of succession, therefore, while not blind to what the owner's wishes would have been, will regard them with much less consideration than it will be the rights either of his family or of the rest of the community. How far do our present laws conform to these ideas . By what method of reasoning do we reach the astonishing result that if a man die intestate, leaving an only son, the latter will take the entire estate, whether it be one hundred dollars or one hundred millions ; while on the other hand, the father may at his pleasure leave his whole property to a charity* and throw the son on the world a pauper.? Our laws of succession are in their origin feudal, and to answer these questions we must glance shortly at the feudal system from which they started. Now the feudal idea was in brief this : At the head of everything the king ; numerous noblemen holding large tracts of land under the king, whom they repaid by service 1 Principles of Pol. Econ. Bk. 2, ch. 2, § 3. ^ IS3 No. Am. Rev. 54 • Principles of the Civil Code, part 2, ch. 3.
