length of time, the individual circumstances of which they are too shortsighted to foresee, the good, so far from eagerly seeking for such opportunities, are too glad not to find an occasion which compels them to impose limits on the will of others. Too often, even, the considerations of secresy and of security against the censure of the world may induce men to make dispositions which otherwise very shame had suppressed. These reasons may serve to show the necessity of guarding against the dangers which may follow to the citizens from the practice of testamentary dispositions. But what is to supply the place of such dispositions of property if (as principle strictly demands) the State were wholly to abolish the right of making them? As the necessary preservation of order and tranquillity precludes the possibility of any one taking possession, there clearly remains nothing but an hereditary succession ab intestato to be decided by the State. But to transfer to the political power such a mighty positive influence as it would acquire by the right of settling this hereditary succession, and by utterly abolishing the personal will of the ancestor, is forbidden by the principles we have already agreed upon. The close connection which subsists between laws on succession ab intestato with the political constitution of States has been frequently observed; and this source of influence might be employed to further other designs. On the whole, the manifold and ever-varying plans and wishes of individual men are to be preferred to the uniform and unchangeable will of the State. And we should remember, further, that whatever evils may flow from the practice of testamentary dispositions, it seems hard to deprive man of the innocent joy which attends the thought of continuing to do good with his means even after death; and although this feeling, it is true, begets an excessive solicitude for property, when too much encouraged, the utter absence of it might lead per-
