ABSTRACT
THE relations between a people's political and social constitution and its Law of inheritance, which influence one another reciprocally, make the transmission of property in prospect of death a delicate legislative problem. The former often suggests the latter, and the latter may be either conservative or destructive of the former. Sometimes the conflict is between a society that desires life and statutes that prevent it from living and hasten its destruction; while at other times the statutes are means of salvation for a decadent society. This accounts for those actions and reactions which are revealed to us in Roman history: a rather confused revelation, but one that some attention will make clear.
