the elementary principles of society, has presented this question to my
mind; and that no such obligation can be so transmitted, I think very
capable of proof. I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be
self-evident, that _the earth belongs in usufruct to the living_: that
the dead have neither powers nor rights over it. The portion occupied by
any individual ceases to be his when himself ceases to be, and reverts
to the society. If the society has formed no rules for the appropriation
of its lands in severalty, it will be taken by the first occupants, and
these will generally be the wife and children of the decedent. If they
have formed rules of appropriation, those rules may give it to the wife
and children, or to some one of them, or to the legatee of the deceased.
So they may give it to his creditor.

But the child, the legatee, or creditor, takes it not by natural right,
but by a law of the society of which he is a member, and to which he
is subject. Then, no man can, by natural right, oblige the lands he
occupied, or the persons who succeed him in that occupation, to the
payment of debts contracted by him. For if he could, he might, during
his own life, eat up the usufruct of the lands for several generations
to come; and then the lands would belong to the dead, and not to the
living, which is the reverse of our principle.

What is true of every member of the society individually, is true of
them all collectively; since the rights of the whole can be no more than
the sum of the rights of the individuals. To keep our ideas clear when
applying them to a multitude, let us suppose a whole generation of men
to be born on the same day, to attain mature age on the same day, and
to die on the same day, leaving a succeeding generation in the moment of
attaining their mature age, all together. Let the ripe age be supposed
of twenty-one years, and their period of life thirty-four years more,