[102]
Both the
disinherited and the bastard will object, “You cannot
re-enter the family, for our father did not die childless.” But in this connexion each will rely on
his own particular question. For the disinherited son
will say that even a disinherited man does not cease
[p. 463]
to be a son, and will derive an argument from that
very law which denies his claim to the inheritance;
namely that it was unnecessary for a disinherited son
to be excluded from possession of his father's property
if he had ceased to be one of the family; but now,
since in virtue of his rights as son he would have
been his father's heir if he had died intestate, the
law is brought to bar his claim; and yet the law does
not deprive him of his position as son, but only of his
position as heir. Here the basis is definitive, as turning
on the definition of a son.
Quintilian. With an English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1920.
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