the temporal lawyers⸺but the church lawyers—the juris-consulti—the juris-prudentes—the civilians—the advocates—the commissaries—the judges of the consistory and prerogative courts of Canterbury and York , with the master of the faculties, were all unanimously of opinion, That the mother was not of kin to her child.⸺
And what said the duchess of Suffolk to it? said my uncle Toby .
The unexpectedness of my uncle Toby’s question, confounded Kysarcius more than the ablest advocate⸺He stopp’d a full minute, looking in my uncle Toby’s face without replying⸺and in that single minute Triptolemus put by him, and took the lead as follows.
’Tis a ground and principle in the law, said Triptolemus , that things do not ascend, but descend in it; and I make no doubt ’tis for this cause, that however true it is, that the child may be of the blood and seed of its parents⸺that the parents, nevertheless, are not of the blood and seed of it; inasmuch as the parents are not begot by the child, but the child by the parents—For so they write, Liberi sunt de sanguine patris & matris, sed pater & mater non sunt de sanguine liberorum .
⸺But this, Triptolemus , cried Didius , proves too much—for from this authority cited it would follow, not only what indeed is granted on all sides, that the mother is not of kin to her child—but the father likewise.⸺It is held, said Triptolemus , the better opinion; because the father, the mother, and the child, though they be three persons, yet are they but ( una caro ) one flesh; and consequently no degree of kindred⸺or any method of acquiring one in nature .⸺There you push the argument again too far, cried Didius ⸺for there is no prohibition in nature , though there is in the Levitical law⸺but that a man may beget a child upon his grandmother⸺in which case, supposing the issue a daughter, she would stand in relation both