Blacks Law Dict. 1st ed

NATURAL ALLEGIANCE

801

NATURAL LIFE

In American law. The allegiance due from citizens of the United States to their native country, and also from naturalized citizens, and which -cannot be renounced without the permission of government, to be declared by law. 2 Kent, Coinm. 43-49. It differs from local allegiance, which is temporary only, being due from an alien or stranger born for so long a time as he contin ues within the sovereign's dominions and protection. Fost. Cr. Law, 184. NATURAL-BORN SUBJECT. In En glish law. One born within the dominions, or rather within the allegiance, of the king of England. NATURAL CHILD. A bastard; a child born out of lawful wedlock. But in a stat ute declaring that adopted shall have all the rights of "natural" children, the word "nat ural" was used in the sense of "legitimate." 9 Amer. Law Reg. (O. S.) 747. In Louisiana. Illegitimate children who have been adopted by the father. Civil Code La. art. 220. In the civil law. A child by natural re lation or procreation; a child by birth, as distinguished from a child by adoption. Inst. 1, 11, pr.; Id. 3, 1, 2; Id. 3, 8, pr. A child by concubinage, in contradistinc tion to a child by marriage. Cod. 5, 27. NATURAL DAY. That space of time included between the rising and the setting of the sun. See DAY. NATURAL DEATH. 1. Death result ing from disease, or from natural forces without the concurrence of man's agency; as distinguished from "violent" death 2. Physical death; the separation of soul and body; as distinguished from "civil" death, which is the loss of rights and ju ristic personality as a legal consequence of certain acts. NATURAL EQUITY. A term some times employed in works on jurisprudence, possessing no very precise meaning, but used as equivalent to justice, honesty, or morali ty in business relations, or man's innate sense of light dealing and fair play. Inasmuch as equity, as now administered, is a complex system of rules, doctrines, and precedents, and possesses, within the range of its own fixed principles, but little more elasticity than the law, the term "natural equity" may be understood to denote, in a general way, that which strikes the ordinary conscience and sense of justice as being fair, right, and equitable, in advance of the ques tion whether the technical jurisprudence of the chancery courts would so regard it. AM.DICT.LAW—51

N AT U B AL FOOL. A person born without understanding; a born fool or idiot. Sometimes called, in the old books, a "nat. ural." NATURAL FRUITS. The produce of the soil, or of fruit-trees, bushes, vines, etc., which are edible or otherwise useful or serve for the reproduction of their species. The term is used in contradistinction to "artificial fruits," i. e., such as by metaphor or analogy are likened to the fruits of the earth. Of the latter, interest on money is an example. NATURAL HEIRS. In a statute of distributions, this term may be understood and interpreted as meaning "legitimate heirs," and hence may include an adopted child. 9 Amer. Law Reg. (O. S.) 747. NATURAL INFANCY. A period of non-responsible life, which ends with the seventh year. Wharton. NATURAL LAW. The rule and dictate of right reason, showing the moral deformity or moral necessity there is in any act, ac cording to its suitableness or unsuitableness to a leasonable nature. Tayl. Civil Law, 99. This expression, "natural law," or jus naturale, was largely used in the philosoph ical speculations of the Roman jurists of the Antonine age, and was intended to denote a system of rules and principles for the guid ance of human conduct which, independent ly of enacted law or of the systems peculiar to any one people, might be discovered by the rational intelligence of man, and would be found to grow out of and conform to his nature, meaning by that word his whole mental, moral, and physical constitution. The point of departure for this conception was the Stoic doctrine of a life ordered "ac cording to nature," which in its turn rested upon the purely supposititious existence, in primitive times, of a "state of nature;" that is, a condition of society in which men uni versally were governed solely by a lational and consistent obedience to the needs, im pulses, and promptings of their true nature, such nature being as yet undefaced by dis honesty, falsehood, or indulgenceof the baser passions. See Maine, Anc. Law, 50, et seq. NATURAL LIBERTY. The power of acting as one thinks fit, without any restraint or contiol, unless by the law of nature. 1 Bl. Comm. 125. NATURAL LIFE. The period between birth and natural death, as distinguished from civil death, (q. v.)

Archive CD Books USA