Being an only child myself, and having no occasion for research on this interesting subject, I never knew the basis of this peculiar right, until I came to read the great Leaphigh commentator, Whiterock, on the governing rules of the social compact.

I there found that the first-born, MORALLY considered, is thought to have better claims to the honors of the genealogical tree, on the father's side, than those offspring whose origin is to be referred to a later period in connubial life.

On this obvious and highly discriminating principle, the crown, the rights of the nobles, and indeed all other rights, are transferred from father to son, in the direct male line, according to primogeniture.
Nothing of this is practised in Leaplow.

There, the supposition of legitimacy is as much in favor of the youngest as of the oldest born, and the practice is in conformity.

As there is no hereditary chief to poise on one of the legs of the great tripod, the people at the foot of the beam choose one from among themselves, periodically, who is called the Great Sachem.