The machine once put in motion will go on for ages, and advance, as if self-guided, towards a given point.

When framed in a particular manner, this law unites, draws together, and vests property and power in a few hands: its tendency is clearly aristocratic.

On opposite principles its action is still more rapid; it divides, distributes, and disperses both property and power.
Alarmed by the rapidity of its progress, those who despair of arresting its motion endeavor to obstruct it by difficulties and impediments; they vainly seek to counteract its effect by contrary efforts; but it gradually reduces or destroys every obstacle, until by its incessant activity the bulwarks of the influence of wealth are ground down to the fine and shifting sand which is the basis of democracy.

When the law of inheritance permits, still more when it decrees, the equal division of a father's property amongst all his children, its effects are of two kinds: it is important to distinguish them from each other, although they tend to the same end.
In virtue of the law of partible inheritance, the death of every proprietor brings about a kind of revolution in property; not only do his possessions change hands, but their very nature is altered, since they are parcelled into shares, which become smaller and smaller at each division.

This is the direct and, as it were, the physical effect of the law.