INHERENT POWER. An authority possessed without its being derived from another. It is a right, ability or faculty of doing a thing, without receiving that right, ability or faculty from another.

INHERITANCE, estates. A perpetuity in lands to a man and his heirs; or it is the right to succeed to the estate of a person who died intestate. Dig. 50, 16, 24. The term is applied to lands.

2. The property which is inherited is called an inheritance.

3. The term inheritance includes not only lands and tenements which have been acquired by descent, but also every fee simple or fee tail, which a person has acquired by purchase, may be said to be an inheritance, because the purchaser's heirs may inherit it. Litt. s. 9.

4. Estates of inheritance are divided into inheritance absolute, or fee simple; and inheritance limited, one species of which is called fee tail. They are also divided into corporeal, as houses and lands and incorporeal, commonly called incorporeal hereditaments. (q. v.) 1 Cruise, Dig. 68; Sw. 163; Poth. des Retraits, n. 2 8.

5. Among the civilians, by inheritance is understood the succession to all the rights of the deceased. It is of two kinds, 1 . That which arises by testament, when the testator gives his succession to a particular person; and, 2. That which arises by operation of law, which is called succession ab intestat. Hein. Lec. El. 484, 485.

INHIBITION, Scotch law,. A personal prohibition which passes by letters under the signet, prohibiting the party inhibited to contract any debt, or do . any deed, by which any part of the lands may be aliened or carried off, in prejudice of the creditor inhibiting. Ersk. Pr. L. Scot. B. 2, t. 11, s. 2. See Diligences.

2. In the civil law, the probibition which the law makes, or a judge ordains to an individual, is called inhibition.

INHIBITION, Eng. law. The name of a writ which forbids a judge from further proceeding in a cause depending before him; it is in the nature of a prohibition. T. de la Ley; F. N. B. 39.