Mr. Greenleaf, Sec. 14, divides presumptive evidence into two branches: "Presumptions of law" and "Presumptions of fact." "Presumptions of law," says Mr. Greenleaf, "consists of those rules, which, in certain cases, either forbid or dispense with any ulterior inquiry." They are founded either upon the first principles of justice, or the laws of nature; or the experienced course of human conduct and affairs, and the connection usually found to exist between certain things. The deliberate firing of a deadly weapon presumes a malicious intent to kill or do bodily injury, and twenty years of open and notorious, distinct and exclusive, hostile and adverse possession of land presupposes a prior lost grant. Absence unheard from for seven years or more presupposes the death of the person.

Presumptions of law have been divided into two classes, conclusive and rebuttable presumptions. Conclusive presumptions lose the character of presumptions and become absolute and fixed rules of law declaring a particular fact to be true under particular circumstances and forbidding any inquiry into its truth or falsity. Rebuttable or disputable presumptions may be overcome by countervailing evidence.

It appears that presumptions of law either assert that when a certain fact or series of facts exists, a certain other fact is deemed to be established either

conclusively or until disproved by other evidence; while a presumption of fact is only a conclusion or inference which a judge or jury is at liberty to adopt or to reject as it sees fit. Other authors have added. to the above classes, natural and artificial presumptions, weak presumptions, and strong or violent presumptions, until the whole subject of presumptions involves the mind in inextricable confusion.

SECTION 36. PARTICULAR PRESUMPTIONS.

Every person is presumed to be sane until the contrary appears. Insanity once being judicially established, is presumed to continue until the contrary is shown. In criminal cases, every person is presumed to be innocent of crime until he is proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Every child born in lawful wedlock is presumed to be legitimate. Every person is presumed to have a natural instinct to self-preservation, and there is a presumption against suicide. An endorsee of a negotiable instrument, who takes it before maturity, for a valuable consideration, in the usual course of business, is presumed to be a bona fide holder. A letter properly directed, stamped and deposited in the mail chute is presumed to have been received by the person to whom addressed in the usual course of business. Seven years' absence unheard from presumes death until overcome. A state of facts once shown to exist is presumed to continue until the contrary appears. Every unmarried woman is presumed to be chaste, and every judgment of a court of record based upon proper averment and proof. A marriage once shown to exist is presumed to continue until its dissolution has been established.

Every man is conclusively presumed to know the

law, without proof that he does know it, and no proof to the contrary can be shown.

SECTION 37. FALSE PRESUMPTIONS.

Many of the presumptions above enumerated are based upon no inference of fact, and are what are known as "false presumptions of law." Among these may be mentioned the presumption of innocence, of a prior lost grant, that the subscribing witnesses to a thirty-year old document are dead, that children under seven years of age are incapable of committing crime, that every man knows the law, that an insane mind is incapable of entertaining a criminal intent, that written contracts cover and merge all previous verbal agreements and negotiations, of malice in uttering or publishing of words actionable per se, and that every person intends the natural and probable consequences

of his acts.

SECTION 38.

PRESUMPTIONS OF FACT.

When a fact has been established in a trial by evidence, the jury may properly be allowed to draw therefrom such inferences of fact as are logically deducible from such fact. It follows the system of inductive reasoning, deducing a conclusion of unknown facts from proof of those known to exist. The proof of one fact or series of facts inferentially proves the existence of other facts which experience has shown to be inseparably connected with such fact or facts.