If, however, the deceased had a paternal uncle, for example, we would say:

Excluding those of the deceased’s own generation indicates that those more distantly related to him are also excluded. Those of his own generation were not excluded because of their more distant position in the endowment, since his children occupy a still more distant position. We have already explained that this entails giving the share to his children in most cases. It is therefore clear that those of his own generation were excluded because of their more distant relationship to the deceased. This consideration applies even more strongly to his paternal uncles, who are therefore all the more deserving of exclusion when he leaves children.

The third benefit:

It provides evidence that he intended succession from individuals to their respective descendants, rather than from one generation as a whole to the next as a whole. It is as though he had said:

“On condition that if any of them dies leaving children, his share shall pass to his children.”

If it is objected:

“This assigns two different meanings to a single expression. In the first instance, its function is to establish succession from individuals to their respective descendants; in the second, it establishes that the deceased’s generation alone is entitled to his share. Anyone who disallows a single expression from bearing two literal meanings, two figurative meanings, or both a literal and a figurative meaning must disallow this. As for anyone who permits it, we say: ‘On that assumption, when something is explicitly established by the founder’s wording, it cannot be altered on the strength of ambiguous wording open to competing interpretations.’”

The reply is that this objection is extremely weak for several reasons:

First: The person raising it presented it as establishing a second argument for the pronoun’s referring to the final clause, distinct from his initial argument concerning the exception’s applying to the final clause. Yet ultimately—when addressing the view of those who permit a single expression to bear both its meanings—he relied on that same answer. It therefore does not constitute a separate argument.