  The hereditary succession by which civil lordship passes from father to son is a problem for Wyclif. People cannot inherit the grace needed to ensure just ownership and jurisdiction. Primogeniture imperils grace-founded civil lordship, making lords prone to rule on behalf of their own familial interests rather than in the interests of their subjects. The only means by which Wyclif can envision hereditary succession operating is through spiritual filiation, in which a civil lord instructs a worthy successor. He suggests adoption as the basis for the spiritual primogeniture by which lordship is passed on, which would be preferable to general election, for Wyclif is clear about the impossibility of widespread recognition of grace in a potential civil lord: “It does not follow, if all the people want Peter to be their civil lord, that therefore it is just” (De Civili Dominio I, 18, p. 130.6). Central to his ecclesiology is the impossibility of determining the presence of grace in another's soul, which militates against identifying members of the elect with certainty, and therefore against excommunicating any of them from the Church, as well as ruling out popular election as a means of instituting just civil dominium.  Grants in perpetuity, commonly employed by civil lords to guarantee the ongoing obligation of subjects in return for a gift of land or political authority, are as impossible as hereditary inheritance. A lord might reward someone with a grant while acting as God's steward, but he certainly cannot thereby make his subject's progeny deserve the gift.  