Contract

Nor is it difficult to see what is the tie between man and man which replaces by degrees those forms of reciprocity in rights and duties which have their origin in the Family.

If then we employ Status, agreeably with the usage of the best writers, to signify these personal conditions only, and avoid applying the term to such conditions as are the immediate or remote result of agreement, we may say that the movement of the progressive societies has hitherto been a movement from Status to Contract.

The Troglodytes were a people who systematically violated their Contracts, and so perished utterly.

and we may probably credit the Church with the comparatively advanced development of another conception which we find here—the conception of a Contract.

Let me now observe that one or two others of the great Roman contracts appear to me, when closely examined, to afford evidence of their having been gradually evolved through changes in the mechanism of primitive society.

The feudal system too might be considered as a train of mixed contracts.

And in this view we may consider all the actions, which are now to be explained.

But the exchange of labour branches out into various kinds of recompence or return.

For they saw that in cases of contract the judges were not in the habit of indulging their sense of equity but were strictly faithful to the laws;

And so because of this confidence no one tried to conceal his wealth nor hesitated to lend it out, but, on the contrary, the wealthy were better pleased to see men borrowing money than paying it back;

and that they did not in trying others seek to make it safe for themselves to disobey the law, but were indeed more severe on defaulters than were the injured themselves, since they believed that those who break down confidence in contracts do a greater injury to the poor than to the rich;