s bound himself
to the sacred duty of restitution. In the case of a friendly loan, the
merit of generosity is on the side of the lender only; in a deposit, on
the side of the receiver; but in a pledge, and the rest of the selfish
commerce of ordinary life, the benefit is compensated by an equivalent,
and the obligation to restore is variously modified by the nature of the
transaction. The Latin language very happily expresses the fundamental
difference between the commodatum and the mutuum, which our poverty is
reduced to confound under the vague and common appellation of a loan.
In the former, the borrower was obliged to restore the same individual
thing with which he had been accommodated for the temporary supply of
his wants; in the latter, it was destined for his use and consumption,
and he discharged this mutual engagement, by substituting the same
specific value according to a just estimation of number, of weight,
and of measure. In the contract of sale, the absolute dominion is
transferred to the purchaser, and he repays the benefit with an adequate
sum of gold or silver, the price and universal standard of all earthly
possessions. The obligation of another contract, that of location, is of
a more complicated kind. Lands or houses, labor or talents, may be hired
for a definite term; at the expiration of the time, the thing itself
must be restored to the owner, with an additional reward for the
beneficial occupation and employment. In these lucrative contracts, to
which may be added those of partnership and commissions, the civilians
sometimes imagine the delivery of the object, and sometimes presume the
consent of the parties. The substantial pledge has been refined into the
invisible rights of a mortgage or hypotheca; and the agreement of sale,
for a certain price, imputes, from that moment, the chances of gain or
loss to the account of the purchaser. It may be fairly supposed, that
every man will obey the dictates of his interest; and if he accepts the
benefit, he is obliged to sustain the expense, of the transaction. In
this boundless subject, the historian will observe the location of land
and money, the rent of the one and the interest of the other, as they
materially affect the prosperity of agriculture and commerce. The
landlord was often obliged to advance the stock and instruments of
husbandry, and to content himself with a partition of the fruits. If the
feeble tenant was oppressed by accident, contagion,
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