tion of property, and
the disregard of one iota of the performance is fatal to the
obligation. The positive duty resulting from one man's reliance on the
word of another is among the slowest conquests of advancing
civilisation.

Neither Ancient Law nor any other source of evidence discloses to us
society entirely destitute of the conception of Contract. But the
conception, when it first shows itself, is obviously rudimentary. No
trustworthy primitive record can be read without perceiving that the
habit of mind which induces us to make good a promise is as yet
imperfectly developed, and that acts of flagrant perfidy are often
mentioned without blame and sometimes described with approbation. In
the Homeric literature, for instance, the deceitful cunning of Ulysses
appears as a virtue of the same rank with the prudence of Nestor, the
constancy of Hector, and the gallantry of Achilles. Ancient law is
still more suggestive of the distance which separates the crude form
of Contract from its maturity. At first, nothing is seen like the
interposition of law to compel the performance of a promise. That
which the law arms with its sanctions is not a promise, but a promise
accompanied with a solemn ceremonial. Not only are formalities of
equal importance with the promise itself, but they are, if anything,
of greater importance; for that delicate analysis which mature
jurisprudence applies to the conditions of mind under which a
particular verbal assent is given appears, in ancient law, to be
transferred to the words and gestures of the accompanying performance.
No pledge is enforced if a single form be omitted or misplaced, but,
on the other hand, if the forms can be shown to have been accurately
proceeded with, it is of no avail to plead that the promise was made
under duress or deception. The transmutation of this ancient view into
the familiar notion of a Contract is plainly seen in the history of
jurisprudence. First one or two steps in the ceremonial are dispensed
with; then the others are simplified or permitted to be neglected on
certain conditions; lastly, a few specific contracts are separated
from the rest and allowed to be entered into without form, the
selected contracts being those on which the activity and energy of
social intercourse depends. Slowly, but most distinctly, the mental
engagement isolates itself amid the technicalities, and gradually
becomes the sole ingredient on which the interest of the jurisconsult