y be given. Suppose a person having made a bet
and lost is unable to pay the money and gives his note for the amount.
When the note becomes due the holder or owner sues him for the money.
He defends, as he is unwilling to pay, by saying there was no legal
consideration for the note. The money he promised to pay was only a
wager, which the law regards as illegal. And this would be a good
defence.

If the consideration is partly legal and partly illegal and can be
divided then there can be a _recovery of the legal part_. Suppose a
man owed another $1000 for borrowed money and also a wager for the
same amount, and had given his note for $2000. When it became due if
the owner sued him he could recover only the $1000 of borrowed money;
this much and no more, for the reason that the consideration could be
divided, the legal part from the illegal part. If no separation was
possible then the note would be void and the owner could get nothing.

A person cannot recover for a _voluntary service_ that he has rendered
to another. A man would be very mean indeed who refused to pay another
for any service rendered to him that was truly valuable; yet if he
would not do so the man rendering the service could get nothing
through the law. Suppose that a person when walking along a road
should see some cattle astray in a corn-field having a good time with
a farmer's corn. He knows they are in the field for business and in a
short time, unless driven out, will get the best of nature and down
her efforts in corn-raising. In the kindness of his heart he jumps
over the fence and succeeds in driving them away. Suppose there
happens to be among the number an unruly animal which is unwilling to
leave such a tempting field of plunder and turns on him and gores
him, and he is taken to a hospital. The farmer finds out who drove out
the animals, and of his injury, but declines to give him any reward
whatever. Can the man recover anything? The law says not, because the
service is purely voluntary.

The question has often been asked whether a person who has made a
contract to work for another and has broken it can recover for the
worth of his service during the period he was employed. Some courts
have said that a person thus breaking his contract cannot afterward
recover anything, because he does not come into court with clean
hands. Other courts have said that though he can recover nothing on
the contract he has broken, he can nevertheless recover