亨利·萨默·梅恩作品选·古代法(四)(英文).pdfVIP

亨利·萨默·梅恩作品选·古代法(四 [英] 亨利·萨默·梅恩 主编 辽宁出版集团电子图书公司 亨利·萨默·梅恩作品选·古代法(四 [英] 亨利·萨默·梅恩 主编 辽宁出版集团电子图书公司 字数：45千 2005 年1 月28 ISBN：L-YY-0248/ 定价：3.00 Chapter 9 The Early History of Contract There are few general propositions concerning the age to which we belong which seem at first sight likely to be received with readier concurrence than the assertion that the society of our day is mainly distinguished from that of preceding generations by the largeness of the sphere which is occupied in it by Contract. Some of the phenomena on which this proposition rests are among those most frequently singled out for notice, for comment, and for eulogy. Not many of us are so unobservant as not to perceive that in innumerable cases where old law fixed a mans social position irreversibly at his birth, modern law allows him to create it for himself by convention; and indeed several of the few exceptions which remain to this rule are constantly denounced with passionate indignation. The point, for instance, which is really debated in the vigorous controversy still carried on upon the subject of negro servitude, is whether the status of the slave does not belong to bygone institutions, and whether the only relation between employer and labourer which commends itself to modern morality be not a relation determined exclusively by contract. The recognition of this difference between past ages and the present enters into the very essence of the most famous contemporary speculations. It is certain that the science of Political Economy, the only department of moral inquiry which has made any considerable progress in our day, would fail to corresp