A reference to practical considerations will be found to run all
through the subject. Take another instance. The plaintiff
declared on a mutual agreement between himself and the defendant
that he would sell, and the defendant would buy, certain Donskoy
wool, to be shipped by the plaintiff at Odessa, and delivered in
England. Among the stipulations of the contract was one, that the
names of the vessels should be declared as soon as the wools were
shipped. The defence was, that the wool was bought, with the
knowledge of both parties, for the purpose of reselling it in the
course of the defendant's business; that it was an article of
fluctuating value, and not salable until the names of the vessels
in which it was shipped should have been declared according to
the contract, but that the plaintiff did not declare the names of
the vessels as agreed. The decision of the court was given by one
of the greatest technical lawyers that ever lived, Baron Parke;
yet he did not dream of giving any technical or merely logical
reason for the decision, but, after stating in the above words
the facts which were deemed material to the question [339]
whether declaring the names of the vessels was a condition to the
duty to accept, stated the ground of decision thus: "Looking at
the nature of the contract, and the great importance of it to the
object with which the contract was entered into with the
knowledge of both parties, we think it was a condition
precedent." /1/
[340]
LECTURE X. -- SUCCESSIONS AFTER DEATH.
In the Lecture on Possession, I tried to show that the notion of
possessing a right as such was intrinsically absurd. All rights
are consequences attached to filling some situation of fact. A
right which may be acquired by possession differs from others
simply in being attached to a situation of such a nature that it
may be filled successively by different persons, or by any one
without regard to the lawfulness of his doing so, as is the case
where the situation consists in having a tangible object within
one's power.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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