In all such cases,
therefore, there is a twofold task. First, to determine what are
the facts to which the special consequences are attached; second,
to ascertain the consequences. The first is the main field of
legal argument. With regard to contracts the facts are not always
the same. They may be that a certain person has signed, sealed,
and delivered a writing of a certain purport. They may be that he
has made an oral promise, and that the promisee has furnished him
a consideration.
The common element of all contracts might be said to be a
promise, although even a promise was not necessary to a liability
in debt as formerly understood. But as it will not be possible to
discuss covenants further, and as consideration formed the main
topic of the last Lecture, I will take up that first.
Furthermore, as there is an historical difference between
consideration in debt and in assumpsit, I shall confine myself to
the latter, which is the later and more philosophical form.
It is said that any benefit conferred by the promisee on the
promisor, or any detriment incurred by the promisee, [290] may be
a consideration. It is also thought that every consideration may
be reduced to a case of the latter sort, using the word
"detriment" in a somewhat broad sense.
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