What is the difference in the cases? It is only
in the degree of power possessed by the promisor over the event.
He has none in the first case. He has equally little legal
authority to make a man paint a picture, although he may have
larger means of persuasion. He probably will be able to make sure
that the promisee has the cotton. Being a rich man, he is certain
[299] to be able to pay the one hundred dollars, except in the
event of some most improbable accident.
But the law does not inquire, as a general thing, how far the
accomplishment of an assurance touching the future is within the
power of the promisor. In the moral world it may be that the
obligation of a promise is confined to what lies within reach of
the will of the promisor (except so far as the limit is unknown
on one side, and misrepresented on the other). But unless some
consideration of public policy intervenes, I take it that a man
may bind himself at law that any future event shall happen. He
can therefore promise it in a legal sense. It may be said that
when a man covenants that it shall rain to-morrow, or that A
shall paint a picture, he only says, in a short form, I will pay
if it does not rain, or if A does not paint a picture. But that
is not necessarily so.
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