by their public and
private relations: but their specific _obligations_ to each other can
only be the effect of (1) a promise, (2) a benefit, or (3) an injury;
and when these obligations are ratified by law, the interested party may
compel the performance by a judicial action. On this principle the
civilians of every country have erected a similar jurisprudence, the
fair conclusion of universal reason and justice.

1. The goddess of faith (of human and social faith) was worshipped, not
only in her temples, but in the lives of the Romans; and if that nation
was deficient in the more amiable qualities of benevolence and
generosity, they astonished the Greeks by their sincere and simple
performance of the most burdensome engagements. Yet among the same
people, according to the rigid maxims of the patricians and decemvirs, a
naked pact, a promise, or even an oath, did not create any civil
obligation, unless it was confirmed by the legal form of a stipulation.
Whatever might be the etymology of the Latin word, it conveyed the idea
of a firm and irrevocable contract, which was always expressed in the
mode of a question and answer. Do you promise to pay me one hundred
pieces of gold? was the solemn interrogation of Seius. I do promise, was
the reply of Sempronius. The friends of Sempronius, who answered for his
ability and inclination, might be separately sued at the option of
Seius; and the benefit of partition, or order of reciprocal actions,
insensibly deviated from the strict theory of stipulation. The most
cautious and deliberate consent was justly required to sustain the
validity of a gratuitous promise; and the citizen who might have
obtained a legal security, incurred the suspicion of fraud and paid the
forfeit of his neglect. But the ingenuity of the civilians successfully
labored to convert simple engagements into the form of solemn
stipulations. The praetors, as the guardians of social faith, admitted
every rational evidence of a voluntary and deliberate act, which in
their tribunal produced an equitable obligation, and for which they gave
an action and a remedy.

2. The obligations of the second class, as they were contracted by the
delivery of a thing, are marked by the civilians with the epithet of
real. A grateful return is due to the author of a benefit; and whoever
is intrusted with the property of another has bound himself to the
sacred duty of restitution. In the case of a friendly loan, the merit of
gener