osity is on the side of the lender only; in a deposit, on the side
of the receiver; but in a pledge, and the rest of the selfish commerce
of ordinary life, the benefit is compensated by an equivalent, and the
obligation to restore is variously modified by the nature of the
transaction. The Latin language very happily expresses the fundamental
difference between the _commodatum_ and the _mutuum_, which our poverty
is reduced to confound under the vague and common appellation of a loan.
In the former, the borrower was obliged to restore the same individual
thing with which he had been accommodated for the temporary supply of
his wants; in the latter it was destined for his use and consumption,
and he discharged this mutual engagement by substituting the same
specific value according to a just estimation of number, of weight, and
of measure. In the contract of sale, the absolute dominion is
transferred to the purchaser, and he repays the benefit with an adequate
sum of gold or silver, the price and universal standard of all earthly
possessions.

The obligation of another contract, that of location, is of a more
complicated kind. Lands or houses, labor or talents, may be hired for a
definite term; at the expiration of the time the thing itself must be
restored to the owner, with the additional reward for the beneficial
occupation and employment. In these lucrative contracts, to which may be
added those of partnership and commissions, the civilians sometimes
imagine the delivery of the object, and sometimes presume the consent of
the parties. The substantial pledge has been refined into the invisible
rights of a mortgage or _hypotheca_; and the agreement of sale, for a
certain price, imputes from that moment the chances of gain or loss to
the account of the purchaser. It may be fairly supposed that every man
will obey the dictates of his interest; and if he accepts the benefit,
he is obliged to sustain the expense of the transaction. In this
boundless subject, the historian will observe the _location_ of land and
money, the rent of the one and the interest of the other, as they
materially affect the prosperity of agriculture and commerce.

The landlord was often obliged to advance the stock and instruments of
husbandry, and to content himself with a partition of the fruits. If the
feeble tenant was oppressed by accident, contagion, or hostile violence,
he claimed a proportionable relief from the equity of the laws; five
yea