as the injurious-reliance
theory. According to the latter, unless the promisee has parted with
an equivalent or has begun to act in reliance upon the agreement, he
has no moral claim to fulfilment. This is not a theory of the law as
it is or as it ever has been. Formal contracts require nothing of the
sort. It is true, English equity, under the influence of the
equivalent theory, did lay down in the nineteenth century that a
contract under seal with no common-law consideration behind it would
not be enforced. But that proposition was subject to many exceptions
when it was announced, more have since developed and more are
developing. As things are, the exceptions are of more frequent
application than the rule itself. Nor is Fichte's theory a statement
of moral ideas of his day or of ours. Then and now the moral duty to
keep abstract promises was and is recognized. That a man's word should
be "as good as his bond" expresses the moral sentiment of civilized
society. But the philosopher saw that the law did not go so far and
was trying to frame a rational explanation of why it fell short. It
should be noticed that Fichte is really trying to show why a promise
may be regarded as a part of one's substance and why one's claim to
performance may be treated as his property.

Hegel also explains contract in terms of property, treating a promise
as a disposition of one's substance. Hence in his view the so-called
abstract promise is a mere subjective qualification of one's will
which he is at liberty to change. This theory and the foregoing assume
the Roman law or the older law of Continental Europe, and speak from
the reaction from natural law which in England at the same time was
overruling the liberal doctrines of Lord Mansfield.

Later metaphysical jurists rely upon the idea of personality. The
Romanist thinks of a legal transaction as a willing of some change in
a person's sphere of rights to which the law, carrying out his will,
gives the intended effect. If the transaction is executed, revocation
would involve aggression upon the substance of another. If it is
executory, however, why should the declared intent that the change
take place in the future be executed by law despite the altered will
of the promisor? Some say that this should be done where there is a
joint will from which only joint action may recede. Where the parties
have come to an agreement, where their wills have been at one, the law
is to give effect to th