Principle of non-contradiction

“ It should be observed that, in all cases of general principles, particular instances, dealing with familiar things, are more evident than the general principle. For example, the law of contradiction states that nothing can both have a certain property and not have it. ”

“ We know of no principle upon which a contract can be evoked from a distinct refusal of one party to recognize the rights of the other, and a formal protest against any such rights being granted to him. ”

“ To say that I have a right to order another to do or not to do an act, but that it is left to his discretion to obey me or not, is a contradiction in terms. It is no right, or at least no more than one of those imperfect rights which create no obligation of respect. ”

“ If it were possible for the law of identity to be violated, no violation of the law of contradiction would necessarily ensue: for a thing might then be something else, without being itself at the same time, which latter is what the law of contradiction militates against. ”

“ The warmest advocate for state power will find it difficult to discover any principle from which it can be implied, that one party to a contract reserves to himself the power of destroying all the rights conferred by the contract. ”

“ Suppose, in private life, thirteen form a partnership, and ten of them undertake to admit a new partner without the concurrence of the other three, would it not be at their option to abandon the partnership, after so palpable an infringement of their rights? How much more, in the political partnership, where the admission of new associates, without previous authority, is so pregnant with obvious dangers and evils! Again, it is settled as a principle of morality, among writers on public law, that no person can be obliged, beyond his intent at the time of contract. ”

“ The principle of contradiction establishes merely the agreement of concepts, but does not itself produce concepts. ”

“ If a man's capacities are hinted at or even stated by himself to his fellow-creatures with a certain amount of discretion, and if he does not court failure by putting them to the proof, it does not occur to most people to contradict him, and the possible truth of the contradiction soon sinks out of sight. ”

“ This doctrine, that "ignorance of the law excuses no one," is constantly repeated in the form that "every one is bound to know the law." The doctrine is true in civil matters, especially in contracts, so far as this: that no man, who has the ordinary capacity to make reasonable contracts, can escape the consequences of his own agreement, on the ground that he did not know the law applicable to it. ”

“ The merely passive duty of non-interference, when it exists at all, usually binds all persons in common. There are, however, exceptional cases in which this is not so. These exceptional rights, which are both negative and personal, are usually the product of some agreement by which some particular individual has deprived himself of a liberty which is common to all other persons. ”

“ He must take for granted that his proposition, when he proposes it, is and must be what it is. This is all we want. The law of contradiction thus vindicates itself. It cannot be denied without being assented to, for the person who denies it must assume that he is denying it; in other words, he must assume that he is saying what he is saying, and he must admit that the contrary supposition—to wit, that he is saying what he is not saying—involves a contradiction. Thus the law is established. It proves the existence of, at any rate, one necessary truth or law of reason ”

“ The opportunity is therefore not an unfavourable one for a calm survey of the situation.
It is a well-known principle in jurisprudence that a contract between two parties capable of contracting in respect to a subject matter known to both, if adhered to by either, is inviolably binding; and with the free action of this principle as between parties, except in a matter of life and death, the legislature always has had, and we confidently believe, always will have a delicacy in interfering. ”

“ The second point made by the counsel for the defendants, that the sureties are exonerated by the compromise made with the principal without their concurrence, is the same in principle with that which has been considered. ”

“ Another principle held to be fundamental to this action is this: that there must exist a privity between the plaintiff and defendant; something on which an obligation, an engagement, a promise from the latter to the former can be implied; for if such implication be excluded from the relation between the parties by positive law, or by inevitable legal intendment, every foundation for the promise and of the action upon it is destroyed; for none can be presumed or permitted to promise what either law or reason does not warrant or may actually forbid. ”

“ And in much the same way we may very profitably recognize contradiction or controversy, whether personal or social, as a necessary condition of all valid experience, but not on that account are we to cultivate what is contradictory, to be always blindly spoiling for a contradiction. Like crime or death, if directly courted, contradiction would lose its peculiar effectiveness. The both-sidedness or the all-sidedness, which at once develops and conserves human life, is only [p.152] that which is maintained with a tenacious, even with a would-be consistent loyalty to each and every side. ”

“ By what reasons, then, is the law induced to allow this far-reaching operation to the fact of agreement? Why should the mere consent of the parties be permitted in this manner to stand for a title of right? Are not rights the subject-matter of justice, and is justice a mere matter of convention varying with the wills of men? ”

“ Under matured systems of jurisprudence a great variety of agreements are denied legal recognition, on the ground that their performance would involve a violation of law, or would be incompatible with good morals or public policy. ”

“ The principle that what is apparently mere matter of remedy in some circumstances, in others, where it touches the substance of the controversy, becomes matter of right, is familiar in our constitutional jurisprudence in the application of that provision of the constitution of the United States which prohibits the passing by a state of any law impairing the obligation of contracts ”

“ All our cases of mainteance and champerty are founded on the principle that no encouragement should be given to litigation by the introduction of parties to enforce those rights which others are not disposed to enforce. ”

“ This legal presumption is not founded on the belief, alone, that the fact existed, but much more on those principles which enforce justice and honesty between man and man, and tend to the security of possessions which have remained undisturbed. ”

“ For, even when ancient societies sought to discourage contracts made in contravention of law, morals, or public policy, it was their practice not to deny their validity but to rely for their suppression upon penalties denounced against parties who should enter into them. ”

“ Congruity involves the element of suitableness; consistency implies the absence of conflict or contradiction in views, statements, or acts which are brought into comparison, as in the different statements of the same person or the different periods of one man's life; unanimity is the complete hearty agreement [192] of many; consent and concurrence refer to decision or action, but consent is more passive than concurrence; one speaks by general consent when no one in the assembly cares to make formal objection ”

“ This I cannot help thinking to be the shortest, and the best issue upon which we can put every thing in which the civil magistrate pretends to a right of interference. If it be probable that the business, whatever it be, will be conducted better, that is, more to the advantage of society, in his hands, than in those of individuals, the right will be allowed. In those circumstances, it is evident, that no friend to society can deny his claim. ”

“ When he despoils them, he does but justice, and mercy in that he permits them to live.
By proceeding thus to test fact by right, we should discover as little reason as truth in the voluntary establishment of tyranny. It would also be no easy matter to prove the validity of a contract binding on only one of the parties, where all the risk is on one side, and none on the other; so that no one could suffer but he who bound himself. ”

“ Clearly they could have no right to either enforce, or annul, any contract whatever, until they should have ascertained whether it had any “obligation,” and, if any, what that “obligation” was.
If these courts really do not know—as perhaps they do not—what “the obligation of contracts” is, they deserve nothing but contempt for their ignorance. If they do know what “the obligation of contracts” is, and yet sanction the almost literally innumerable laws that violate it, they deserve nothing but detestation for their villainy. ”

“ When, therefore, all interests are satisfied, and every man is content, the law may safely presume that justice has been done, and that each has received his own. The determination of the law is needed only in default of the agreement of the parties. Hence it is, that he who agrees with another in any declaration of their respective rights and duties will not be suffered to go back from his word, and will not be heard to dispute the truth of his declaration. The exceptions to this rule are themselves defined by equally rigid rules ”

“ It is a natural impossibility for any man to make a binding contract, by which he shall surrender to others a single one of what are commonly called his "natural, inherent, inalienable rights."
It is a natural impossibility for any man to make a binding contract, that shall invest others with any right whatever of arbitrary, irresponsible dominion over him. ”

“ Since I wrote this discourse I have come on a very good example of the way in which tradition not only overrides rational policy, but overrides it after first having been misunderstood and having been given a new and broader scope than it had when it had a meaning. It is the settled law of England that a material alteration of a written contract by a party avoids it as against him. The doctrine is contrary to the general tendency of the law. We do not tell a jury that if a man ever has lied in one particular he is to be presumed to lie in all. ”

“ In all matters of contract, as we have said, the ascertained will of the parties prevails. But this means a will both lawful and free. Hence there are limits to the force of the general rule, fixed partly by the law of the land, which is above individual will and interests, partly by the need of Illegality. securing good faith and justice between the parties themselves against fraud or misadventure. Agreements cannot be enforced when their performance would involve an offence against the law. ”

“ But when the facts are past and gone, such as the giving of a consideration and the receiving of a promise, there can be no claim to the resulting rights set up by any one except the party of whom the facts were originally true—in the case supposed, the original contractee,—because no one but the original contractee can fill the situation from which they spring. ”

“ The proposition, therefore, that such a law cannot operate upon the subject-matter of its enactment, without the express consent of the people of the new state where it may happen to be, contains its own refutation, and requires no farther examination. ”

“ The great objection to the representation of the right of a sovereign power over subjects, and the rights of individuals which are enforced by this 'imperium,' as having arisen out of a contract of all with all, is that it conveys a false notion of rights. It is not merely that the possibility of such a contract being made presupposes just that state of things—a régime of recognised and enforced obligations—which it is assumed to account for. ”

“ For a Contract by which the one party renounced his whole freedom for the advantage of the other, ceasing thereby to be a person and consequently having no duty even to observe a Contract, is self-contradictory, and is therefore of itself null and void. ”

“ But these rights can only be maintained when they are so exercised as not to be incompatible with each other. It is in their improper exercise, and not in their nature, that any incompatibility exists. ”

“ Every attack upon an interest is not a wrong, either in fact or in law, nor is respect for every interest a duty, either legal or natural. Many interests exist de facto and not also de jure; they receive no recognition or protection from any rule of right. The violation of them is no wrong, and respect for them is no duty. For the interests of men conflict with each other, and it is impossible for all to receive rightful recognition. The rule of justice selects some for protection, and the others are rejected. ”

“ Our duty to deal with contradictory functions of state and nation on any occasion and particularly when one or the other is challenged by private interests calls for the utmost effort to avoid conclusions which interfere with the governmental operations of either. ”

“ To escape from the other difficulties, a favourite contrivance has been the fiction of a contract, whereby at some unknown period all the members of society engaged to obey the laws, and consented to be punished for any disobedience to them; thereby giving to their legislators the right, which it is assumed they would not otherwise have had, of punishing them, either for their own good or for that of society. ”