Christian Wolff: Natural right 5 - Pawnshops and mortgages

Next topics in Wolff’s natural right are jus pignoris and jus hypothecae. The basic idea behind both is the same: a debtor pledges something for the creditor as a surety of the debt. In other words, if the debtor will not pay the debt at agreed time, the creditor has a right (jus) to sell the pledged thing to cover the remaining debt. In case of jus pignoris, the pledged thing is literally handed to the possession of the creditor - think of a pawnshop - while in jus hypothecae, the pledged thing is not and perhaps even cannot be transferred to the possession of the creditor - a good example is a mortgage loan, where the debtor uses their home as a security for a loan. In case of jus hypothecae, the pledged thing can also be something that does not yet exist, such as fruits of the next season.

The main point in both jus pignoris and jus hypothecae is then the creditor’s right to sell the surety, unless the debt is paid on time. Wolff notes that this is a conditional right, and if the creditor tries to sell the surety before the debt was due, the creditor loses completely the right to sell the surety. Furthermore, he notes, the pledged thing should be sold for a fair price, and if the money received from the sale exceeds the debt, hyperocha or the excess is to be handed to the debtor. Then again, if the money received is less than the debt, Wolff adds, the debtor is to provide the rest in some other manner.

If no one is willing to buy the pledged thing or if all buyers offer inadequate payments, Wolff continues, the creditor can also take the pledged thing itself as a payment of the debt. Then again, the creditor need not do this. In the latter case, if the debtor has no other way to pay the debt, the creditor should just wait for finding a suitable buyer. Then again, Wolff concludes, at some indefinite point the creditor just has to accept the ownership of the thing as a payment.

Pledging something does not change its ownership, Wolff reminds the reader. Hence, the debtor has the right to sell or otherwise transfer the ownership of the pledged thing to someone else. If the debtor does that, this does not infringe upon the creditor’s right to sell the thing, if the debt is not paid. Similarly, the creditor has the right to transfer the jus pignoris or hypothecae to someone else, for instance, by simply handing a pawned item to someone else’s possession. The creditor can also pledge the thing pledged to them to someone else, as a security for their own debt. In this case, Wolff notes, the debt of the original creditor should not be more valuable than the debt of the original debtor.

A person can pledge only such things as they own, Wolff explains, but they can pledge things as securities for debts that belong to someone else. If someone pledges a thing that does not belong to them, without the consent of the owner, the creditor does not gain any rights to it and has to restitute it to the owner. Then again, if the owner does deliver the pledged thing or otherwise consents, the pledge becomes valid. Furthermore, Wolff notes, a thing belonging to someone else can be conditionally pledged: “if it becomes mine”.

The creditor is obligated to take care of the pledged thing in their possession, Wolff notes. If something happens to the thing due to the creditor’s fault, they must repay any damages to the owner of the pledged thing. Indeed, Wolff adds, the debtor has no obligation to even pay the debt, if the pledged thing is damaged so gravely that it cannot be sold for the debt. Then again, if the damage happens, although the creditor has been diligent in taking care of it, they owe nothing to the debtor.

The care of the creditor for the pledged thing extends even to paying the necessary expenses for its maintenance. If the creditor has been forced to pay such expenses, the debtor is obligated to repay them to the creditor. Then again, creditor has no right to make any unnecessary investments to the pledged thing without the consent of its owner, even if these investments were useful.

The creditor is usually not allowed to use the pledged thing or to take advantage of its products: such an action constitutes then a theft. Then again, Wolff notes, in the so-called antichretic pact such a right is explicitly conferred to the creditor as a substitute for usuries. Even then, the use of the thing and the profit gained from it should not be more valuable than the usuries would be. Furthermore, Wolff points out, antichretic pact cannot be made concerning things that deteriorate when used.

If debt in question is somehow resolved, Wolff notes, whether by the debtor or someone else paying it or by the creditor annulling the debt, the respective jus pignoris or hypothecae is also cancelled. Yet, jus pignoris or hypothecae can also be cancelled, even if the debt remains in force, for instance, if a pawnbroker gives the pawned item back to its owner. Another way to cancel jus pignoris or hypothecae without canceling the debt occurs when the pledged thing is destroyed or lost. Wolff also notes that the last clause doesn’t necessarily hold when it comes to houses, because a right to a house extends to its very foundations, which still remain, even if house is destroyed.

Christian Wolff: Natural right 5 - The art of removing obligations

After having gone through in detail various ways in which obligations are created by contracts, Wolff decides to investigate how such obligations defined by contracts are terminated. For instance, if the contract in question is dissolved by mutual consent of all parties, all the obligations defined by it dissolve also: if a sale of a thing is cancelled, the former buyer is not obligated to provide money nor is the former seller obligated to deliver the thing. Wolff notes that if the contract in question is unilateral, such as a donation, it can be cancelled just by the person benefiting from the contract.

The most straightforward way to terminate obligations determined in a contract is just to provide whatever has been agreed upon. Once this is done, Wolff emphasises, the other parties have no right to exact anything further because of this contract. Whatever the contract says about the obligations, they must usually be fulfilled to the letter: if I should give you my house, I cannot give you money instead. Similarly, if I am due to pay something at a certain date, I can be compelled to pay when that day arrives. Of course, Wolff adds, deviations from the conditions imposed by the contract are allowed, if the other parties of the contract agree to that. For example, if my creditor allows it, I can provide only a partial payment at the agreed date and promise to give the rest later.

Wolff notes that while sometimes it is certain what obligations have been determined in a contract and who is the person supposed to fulfill this obligation, at other times this is not so certain: in the former case, Wolff speaks of liquid debts, in the latter case of illiquid debts. When debts are illiquid, no one can be compelled to pay or fulfill them. Thus, debts should at first be made liquid by investigating the exact terms of the contract in question.

Wolff considers also several more detailed questions pertaining to debts. For instance, what happens to obligations of a person in debt, when their creditor cedes the debts to someone else (the person in debt is now obligated to pay their debt to this new creditor, and if they ignorantly pay to the original creditor, they must give up the right to demand the payment back to the new creditor), what happens if someone else pays your debts without you mandating them to do it (they can do so and you are not legally obligated to pay them back, but it is morally right to do so, if the terms of debt were clear and the person in question did not wish to make a donation), and what if someone gives a thing they do not own as a payment and the creditor consumes it (the outcome depends on whether the person in debt and their creditor knew the debtor was not the real owner).

Debts can also be annulled, Wolff notes, either by a declaration of the creditor (this is called acceptilatio) or by a contract between debtor and creditor (this is known as pactum de non petendo). Such annulment can happen for all of the debt or only a part of it, furthermore, it can happen unconditionally, but also with other conditions attached such as other obligations to be provided instead.

A peculiar case of annulment of debts is what Wolff calls compensatio, where two persons are in debt to one another and both of their debts are annulled. Compensatio has various preconditions, for example, the debts should be equally valuable. Furthermore, if any of the debts involves a unique thing (e.g. if one person is obligated to give a certain house to the other person), compensatio is impossible. Debts must also be liquid, that is, one must be certain who owes and what is owed.

Debts can also be taken care of, Wolff says, by datio in solutum, that is, by providing something else than what one was obligated to provide. This replacement can be anything agreed with the creditor: a thing, use of a thing or some work. Datio in solutum frees debtor from the original obligation, that is, if the debtor would later have a chance to fulfill the earlier obligation, they need not do it. A more general version of datio in solutum is what Wolff calls novatio, where creditor and debtor agree to replace a prior obligation with a new obligation, possibly with new conditions. Novatio naturally cancels everything related to the former obligation, for instance, if the payment of the first debt was in delay, the payment of the new debt is not.

Another way to get a debt cleared is to get someone else to pay it. If this transfer of debt has been agreed with the new person, Wolff calls it delegatio, while by assignatio he refers to a case, where the debtor just assigns someone else to pay the debt (for this to work, the assigned person must be in debt to the original debtor). In a sense, delegatio is a much more assured arrangement: in delegatio, if the new person eventually does not pay the debt, the original debtor is still freed of the obligation, but with assignatio creditor can always get their due from the original debtor, if the new debtor does not want to pay.

In an extensive part of the chapter Wolff deals with the question of disputes concerning rights (jus controversum), that is, cases where two or more persons declare that they have the right to something, although only one of them could do so. Such disputes might arise, for instance, with illiquid debts, where it is unclear who exactly owes and what. Simplest way to end the dispute is what Wolff calls amicabilis compositio, in which one party of the dispute declares that they will want nothing of the disputed thing, even without any compensation. A similar case where some compensation is given or at least it is promised, Wolff calls transactio. Wolff notes that neither in amicabilis compositio nor in transactio is it really decided, who has the right to the disputed thing - a claimant just gives up their possible right to the thing. Even if later it would be found out that the claimant truly had the right to the thing, they would not retrieve that right anymore. In case of transactio, of course, if the claimant is not provided what they have been promised, they can renew their claim on the disputed thing.

Disputes on rights might lead the claimants to hold a tractatus. Tractatus does not mean an end to the dispute, but is merely a process in which the pros and cons of the various claimants are considered. Tractatus might also lead to a suggestion for settling the dispute, such as amicabilis compositio or transactio, but as such it does not obligate anyone, before all the parties have agreed to the terms suggested. Although tractatus as such creates no obligations, Wolff clarifies, all the parties are morally obligated to consider the various pros and cons in a fair and equitable manner.

Wolff clarifies that in addition to claimants, other people can also be involved in tractatus, if their council could help to settle the case. An important example is the mediator, who is a person obligated to find some agreement on the dispute. Thus, the mediator has to impartially weigh all the claims to the disputed thing and on the basis of these considerations offer a suggestion to settle the dispute. The suggestion of the mediator has to be founded on what truly is the case, not on what would benefit the various parties. The mediator can make only suggestions, and if any of the parties refuses to accept, it does not become a valid agreement.

An arbiter, Wolff explains, has a slightly more powerful position than a mediator. An arbiter is decided by compromissum between the disputants, that is, by a mutual agreement that they will accept the decision of the arbiter as a truth. The chosen arbiter is then not just obligated to suggest an agreement between all the claimants, but to decide upon the truth of their claims. Because of the compromissum, no single claimant can nullify the decision of the arbiter, but such a cancellation of compromissum requires yet another mutual agreement between the claimants. Wolff notes that even after the arbiter’s decision of the real owner, claimants can still choose to settle the dispute in a different manner, for instance, by a transactio in which one claimant pays some compensation for the real owner, if they give up their ownership. Still, arbiters have more power in their hands than mere mediators. Thus, they should be not just impartial, but what Wolff calls vir bonus, that is, persons known to be honorable and acquainted with what is truly good and just. They should avoid even the semblance of dishonesty and therefore decline, if one of the claimants offered a reward for a decision on their behalf, before the decision. Wolff admits that the arbiter can accept a reward, if there’s no possibility of a suspicion that it would have affected the decision, for instance, if all the parties agreed in the comprossimum that the winner of the dispute should reward the arbiter.

In addition to the claims of the parties, there might be other relevant pieces of evidence to consider in a dispute. One type of these, Wolff notes, is instrumentum, that is, a document describing what persons negotiating a contract have agreed upon. If a person is obligated to do or provide something in instrumentum, it must be signed by that person. Only the original instrumentum is to be accepted as evidence, Wolff says, unless the validity of the copy is confirmed by trustworthy persons. Even the validity of the original, signed instrumentum can be contested, Wolff adds, if a signatory can show that she has been deceitfully induced to sign it without reading. A possible evidence for such deceit is protocollum, that is, a memorandum on the main points to be written in intstrumentum. Signatories can also refuse to accept instrumentum made from charta blanca - a piece of paper containing nothing but the signature - if they would have never agreed to the terms written on it.

In addition to written documents, other physical objects might be used as evidence for deciding a dispute. Wolff gives as an example bacilla fissa. This is essentially a wooden stick, divided in two halves: to one half is made notches, indicating how much a person is obligated to provide, while similar notches are made to the other half, when a part of the debt is provided. By comparing the two halves, it is easy to see how much of the debt is still left.

In some cases disputes must be solved through witness accounts - Wolff points out that especially in cases where a person was obligated to do something, witnesses are the only possible proof for a person having worked. Witnesses are not expected to speak what is true in the logical sense, Wolff explains, but only what is morally true, that is, what they believe to be true. Of course, they are also supposed to be acquainted with the facts, in order that their testimony has any relevance. In a best case, witness is vir bonus, that is, as trustworthy as can be. On the other hand, witnesses who have been bribed should not be believed. In a refreshingly progressive fashion, Wolff notes that women can as well be reliable witnesses. Then again, relatives of the parties involved should not usually be accepted to give their testimony. Wolff believes that the reliability of witnesses can be strengthened by oaths, because the fear of divine punishments might make people hesitant to lie. In general, Wolff adds, only one witness is not enough to prove anything.

If all else fails, disputes over rights can be settled with a lot, Wolff admits. On the other hand, he expressly forbids settling disputes with duels or physical attacks, because the life of other people should be respected. If a legal dispute turns into a state of war, all participants should aim to find a more peaceful solution.

If the ownership of something is in dispute, Wolff notes, claimants are not allowed to force the possessor of the thing to yield it. This is true, even if a claimant knows for certain that they are the rightful owner - the ownership must be first proved by documents, witnesses etc. On the other hand, if the ownership is not in dispute, the owner can force the possessor to yield the thing. In the case the possessor does not want to give the thing, Wolff says, the owner can enforce what is called expletio juris, in other word, they can take from the possessor something else. This something else should be either equal in value to what is owned, or if it is more expensive, the owner has to provide the possessor compensation for the surplus. The owner has to then provide the possessor enough time to consider whether they want to return the originally owed thing or whether they want to accept the removal of the other thing.

The final topic Wolff considers in this chapter is precarium, by which he means a contract, whereby an owner concedes use of a thing to another person, without any payment and for as long as the owner wishes. Obviously, the thing in question cannot be such that it would be consumed by use, but something more permanent, for instance, when a person relinquishes a house for use to a friend. As the name of the contract indicates, the use allowed is precarious - as soon as the owner wants, the thing in question must be returned to their possession. Wolff mentions two other possibilities of how precarium could end. Firstly, if the person enjoying the use of the thing dies, precarium ends: thus, it is not something inherited through generations. Secondly, precarium could end by consolidatio, that is, by the user acquiring also the ownership of the thing. Interestingly, Wolff thinks that if the owner relinquishes the ownership of the person to a third person, precarium is not as such terminated. Of course, the new owner has the right to revoke precarium, but before that, the thing can be used as before.

Christian Wolff: Natural right 5 - As it were a contract

Wolff’s next topic is quasi contracts. These are no real contracts, but in a sense mere fictions. That is, in a quasi contract, the consent of a person for something is just assumed. In other words, there is not even a tacit consent, which might be implied e.g. by the actions of the person in question. Such a fictitious contract is valid, Wolff notes, only if her consent cannot be asked. For instance, if a student wants to buy some books, but cannot verify from her parents, whether she can use their money for this purchase, she might still have a right to assume that they would consent to it. Similar quasi contracts can be made, Wolff continues, if the person in question is underage or otherwise incapable of giving consent.

A particular type of quasi contract Wolff calls negotiorum gestio. In effect, this means a quasi mandate, where a person called gestor handles some affair for another person assuming that this other person would mandate her to do it, if he just knew about it. This type of contract, Wolff notes, is valid only if what gestor does is useful to the other person and if not doing it would cause some economic damage to the other person - for instance, gestor could hire someone to fix a building owned by the other, which was damaged in a fire. Gestor is also bound by strict rules: she can only do what the other person could be assumed to do in a similar situation and she has to explain her reasons for doing whatever she has done for the other. Gestor also cannot at the same time handle her own and the other person’s businesses, which would imply e.g. that she took advantage of the other’s property for her own sake. Then again, gestor shouldn’t be assumed to freely donate her time and effort for the other’s sake, but the other person is obligated to honour the gestor with some reward.

Similar quasi versions of other forms of contract can also appear in exceptional circumstances, Wolff notes. For instance, if something like food has been left for safekeeping and it is in danger of becoming spoiled, the custodian can do a quasi loan, by consuming the food and preparing to return something similar, when she meets the owner. Similarly, if a person holds a thing that is to be sold by the owner and she herself suddenly needs it, she can do a quasi purchase and prepare to pay the owner later what the owner would have suggested as a price.

Wolff also notes the possibility of quasi societas, that is, people becoming part of a same company-like project without consenting to forming such a company. Wolff calls such quasi societas also communio incidens, emphasising that members of this quasi society have incidentally received common obligations. A simple example of such communio incidens is people inheriting some piece of property that they must administer in common. Quasi societas can turn into an actual societas by members of the quasi societas agreeing on how to administer the common obligations.

A curious form of quasi contract rises in relation to what Wolff calls indebitum. Indebitum is, simply taken, something that is not a debt - in other words, if you pay indebitum, you erroneously pay something that you need not have paid or you pay it to a wrong person, to whom you do not owe it. A person receiving such erroneous payment is then under a quasi contract, whereby she has to return what was given, once she notices the error. Of course, she might have handed the thing further, and then it belongs to the person it was handed to. In such a case, she must at least give something equal in value to the original owner.

A case that might seem similar and thus involve a quasi contract is linked to notions of ob causam dari and causa non sequi. By ob causam dari Wolff means simply giving something in order to get the receiving person give or do something in return - for instance, paying a worker to fix a car. Causa non sequi refers then to a situation where this receiving person fails to do what she had to do. In this case, the receiving person should return what was given to her, just like in the case of indebitum. Yet, this obligation is no quasi contract, Wolff says, because by refusing to do what she should have done, she already has tacitly consented to returning what was given.

Wolff notes that accepting an erroneous payment of indebitum is a particular example of a more general notion of unknowingly accepting something sine causa, that is, accepting something that one doesn’t have a right to accept. In addition to accepting indebitum, Wolff notes, examples of accepting sine causa include all cases where something is accepted as a payment for something that is impossible or against the natural law. Now, if someone accepts sine causa without knowing it, she can be presumed to want to return what was given to her, if she just knew she shouldn’t have accepted it. Thus, she is under a quasi contract.

A related case is what Wolff calls accepting something quasi sine causa. In such a case, accepting itself is in accordance with the natural law, but keeping what was accepted is not. A good example happens, when a person has accepted something for a future business, which then fails to become a reality. After such quasi sine causa accepting, the person receiving the payment is obligated to return the payment to the owner. Yet, this obligation forms no quasi contract, because the person accepting tacitly assumes with this very act of accepting the obligation to return the payment.

Wolff also briefly considers contractus mixtus, in other words, contracts composed of other contracts; for instance, he notes, if a tenant farmer pays the rent of the land with a ratio of the produce of the land, the contract between the farmer and the owner is a mix of a locatio conductio (in this case, rent of something) and societas (because both the farmer and the owner share in the produce of the land). As Wolff himself also says, the primary interest does not lie in the numerous ways in which one can combine different types of contract, but in the general principle that this is possible and that the characteristics of the new contract can then be deduced from the characteristics of the components.

Christian Wolff: Natural right 5 - Chances are

While the first chapter of the book felt like a mash of all sorts of leftover contracts, second chapter has a clear thematic unity, namely, contracts involving chance. Wolff notes at once how problematic such contracts are, because the people making such a contract can never really be sure, whether the contract will be fulfilled. Thus, he concludes, if what is to be gained by such a contract can be achieved in some other manner, this other manner should be preferred.

Wolff begins his account of more specific types of contract with a contract that actually does not involve chance, namely, one in which a person buys divination services from another. One might think that such a contract does involve chance, since in an act of divination does something with a fortuitous result - e.g. when a diviner chooses an arbitrary animal, she cannot know beforehand what sort of entrails it has. Still, Wolff notes, what is sold is not the arbitrary result of the divination, but the very act of divination, which is not in the same sense fortuitous.

Furthermore, Wolff remarks that the act of divination has no real connection with the future it is supposed to predict - for instance, no physical law combines the entrails of an animal with the fate of a person and neither can we suppose that God would have decreed such an arbitrary connection. Thus, Wolff concludes,divination is nothing but fraud and therefore forbidden by natural law.

An example of a contract that truly involves chance is such where a lot is used to determine e.g. which person is to get what portion of a divided land that they all have a share of. Wolff notes that such a contract is valid, if all the persons involved accept it and if there is no clear reason to determine the exact portions which everyone should own. After the lot has been determined, the ownership becomes fixed.

A more suspect form of a contract involving chance, according to Wolff, is provided by lottery and other games of chance, in which e.g. a person pays for a right to spin a wheel of fortune. Such games are externally valid, yet, Wolff adds, if the aim of the game has been mainly to gain profit, they do not agree with the true end of humans. Lotteries can accord with human duty, Wolff admits, if the profits are used for the sake of other people or for the glory of God. Furthermore, the organiser of the lottery can use some of the money gained to pay for the expenses of the lottery, including her own work.

A related type of contract is one where people agree on participating on a contest, after which the prize is awarded to the winner of the contest. Such a contest could involve only pure chance, but it can also depend on the intellect, strength or dexterity of the contestants. The former case, which also includes all kinds of bets, is again forbidden by natural law, because entering such a contest could have no other purpose, but to gain profits. Contests involving also intellectual or physical faculties are a different question, since they also help to train these faculties, Wolff admits. Even so, if entering such a contest requires financial investment, all contestants should have a surplus of money that they can spare for such a purpose.

An obvious example of a contract involving chance is insurance, in which one side of the contract pays for the other to gain assurance that in case something happens to a thing owned by the first side, the other side will pay an agreed sum. Wolff does not mention insurances in general, but he does mention one specific type of it, where the insured thing is transported by ocean or through some other perilous area. Such a contract, Wolff concludes, is quite acceptable and in accordance with natural law.

Wolff thinks it important to emphasise that insurance does not mean the same thing as usury - the amount of money received from an insurance is not dependent on the time between the accident and the handing of the money. Wolff does describe contracts combining in a sense usury and insurance: foenus nauticum, in which interest is paid for the use of money delivered by sea, and foenus quasi nauticum, where the delivery is made through other dangerous terrain. In these types of contracts the interest paid should be more than regular interest, to accommodate the dangers of travel.

Another contract involving both chance and nautical affairs is what Wolff calls bodemereia. In effect, this is a contract where a person invests a specific sum of money to a ship with the condition that she will gain some profit, if the ship arrives safely at port, but loses her investment, if it doesn’t. Ship’s captain, Wolff notes, is allowed to make a bodemereia -contract, if he has otherwise difficulties in raising money for a sailing trip.

A similar business investment involving fortuitous circumstances is pars metallica or kuckus. In effect, this is a contract involving a share or a partial ownership in a mine. Since the owner of such a share cannot by herself dig and prepare the metal belonging to her in particular, she is obligated to share the costs of digging and preparing metal. These costs and the possible profits are divided in the ratio of the shares of the owners. Since it is up to chance, whether a mine will produce enough metal for covering the expenses of mining, Wolff advises that only people with plenty of money to spare should buy mining shares. Still, since the ownership of the shares is completely independent of the ownership of other shares, owners can sell their shares and get their money back from them without the agreement of other owners. If instead people agree upon a joint ownership of a mine, this means founding of a mining company, from which owners can get rid of only by finding another person to take their place in the company board.

Wolff also describes a more generalised version of a contract, in which a person buys an ownership to some uncertain product of an action - he calls it emtio spei, which in its literal sense means purchase of expectations. If the action does not result in the desired product or the expectations fail, the price paid will still not be given back. Thus, Wolff concludes that emtio spei can rarely be accepted in natural law and that it should especially be avoided if the product desired could be bought at a reasonable price somewhere else.

An interesting form of contract Wolff discusses in this chapter is contractum vitalitium, in which one person buys from another what is called reditus vitalitium, that is, a right to annually receive some things or some type of work or obligation from the seller for as long as a certain person lives, where the person in question can be the buyer, the seller or someone completely different. In a sense, we might equate this type of contract with pension, although what is provided for the buyer is not necessarily money: for instance, it might be a certain ratio of some products. Furthermore, Wolff thinks that reditus vitalitium or pension can be donated or sold again by its buyer, although then also the possible death of the original buyer will end the pension.

Is contractus vitalitium in accordance with natural law? Wolff’s general answer is affirmative, on the condition that the provided pension helps the buyer to fulfill some natural duty toward oneself or others. For instance, if the pension helps the buyer to pay for necessities of life, it most certainly is in accordance with natural law.

Christian Wolff: Natural right 5 (1745)

While the previous parts of Wolff’s Jus naturae have been at least partially thematic unities, the fifth part is the first exception and feels like just an appendix to the previous part that dealt with various types of contract. Indeed, the first chapter of this book merely continues the discussion of reciprocal contracts, in which all sides provide something to others.

A first new kind of contract dealt by Wolff is cambium, that is, any contract, in which money is exchanged for money. The most straightforward case of cambium is a contract where a person exchanges currency of one country to currency of another country. Wolff notes that there are people who provide large quantities of money just for these types of transactions and that these money changers have the right to ask a payment to cover the costs of their profession.

A more intricate sort of cambium is what Wolff calls cambium trassata, in which a person (campsarius or remittens) gives money to another person (campsor or trassans), who promises to take care that a third person (acceptans or trassatus) will give the same amount of money to a fourth person (praesentans). This rather complex sounding contract was quite a common way to provide travelers with enough money, without the need of carrying actual metal coins from one place to another, but instead using written notes or litteras cambiales (bills of exchange) detailing such contracts. They are first examples of a modern system of banking, and importantly, Wolff notes that such money contracts are inherently rational and in accordance with the natural law.

Wolff goes into great details into finesses such as who is obligated to pay, if the acceptans does not want to give the agreed sum of money to praesentans, and what should praesentans do to get her money in such a case. The most important additional point Wolff makes is that praesentans can transfer her right to get the money to another person, thus making it possible to use bills of exchange as a rudimentary form of paper money.

A third form of cambium Wolff mentions is cambium siccum, in which a person receives money from another and in return gives the other chirographum, in other words, a document in which she promises to pay the other person the same amount of money at a later date - in effect, this is just another form of loan.A further point with chirographum is that, like bills of exchange, they can be sold further.

At this point, Wolff also mentions two other documents related to loans and in general to any debt. The first one - apocha or quittancia - is a document written by the creditor, in which she declares that the debtor has paid her debt. The other one, antapocha, is, on the contrary, a declaration written by the debtor that she has paid the debt. Wolff notes that all the three documents have merely evidential weight and they do not as such create or cancel debts - thus, even if a person has lost e.g. a chirographum given to her, she is still entitled to the promised sum.

In addition to cambium contracts, Wolff considers what he calls contractus aestimatorius, in which a person gives something for another person to be sold for a certain price. If this other person manages to sell the thing for a larger sum of money, she can keep the difference; if she manages to get less than agreed, she will have to pay the rest. She can also keep the thing, if she just pays the whole price agreed, or she can return it to the first person. It is not decided whether, together with the possession of the thing, also its ownership is transferred to the second person, and the contract can be made in both ways. In some cases the choice of the owner is even significant. For instance, if the thing in question produces more wealth at the time when it is with the second person for sale (say, if the thing in question is a herd of cows that gets bigger), this additional wealth belongs to the owner.

Some types of contract Wolff deals in the first chapter of the book seem like minor and even insignificant modifications of earlier types of contract. Such is, for instance, constitutum, in which a person promises to fulfill an earlier obligation, whether it is her own or someone else’s - in the former case, constitutum means simply a reaffirmation of an old obligation, while in the second case, it is quite similar to fidejussio or a guarantee for another person’s obligation. Another case is contractum institorium, which is essentially a combination of two earlier types of contracts: locatio conductio and mandatum. In effect, in contractum institorium a person hires another person to do business deals in her name.

Wolff also suggests a reclassification of all the bilateral contracts into do ut des -, facio ut facias and do ut facias -contracts - that is, contracts where both sides give something to the other side, contracts where both sides do some work for the other and contracts where one side gives and the other side does something. Wolff ties this classification with his notion of the development of economy. In the primeval times, Wolff notes, when no one owned anything, people could only exchange work with one another. The introduction of ownership, he has already noted in earlier books, is a good thing, and now he finds yet another reason for its introduction - ownership of things allows new kinds of contracts, in which ownership of things changes.

Martin Knutzen: Reasoned thoughts on comets, in which their nature and properties, together with the type and causes of their movement are studied and presented, including a short description of a remarkable comet in the present year (1744)

If there’s one thing Martin Knuzen was famous for, then it was introducing Immanuel Kant to Newtonian physics. Yet, Knutzen’s own understanding of Newton’s ideas was at least in some regards rather shallow, especially when it came to the mathematical machinery behind Newton’s physics. For instance, Knutzen predicted that a comet would appear during 1744, because the same comet appeared regularly every few years. A comet did appear then, but as more capable astronomes noted, it wasn’t the comet Knutzen identified it with.

Knutzen himself was apparently rather unconcerned about such criticism. Even his book on the topic, Vernünftige Gedanken von den Cometen, darinnen deren Natur und Beschaffenheit nebst der Art und Ursachen ihrer Bewegung untersuchet und vorgestellet, auch zugleich eine kurze Beschreibung von dem merkwürdigen Cometen deß jetztlauffenden Jahres mitgetheilet wird, has no indication of Knutzen even considering such a possibility. Knutzen’s motivation for his book, beyond introducing the comet of 1744 to a wider audience, is to criticise superstitious ideas where comets are regarded as harbingers of doom.

This motive lies even behind Knutzen’s more questionable thoughts, like the false identification of the 1744 comet. Knutzen emphasises the regularity of the comet’s movement, as a guarantee that they are natural phenomena. He uses a simple induction to justify the assertion that comets continue to move with the same regularity as they have appeared to do - it is equally justifiable, Knutzen says, as when Adam noted after a few days that the sun will always rise in the morning. Such regularity statements seem the more justified, the shorter the time between two appearances. Thus, Knutzen is very eager to show that 1744 comet was the same as had been seen a couple of years ago. This leads him to insist more generally that there are less comets in our solar system than other astronomers and even Newton had assumed - seemingly different comets have often been just appearances of one comet, seen in different parts of the sky due to slight changes in the comet’s orbit, crossing Earth’s ecliptic at different points at different times.

Knutzen’s main point against taking comets as omens is based on showing a failure of another inductive move. Knutzen notes that if comets were such omens or signs of bad events, they would either be causally connected to such events or then the connection would have to be an effect of God’s arbitrary choice, similar to when he in the Bible sets up rainbow as a sign of his promise to not flood the world again. Knutzen then points out that neither possibility really works. If God had set comets as an arbitrary sign, he would have had to teach this sign to us, either through revelation or through experience. There’s no mention of such a sign in the Bible - in fact, the book even speaks against looking at such astrological signs. Even experience speaks against this - if God had meant comets as arbitrary signs of bad things, then he surely would have meant them especially as a sign for astronomers, who are most certain to see these omens, but astronomers who have found most comets have not been particularly unlucky.

Similarly, Knutzen shows that there seems to be no natural connection between comets and bad events. Undoubtedly sometimes comets have appeared during a time when a war has been going on or some king has died or some other calamity has fallen upon some country. Indeed, since Earth is big, it is almost inevitable that some type of disaster is almost always going on at some point of the globe. If a comet would have some noticeable effect on the earthly goings-on, it would have to be a global effect, but there’s no correlation between global crises and appearance of comets. In fact, Knutzen continues, there’s no clear causal mechanism by which a comet could influence such events. For instance, suppose someone would say that comets could cause wars by having a force to aggravate people. Problem is, such a force would not just cause wars, but Hobbesian chaos, where everyone attacked everyone else. If comets would cause only wars, then such a force would have to affect only royalty, but it is unclear how and why such a lifeless and unconscious object as comet could pick out kings and queens as its target.

In his wish to show that comets have not harmed Earth in any manner, Knutzen goes a bit too far and insists that comets could never have an adverse effect on Earth, discounting even the notion that a comet could hit the Earth or at least fly so close that its gravity might cause some disturbances. Thus, Knutzen discounts the worries of his contemporary, William Whiston, who had suggested that such catastrophic meetings had indeed occurred before - Jewish tradition told that Noah had seen a comet before the flood, which Whiston saw as a sign of the mythical flood being an effect of a watery comet hitting Earth. Knutzen was convinced that this tale was just yet another coincidence, and since comets had never hit Earth, they would not hit it in the future. Then again, he suggested that the Jewish tradition might explain historically why comets were universally feared: Noah associated for the rest of his life comets with disasters and taught his descendants to also do so.

Although Knutzen did not then believe in comets as divine signs, he did speculate on their having some purpose in the divine plans. Comets, Knutzen deduced, are just like planets in being mostly solid objects, surrounded by an atmosphere formed from gases and dust. The main difference with the regular planets is that the orbit of comets is very oblong and so a comet is sometimes very close to the Sun, sometimes very far away from it. When the comet approaches the Sun, the increasing gravity and the heat make the comet’s atmosphere appear as a tail. When the comet again changes its course to the outer reaches of the Solar System, it still retains some of its heat - and perhaps, Knutzen suggests, the whole purpose of a comet doing such a trip is to transfer some of this heat to where it wouldn’t otherwise get.

Next time, we shall once again return to Wolff's account of natural law.