Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
This edition was first published in four parts. Part I (pp. 1–167)appeared September 25, 1916; part II (pp. 168–368), December1, 1916; part III (pp. 369–618), February 20, 1917, andpart IV (pp. 619–1008), April 23, 1917.
The chief occasion for this edition is the change in the first-yearcurriculum in Harvard Law School, which assigned to other coursesmany things formerly appropriated to the course in the Law of Tortsand hence treated in former editions. Thus causation is now treatedin a course on the Principles of Legal Liability; certain excuses, such asconsent and self-defence, are dealt with in that course, and trespass toland and conversion, which analytically might well be treated in thefirst chapter of this book, have been thought more appropriate to thecourse on the Law of Property. But the student should be warned thatsuch matters of arrangement do not inhere in the law. They are merematters of pedagogical expediency. He should bear in mind that thelaw is a unit and should be on his guard against thinking of it as madeup of separate water-tight compartments. General principles whichare of prime importance in connection with the subjects treated in thisbook are dealt with primarily in the courses on Property and onCriminal Law. Not the least important task for the student is to seekconstantly for these relations between the subjects studied.
Again, the student should be warned that the arrangement proceedsupon pedagogical considerations and does not seek to set forth an analyticalsystem. System is to be derived from study of the cases. Theeffort of the student to make one in connection with his summaries forreview and his reading of the systematic discussions referred to in thenotes will do more for him than learning in advance a system laid outby some one else. Similar reasons have led to omission of subheadingsas far as consistent with convenience, leaving it to the student tosystematize the main headings for himself. For other purposes anindex is offered instead.
In arrangement of the cases advantage has been taken of the experienceof the late Dean Thayer, who had given the matter anxious considerationfor some years. Indeed the instinct of Dean Ames forteachable cases, the