Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 10.djvu/97

71 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. VOL. X. MAY 25, 1896. NO. 2. A BRIEF SURVEY OF EQUITY JURISDICTION.^ VIII. Real Obligations. THE last five articles have been occupied with a consideration of the jurisdiction of equity over personal obligations,^ and those articles contain all that it is thought necessary to say, in this brief survey, on that branch of equity jurisdiction. The next topic to be considered, according to the classification of legal rights stated in the first of this series of articles,^ is that of real obligations. The jurisdiction of equity, however, over this class of legal rights will not, it is hoped, detain us very long. A real obligation is undoubtedly a legal fiction, i. e.^ a fiction invented by the law for the promotion of convenience and the advancement of justice. The invention consists primarily in per- sonifying an inanimate thing, and giving it, so far as practicable, the legal qualities of a human being. The invention was originally made by the Romans, and it has been borrowed from them by the nations which have succeeded them. It may be doubted also whether modern nations would have invented the fiction for them- selves ; for it is less necessary, as well as much less obvious, in mod- ^ Continued from Vol. V. p. 138. 2 Vol. I. p 355, Vol. IL p. 241, Vol. in. p. 237, Vol. IV. p 99, Vol. V. p. loi. 8 Vol. I. pp. 55-57. 10