Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 9.djvu/109

81 RECOVERY FOR CONSEQUENCES OF AN ACT. 8 1 A true reading of this maxim, in connection with the examples given by Bacon to support it, indicates quite the contrary course. If the maxim means anything, it is this: that in looking for the cause of a loss, in order to affix Hability for it, one cannot go behind the last cause. Only one relation of cause and effect can be shown, — that between the final cause and its immediate effect. Liability for result and responsibility for final cause are insepa- rable: given either, the other must exist; one wanting, the other cannot exist. To be liable for a loss, the responsibility of defend- ant for its final cause must be shown, and that alone. So under- stood, the maxim would be recognized as axiomatic if it had not been obscured by the mistaken discussion.^ Assuming the truth of the maxim, two results follow: first, that the direct cause of a result complained of must first be found, when it will appear as a combination of circumstances, of which the loss is the resultant; and the defendant's responsibility for this combination of circumstances must then be directly estab- lished, in accordance with some principle which it is the whole object of our study to determine. It may be asked. What do we gain by this restatement of our problem, since we still have to seek for a principle which seems very much the same as that for which we have always been seek- ing? This, at any rate, that if the problem is correctly stated, the reasons for its existence and its solution are apparent. But we also get nearer to the defendant when we seek to connect him with the cause instead of the result, and it will probably appear that we thus eliminate a large part of the difficulty; and we do away at once with the consideration of this as a separate class of cases. We treat defendanc's responsibility in the same way, wherever the question arises ; whether he has set in motion a natural force, an animal, an agent, or an independent person. Let me now formu- late the ideas I have put forward and explain my meaning by examples. I. If one is legally responsible for an act, he is chargeable with the direct results of the act, however surprising.^ The simplest case is that of physical force. If I wrongfully bring my hand into contact with another's person or property, I 1 It is sufficiently clear that if defendant is liable for the result, he must be respon- sible for the final cause. The converse will be made evident, I hope, by what follows. 2 This principle was perhaps first pointed out in the brilliant if not altogether sound opinion of Wardlaw, J., in Harrison v. Berkeley, i Strob. L. 525, Smith j. II