Page:Melville Davisson Post--The Man of Last Resort.djvu/111

Rh turpe causa, and for which the law provides no remedy. On the contrary, it is urged by counsel for the plaintiff that the transaction as between the parties to this suit was entirely commercial and innocent; that the plaintiff is a mere lender of money in a bona fide transaction, and is in no wise a party to any illegal proceeding, and that the mere use to which the money was put is a matter of no moment.

“The law, being for the welfare and the protection of human society, refuses to recognize and enforce certain contracts had among its citizens, when those contracts are founded in moral turpitude or inconsistent with the good order or solid interests of society.

“'No people,' declares Chancellor Kent in his Commentaries, 'are bound or ought to enforce or hold valid in their courts of justice any contract which is injurious to the public rights or offends their morals or contravenes their policy or violates a public law.' Hence contracts having an illegal or immoral consideration, or tending to the violation of law or the debauching of public morals, are held to be contra bonas mores, and are void.