Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 8.djvu/205

DIVISIONS OF LAW. 1 89 ceived the money in coin, and Peter has entered into the house and occupies it. Peter is owner of the house, and John and all other persons are under the duty of respecting his rights as owner, that is, of abstaining from trespass and the like. The money is John's, and Peter and all other persons must respect John's ownership of the money by not stealing it or otherwise meddling with it in any unauthorized way. These rights have no determinate correspond- ing duties, only the general duty of all men not to trespass, steal, and so forth. That duty in turn is not correlated to Peter's or John's rights more than to those of any other owner. Dominhcm is the Roman term for the rights of an owner against all the world: and the contrast of dominium and obligatio is the nearest approach that can be made, in classical Roman language, to the distinction marked by the modern terms in rem and in personam. Let us now take a further step. Robert, a stranger, wantonly, or out of spite, breaks a window in Peter's house. He has dis- regarded the general duty of respecting other men's property, and he incurs a new duty, that of making compensation to Peter. It may be that he is also liable to fine or imprisonment for the disturbance of public order involved in his wrongful act, but that is a distinct and different matter. On the other side Peter has a personal and determined right against Robert. A legal bond of liability and claim has been created ; that is to say, there is an obligation. If Peter comes out of the house at the moment when Robert breaks the window, loses his temper, and knocks down Robert, he has in turn broken in Robert's person the general duty of not assaulting one's fellow-subjects: for the right of action he has acquired against Robert is a right to redress by lawful means only, of which means knocking down the wrong-doer on the spot is not one in this case. Robert may not be held entitled to much compensation, but he is entitled to some. Here is yet another obligation, the liability being on Peter and the claim with Robert; and it results from a breach of the most general kind of duty, a duty corresponding to a so-called " primitive " right. Obligation does not, however, include the whole of duties and rights in personam. There are personal relations recognized by law and having important legal consequences, but outside the legal con- ception of obligation. Peter, let us assume, lives in the house with his wife Joan, and they have children. Peter and Joan owe duties to each other which they cannot owe to any one else ; and the same may be said (omitting minor distinctions in this place) of the duties