Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 8.djvu/405

A GENERAL ANALYSTS OF TORT-RELATIONS. 3S9 lesson, and have generated a concrete and external rule of liability. He who snaps a cap upon a gun pointed in the direction of another person known by him to be present is answerable for the consequences." ^ First, in grouping these rules, we find a number of miscellaneous cases determined by the courts from time to time. With refer- ence to certain harms, the keeping of dogs, cattle, and other ani- mals, the storing of explosives, the use of weapons, and other sorts of conduct, have been declared to be to some extent governed by this test. But the important thing to notice is that such rules may be formulated for responsibility for every kind of legal harm. In trespass and conversion, the question whether we walk on land and deal as owners with personalty at our peril ; in libel, the question how far, with reference to inadvertent publication, we put defama- tory statements on paper at our peril ; in loss of service, the ques- tion how far we employ another at peril, with reference to a possible existing contract of his, — for all the different kinds of harm the question may come up. These germane questions all throw light upon one another, and their consideration in one place helps us to discuss intelligently the comparative policies of different situations. Secondly, we have a principle of limited application that " unlawful " acts — signifying an illegality, usually statutory, independent of the question at issue — are done at peril. The application of this principle is attended with a looseness and a confusion with which we need not here try to deal. (<5) In numerous cases, also, courts are found ruling that on the facts of case the defendant is guilty of negligence as a .matter of law. The difference between this and the preceding form of the principle seems merely to be that the court lays down no general rule for a class of cases, and does not intend to go beyond the complex of facts then before it. But the two forms shade off into each other at a point almost indistinguishable. This sub-principle of " acting at peril," it must be added, has certain general limitations; and a special group of cases attempt to determine how far extraordinary catastrophes or the acts of third persons relieve from responsibility one who would ordinarily be " acting at peril." Within these four headings it seems that all genuine questions of Responsibility are included. 1 Common Law, pp. 150, 152.