This is a really interesting paragraph! A little afield from this, but it reminded me of the way objects are treated in the law. Courts sometimes exercise "in rem" jurisdiction, where the court takes cognizance of objects themselves as "parties". We recently had a case in Massachusetts captioned "United States v. Letter from Alexander Hamilton to the Marquis de Lafayette Dated July 21, 1780" (these in rem cases often have quirky names). Usually in rem cases determine the ownership rights of the parties in a certain object as against the world, and the object itself fills the role traditionally occupied by a "party" to the suit. In rem jurisdiction has roots in admiralty (maritime law), and on this score Holmes makes an interesting observation in The Common Law: "A ship is the most living of inanimate things. Servants sometimes say "she" of a clock, but every one gives a gender to vessels. . . . It is only by supposing the ship to have been treated as if endowed with personality, that the arbitrary seeming peculiarities of the maritime law can be made intelligible, and on that supposition they at once become consistent and logical."
This entry is resonating with me because it touches profoundly on some of the oldest tendencies in our legal system: the treatment of harmful objects. Forgive the long quotation here, also Holmes:
"There is a well-known passage in Exodus, which we shall have to remember later: "If an ox gore a man or a woman, that they die: then the ox shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be quit." When we turn from the Jews to the Greeks, we find the principle of the passage just quoted erected into a system. Plutarch, in his Solon, tells us that a dog that had bitten a man was to be delivered up bound to a log four cubits long. Plato made elaborate provisions in his Laws for many such cases. If a slave killed a man, he was to be given up to the relatives of the deceased. If he wounded a man, he was to be given up to the injured party to use him as he pleased. . . . If a beast killed a man, it was to be slain and cast beyond the borders. If an inanimate thing caused death, it was to be cast beyond the borders in like manner, and expiation was to be made. Nor was all this an ideal creation of merely imagined law, for it was said in one of the speeches of Aeschines, that "we banish beyond our borders stocks and stones and steel, voiceless and mindless things, if they chance to kill a man; and if a man commits suicide, bury the hand that struck the blow afar from its body." This is mentioned quite as an every-day matter, evidently without thinking it at all extraordinary, only to point an antithesis to the honors heaped upon Demosthenes. As late as the second century after Christ the traveller Pausanias observed with some surprise that they still sat in judgment on inanimate things in the Prytaneum."
And a little later: "The Twelve Tables (451 B.C.) provided that, if an animal had done damage, either the animal was to be surrendered or the damage paid for. We learn from Gaius that the same rule was applied to the torts of children or slaves, and there is some trace of it with regard to inanimate things."
He links this treatment of inanimate objects with speculation about how our modern theory of agency arose (e.g. master responsible for the wrongdoing of slaves, or the trespass of his chattel): "In other words, vengeance on the immediate offender was the object of the Greek and early Roman process, not indemnity from the master or owner. The liability of the owner was simply a liability of the offending thing. In the primitive customs of Greece it was enforced by a judicial process expressly directed against the object, animate or inanimate."
Holmes also discusses the idea of a "deodand" or a thing forfeited because it caused death: "In Edward the First's time . . . [I]f a man fell from a tree, the tree was deodand. If he drowned in a well, the well was to be filled up. It did not matter that the forfeited instrument belonged to an innocent person. "Where a man killeth another with the sword of John at Stile, the sword shall be forfeit as deodand, and yet no default is in the owner." That is from a book written in the reign of Henry VIII., about 1530. And it has been repeated from Queen Elizabeth's time to within one hundred years, that if my horse strikes a man, and afterwards I sell my horse, and after that the man dies, the horse shall be forfeited."
There is certainly something very human about our personification of objects (especially in a negative sense), as exemplified in our legal history.
This is a fascinating tour, Shamus! I'd heard a little about "in rem" cases (including "United States v. Approximately 64,695 Pounds of Shark Fins"), but "deodand" is totally new to me.
Oh that is wonderfully fascinating peek into law. I love it.
And it reminds me of one of Rumer Godden's novels whose title is one of those quirky name of an in rem case: Cromartie V. The God Shiva Acting Through The Government Of India in which a wealthy Canadian, Sydney Carstairs Cromartie, buys a small, 11th-century bronze statue of Shiva in Toronto. Cromartie takes the figurine to a highly reputable London art dealer, where a staff member informs the Indian government that the priceless artifact has likely been stolen.
I really relate to this. I remember back to about sixth grade, when I was allowed to walk to the drugstore with my friends to buy a candy bar. I would buy a different one each time, always remembering which ones I had already bought, because I didn't want any of them to feel left out.
I've been meaning to pick up On Looking. I love this toddler's-eye view of the world! I was just this morning discussing with a friend who is a young mom her toddler's propensity to pick up piles of the most ordinary looking rocks. Everything is new, everything a treasure. They've not yet learned to reject some in preference to other, "prettier" rocks. There's something profligate in their love of the world and their fascination with the ordinary and everyday. I really love looking at the world through child's eyes and yes the animistic tendency to endow objects with life and personality and preferences, which seems to be the root of all imaginative play.
I feel great sympathy for the desire to rescue lonely chairs. I did that once when I found a rocking chair on the curb with a beautiful fish quilt draped over it. I soon learned why the chair had been discarded, it wasn't very comfortable at all. But we still have the fish quilt, which Lucy sleeps under every night, it having been handed down through all four older children to her, the youngest and beneficiary of all cast-offs. (Which means that she now has a grand total of fifteen quilts and blankets on her bed all of which must be put on her every night, even in the summertime.)
Bella when she was little made a family out of the tubes of dot paint. And well, everything really, she never saw an object that didn't want to be a part of her imaginative world. Baskets and bins wanted to be houses and boats and were constantly being dumped of their contents and repurposed and me left to pick everything up and sort it back into the proper bins every day because the task of putting things back was much too big for her. Eventually children learn, are guided to focus those imaginative plays to stuffed animals and dolls. But I remember a blogger who wrote about being too poor for toys when her eldest was younger and the child adopting a brick to wrap in a blanket and be a baby. And another friend whose child adopted a squash-baby.
Also, a baked potato stand sounds wonderful right now.
I like your use of the word "profligate" because it seems wasteful to grown-ups to love everything without more discrimination, but are we really going to run out of wonder if we spend it too carelessly? The saints are very spendthrift in their love, relying on God to replenish them.
This is a really interesting paragraph! A little afield from this, but it reminded me of the way objects are treated in the law. Courts sometimes exercise "in rem" jurisdiction, where the court takes cognizance of objects themselves as "parties". We recently had a case in Massachusetts captioned "United States v. Letter from Alexander Hamilton to the Marquis de Lafayette Dated July 21, 1780" (these in rem cases often have quirky names). Usually in rem cases determine the ownership rights of the parties in a certain object as against the world, and the object itself fills the role traditionally occupied by a "party" to the suit. In rem jurisdiction has roots in admiralty (maritime law), and on this score Holmes makes an interesting observation in The Common Law: "A ship is the most living of inanimate things. Servants sometimes say "she" of a clock, but every one gives a gender to vessels. . . . It is only by supposing the ship to have been treated as if endowed with personality, that the arbitrary seeming peculiarities of the maritime law can be made intelligible, and on that supposition they at once become consistent and logical."
This entry is resonating with me because it touches profoundly on some of the oldest tendencies in our legal system: the treatment of harmful objects. Forgive the long quotation here, also Holmes:
"There is a well-known passage in Exodus, which we shall have to remember later: "If an ox gore a man or a woman, that they die: then the ox shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be quit." When we turn from the Jews to the Greeks, we find the principle of the passage just quoted erected into a system. Plutarch, in his Solon, tells us that a dog that had bitten a man was to be delivered up bound to a log four cubits long. Plato made elaborate provisions in his Laws for many such cases. If a slave killed a man, he was to be given up to the relatives of the deceased. If he wounded a man, he was to be given up to the injured party to use him as he pleased. . . . If a beast killed a man, it was to be slain and cast beyond the borders. If an inanimate thing caused death, it was to be cast beyond the borders in like manner, and expiation was to be made. Nor was all this an ideal creation of merely imagined law, for it was said in one of the speeches of Aeschines, that "we banish beyond our borders stocks and stones and steel, voiceless and mindless things, if they chance to kill a man; and if a man commits suicide, bury the hand that struck the blow afar from its body." This is mentioned quite as an every-day matter, evidently without thinking it at all extraordinary, only to point an antithesis to the honors heaped upon Demosthenes. As late as the second century after Christ the traveller Pausanias observed with some surprise that they still sat in judgment on inanimate things in the Prytaneum."
And a little later: "The Twelve Tables (451 B.C.) provided that, if an animal had done damage, either the animal was to be surrendered or the damage paid for. We learn from Gaius that the same rule was applied to the torts of children or slaves, and there is some trace of it with regard to inanimate things."
He links this treatment of inanimate objects with speculation about how our modern theory of agency arose (e.g. master responsible for the wrongdoing of slaves, or the trespass of his chattel): "In other words, vengeance on the immediate offender was the object of the Greek and early Roman process, not indemnity from the master or owner. The liability of the owner was simply a liability of the offending thing. In the primitive customs of Greece it was enforced by a judicial process expressly directed against the object, animate or inanimate."
Holmes also discusses the idea of a "deodand" or a thing forfeited because it caused death: "In Edward the First's time . . . [I]f a man fell from a tree, the tree was deodand. If he drowned in a well, the well was to be filled up. It did not matter that the forfeited instrument belonged to an innocent person. "Where a man killeth another with the sword of John at Stile, the sword shall be forfeit as deodand, and yet no default is in the owner." That is from a book written in the reign of Henry VIII., about 1530. And it has been repeated from Queen Elizabeth's time to within one hundred years, that if my horse strikes a man, and afterwards I sell my horse, and after that the man dies, the horse shall be forfeited."
There is certainly something very human about our personification of objects (especially in a negative sense), as exemplified in our legal history.
Thanks for all of the great posts!
-Shamus
This is a fascinating tour, Shamus! I'd heard a little about "in rem" cases (including "United States v. Approximately 64,695 Pounds of Shark Fins"), but "deodand" is totally new to me.
Oh that is wonderfully fascinating peek into law. I love it.
And it reminds me of one of Rumer Godden's novels whose title is one of those quirky name of an in rem case: Cromartie V. The God Shiva Acting Through The Government Of India in which a wealthy Canadian, Sydney Carstairs Cromartie, buys a small, 11th-century bronze statue of Shiva in Toronto. Cromartie takes the figurine to a highly reputable London art dealer, where a staff member informs the Indian government that the priceless artifact has likely been stolen.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/869961.Cromartie_V_the_God_Shiva
I really relate to this. I remember back to about sixth grade, when I was allowed to walk to the drugstore with my friends to buy a candy bar. I would buy a different one each time, always remembering which ones I had already bought, because I didn't want any of them to feel left out.
You're just like my mom, who felt bad for toys I didn't play with.
I've been meaning to pick up On Looking. I love this toddler's-eye view of the world! I was just this morning discussing with a friend who is a young mom her toddler's propensity to pick up piles of the most ordinary looking rocks. Everything is new, everything a treasure. They've not yet learned to reject some in preference to other, "prettier" rocks. There's something profligate in their love of the world and their fascination with the ordinary and everyday. I really love looking at the world through child's eyes and yes the animistic tendency to endow objects with life and personality and preferences, which seems to be the root of all imaginative play.
I feel great sympathy for the desire to rescue lonely chairs. I did that once when I found a rocking chair on the curb with a beautiful fish quilt draped over it. I soon learned why the chair had been discarded, it wasn't very comfortable at all. But we still have the fish quilt, which Lucy sleeps under every night, it having been handed down through all four older children to her, the youngest and beneficiary of all cast-offs. (Which means that she now has a grand total of fifteen quilts and blankets on her bed all of which must be put on her every night, even in the summertime.)
Bella when she was little made a family out of the tubes of dot paint. And well, everything really, she never saw an object that didn't want to be a part of her imaginative world. Baskets and bins wanted to be houses and boats and were constantly being dumped of their contents and repurposed and me left to pick everything up and sort it back into the proper bins every day because the task of putting things back was much too big for her. Eventually children learn, are guided to focus those imaginative plays to stuffed animals and dolls. But I remember a blogger who wrote about being too poor for toys when her eldest was younger and the child adopting a brick to wrap in a blanket and be a baby. And another friend whose child adopted a squash-baby.
Also, a baked potato stand sounds wonderful right now.
I like your use of the word "profligate" because it seems wasteful to grown-ups to love everything without more discrimination, but are we really going to run out of wonder if we spend it too carelessly? The saints are very spendthrift in their love, relying on God to replenish them.