240 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. based on negligence ; but it is evident, nevertheless, that the decision of the Court of Appeal necessarily repudiates the main proposition on which the reasoning of the Privy Council rested. The proposition was that there can be no legal causal connection between a mental shock and the physical injuries which may ensue. It is submitted that the position taken by the court in the later case is the more satisfactory. Theoretically there seems to be no good reason why physical injuries should not be compensated for, though they be caused by what affects primarily only the mind. Some wrongful or negligent act, determined to be such in the light, not of subsequent events, but of ordinary circum- stances, must be shown in the party against whom recovery is sought. Having found such breach of the defendant's legal duty to the plaintiff, it will not be disputed that fright may follow under any and all rules by which the existence of legal cause is determined. Where there is noth- ing further, the plaintiff is denied recovery merely because an emotion of the mind, though painful and distressing, " cannot in itself be regarded as measurable temporal daaiage." Pollock on Torts, 4th ed., 46, 47 ; Lynch V. Knight, 9 H. L. 577. But when the mental pain is followed by physical suffering, there exists the sort of injury for which there is legal remedy, and the question becomes whether the causal connection is broken. A scientific determination of precisely what takes place is not necessary to the legal consideration of this question. If the mental shock is followed by physical suffering, and it be shown in fact that no outside influences have intervened, the causal connection is certainly not broken. The real difficulty is in the proof of the facts necessary to make out the plaintiff's case. It is suggested that a keen realization of this is what underlies the decision in the Coultas case and in similar cases. Ewing v. Pittsburg, Cinn., and St. Louis Ry. Co., 147 Pa. St. 40. The evident probability that in such actions juries either will be deceived as to the facts, or through incomplete comprehension of a difficult subject will come to wrong con- clusions, certainly warns the courts to be discreet in sanctioning such claims ; whether it justifies them in refusing to consider the claims at all is indeed a grave question. The English Society of Comparative Legislation. — In the No- vember number of the Review appeared an account of the French Society of Comparative Legislation, by M. Le^vy-Ullmann. It is interesting to note that a similar society has at last been established in England. In December, 1894, the initial steps toward its formation were taken, and the recent appearance of its Journal shows that the work of the society is now well under way. Surely a work was never begun under brighter auspices. The president of the organization is Lord Herschell, and on the Council are such men as Sir William Anson, the Hon. T. F. Bayard, the Rt. Hon. James Bryce, Professor Dicey, Sir Edward Fry, Lord Halsbury, Professor Holland, Lord Justice Lindley, Professor Maitland, Sir Frederick Pollock, and Lord Russell of Killowen. With this backing, success is of course assured. In the introduction to the Journal the purposes of the new Society are stated. " In the British Empire are some sixty legislatures ; in the United States are nearly fifty. Each of them is occupied with much the same problems. ... At present the results of foreign experiments are only imperfectly and casually brought to the notice of those who
