The Struggle for Law
of it dependent on the proof, as against the debtor himself, who shamelessly denies the loan made him, or refuses to pay it without reason, cannot keep me from looking at the mode of action of the two in an entirely different light, and to frame my own action accordingly. The debtor himself is to me on the same footing as the thief. He knowingly tries to deprive me of what is mine. It is the rising up of caprice against law, only it is in a situation to clothe itself in a legal garb. The heir of the debtor, on the other hand, is like the bonâ fide possessor of what belongs to me. He does not deny the principle that the debtor must pay, but only the assertion that he is a debtor himself, and all that I have said above of the bonâ fide possessor applies to him. With him I may settle or compromise. I may, in his case, desist entirely from the institution of a suit; but, as against the debtor, I should and I must follow up my right, cost what it may. Not to do this would be to admit the debtor to be right,—nay, more, to abandon the right.
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