ABSTRACT
The notion of the contract is of an operation so simple that it could be deemed to be the primary fact from which all other social facts have derived. It is upon this idea that the theory of the social contract rests. The idea of the contract seemed so revealing in itself that the originating cause of these various obligations also seemed in itself to lose all obscurity as soon as it had been assimilated with the contract proper. The contract, then, is a source of variations which pre-supposes a primary basis in law, but one that has a different origin. The contract is the supreme instrument by which transfers of ownership are carried through. The function of the right of contract was to modify the status of the person; to bring this about, however, the right was conceived on the model of the statutory right.
