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“That I be not1
deceived and defrauded through you and my confidence in you”! How precious are these: “As
between honest people there ought to be honest
dealing, and no deception”! But who are “honest
people,” and what is “honest dealing” —these are
serious questions.
It was Quintus Scaevola, the pontifex maximus,
who used to attach the greatest importance to all
questions of arbitration to which the formula was
appended “as good faith requires”; and he held
that the expression “good faith” had a very extensive application, for it was employed in trusteeships
and partnerships, in trusts and commissions, in buying and selling, in hiring and letting—in a word, in
all the transactions on which the social relations of
daily life depend; in these, he said, it required
a judge of great ability to decide the extent of
each individual's obligation to the other, especially when counter-claims were admissible in most
cases.
1 “Good faith” in performance of contracts.
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