1. Necessity relieves of all promise. If, for example, I have promised to go to a meeting and am kept in bed by a serious illness, it is impossible for me to go, and hence I am relieved of my promise.
2. One is not obliged to perform illicit acts: “for,” says Puffendorf, “it would be a contradiction, to be held by civil or moral law, to perform things which the civil or moral law interdicts. It is already doing wrong to promise illicit things, and it is doing wrong twice to perform them.”[35]
3. One cannot promise what belongs to another: for I cannot promise what I cannot dispose of.
50. Contracts.—A contract is an agreement by which one or several persons engage to do or not to do a certain thing for one or several others. (Code Civ., Art. 1101.)
Conditions of the contract (Art. 1108).—Four conditions are necessary to constitute a valid and legitimate agreement:
1. The consent of the parties.
2. The capacity of the contractors.
3. A sure object as a basis for the contract.
4. A licit cause in the obligation.
(1.) The consent.—The consent is the voluntary acceptance of the charges implied in the contract. It is express or implied: express, when it is made manifest by words, writing, or any other kind of expressive signs. It is implied, when, without being expressed by outward signs, it may be deduced, as a manifest consequence of the very nature of the thing, and other circumstances.