The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 10 (of 12) / Dresden Edition—Legal

by Robert Green Ingersoll

Then the question is, if it is out of the statute of frauds, and if it is out because the contract has been partially performed, the next question, and, it seems to me, the only question that arises, is, has a court of equity the right to determine what the words "You shall be well provided for," "I will provide for you liberally in my will," or "I will make a liberal provision for you in my will"—what those words mean?

According to the idea of counsel on the other side, the Court is bound to decide according to the meaning that was in the mind of Mr. Russell. But there comes in here another principle. The only way we can find the meaning in his mind is by finding the words that he used; and we are not to import his meanness into the words, if he had meanness; neither would we import his generosity, if he had generosity. We would give to those words their natural meaning, apart from the thought of the one who used them, and apart from the thought of the one who heard them, because the words are known, their meaning is known and can be ascertained by the Court.

Now, the word "reasonable" is about as hard a word to define as a court was ever called upon to define, and yet courts of law and courts of equity, in hundreds and thousands of instances, have passed upon the meaning of the word "reasonable," and have not only passed upon its meaning, but have given it from time to time definitions.

A man must give reasonable care to the property of another given into his keeping. Well, what is reasonable care? Is it reasonable for him to take such care of it as he does of his own? Not if he is unreasonably careless of his own. And the law takes another step, and says you must take such care of it as is reasonable, as a reasonable man would, and the courts then go on to define what a reasonable man under the circumstances would do. Now, there is no word in the language that courts have been called upon to define that is vaguer—where the line between dawn and dusk, between light and dawn, has to be drawn with greater care or greater intelligence—than that word "reasonable." The word "appropriate" has been decided again and again. The word "necessary," the word "convenient," the word "suitable"—"suitable to his or her condition in life"—"suitable to the condition of the party"—all these words have been given judicial meaning hundreds and thousands of times.

And now we come to the word "liberal," is that a hard word to define?

Everybody in the world has his notion of what liberal means. Given the circumstances and the actions of the man, and everyone you meet is ready to decide whether he is liberal or illiberal. A man loses his pocketbook; five thousand dollars in it; a boy finds it, returns it to him, and he gives the boy five cents. There is not a man in the world, no matter whether he is a judge or not, who would say that was liberal—nobody. If there was only a dollar in the pocketbook and he gave him half of it, you would say that was liberal. You would have to take the circumstances into consideration. You also take into consideration the circumstances of the man who found it. If he is a poor man you can not be liberal unless you give him more than you would give the man who did not need it.

What is a liberal provision for a wife that has no means of making her own living? If the man is able, nothing less than a sufficient sum to take care of her. Suppose Mr. Vanderbilt, who is worth two or three hundred millions—I do not know what he is worth, and I do not care, but I suppose he is worth a hundred millions—should agree to make a liberal provision for his wife, and make it so that he gets away from the statute of frauds, and thereupon leaves her twenty-five hundred dollars. Nobody would say that was liberal. Why? Because that word is capable of a clear and reasonably exact definition. To be liberal, he would have to leave her enough to live in the same style that she has been living in with him, and enough to keep her during her life. Anything less than that would be illiberal, mean, contemptible.

So I might go through all the actions of men in regard to contracts, payments, divisions. We all know what liberal means, and it always means a little more than the law could compel you to do. If a man hires another and says, "I will give you five dollars a day," and the other works twenty days, and he gives him one hundred dollars; nobody says he is liberal, and nobody says he is mean. But when the man goes further and says, "You have worked well; I am very much pleased with what you have done; there is fifty dollars (or twenty-five dollars) as a present," everybody says, "Why, that is liberal, that is generous." But no man ever yet got the reputation of being generous by doing exactly what he was bound to do. He may have the reputation of being just, honest, of keeping his contracts, of being a good, fair, square man, but he never got the reputation of being generous, and he never got the reputation of being liberal, by simply doing what the law compelled him to do, or what his contract compelled him to do, or what he did in consideration of that for which he had received value.

In this case Russell said, "I will make a liberal provision for you in my will." If he had made no will the law would have given her one-third of his personal property. That would not have been liberal. That would simply have been the law. That is the law, and that is what the law has said is just. Whether the law is right or not, I do not know, but that is what the law says. That is just, and no man can be liberal unless he goes just a little beyond justness—just a little.

So when he says, "I will provide for you liberally in my will," in order to comply with that agreement he has got to go somewhat beyond the law, and the law says one-third; it is impossible for him to be liberal without going a little beyond one-third, and then he is only liberal to the extent that he does go beyond what the law fixes.