A

TREATISE

ON THE

LAW OF ESTOPPEL

OR OF

INCONTESTABLE RIGHTS

BY

MELVILLE M. BIGELOW

SIXTH EDITION, REVISED

BY JAMES N. CARTER, PH. B., J. M.

BOSTON

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872,

BY MELVILLE M. BIGELOW,

In the Office of the Library of Congress, at Washington.

Copyright, 1886, 1890, 1900, 1913,

BY MELVILLE M. BIGELOW.

187253

Printers

S. J. PARKHILL & Co., BOSTON, U.S.A.

PREFACE TO THE SIXTH EDITION.

UNFORTUNATE and unavoidable circumstances have kept this book out of print for several years, and it is a fact of some significance, perhaps, that a new edition of a work dealing with Incontestable Rights should be called for in a time of profound discontent and unsettlement of things relating to the administration of justice. Legal definitions of crime and tort are changing; the very function of the courts has invited doubt; still the subject of this book stands undisturbed. No suggestion has been made that it needs reconstruction; a statement which would not be ventured of the subject of every other book of the law which has been before the public for forty years. Indeed, were it not for the natural and well-founded desire for the latest decisions of the courts, the first edition of this book might still answer the present purpose.

It may be right that the author should feel some satisfaction in reflecting that as young man he did a kind of work that was and still is held in honor by a great profession. This could not have been the case had he failed to give unsparing effort to get down to the foundation of things, where and where only lies reality. True, the 'Guardians of the State,' or in legal phrase the Trustees of the State, were not likely to 'stumble about' here,1 but it was still a duty as well as a privilege to do what one could to help them in the search for solid ground.

The editor of this edition has had to deal with some two thousand cases, and has done all that could be expected of him to make it worthy of the favor with which the book has heretofore been received.

Boston, May 1, 1913.

M. M. B.

...

μεταξύ που

1 Ηὑρήκαμεν ἄρα, ὡς ἔοικεν, ὅτι τὰ τῶν πολλῶν πολλὰ νόμιμα κυλινδεῖται τοῦ τε μὴ ὄντος καὶ τοῦ ὄντος εἰλικρινώς. — Republic, 479 D.