For an offer cannot
constitute a promise before it can be judged that the thing offered
(oblatum) is something that is agreeable to the party to whom it is
offered, and this much is shown by the first two declarations; but
by them alone there is nothing as yet acquired.
Further, it is neither by the particular will of the promiser nor
that of the acceptor that the property of the former passes over to
the latter. This is effected only by the combined or united wills of
both, and consequently so far only as the will of both is declared
at the same time or simultaneously. Now, such simultaneousness is
impossible by empirical acts of declaration, which can only follow
each other in time and are never actually simultaneous. For if I
have promised, and another person is now merely willing to accept,
during the interval before actual acceptance, however short it may be,
I may retract my offer, because I am thus far still free; and, on
the other side, the acceptor, for the same reason, may likewise hold
himself not to be bound, up till the moment of acceptance, by his
counter-declaration following upon the promise. The external
formalities or solemnities (solemnia) on the conclusion of a contract-
such as shaking hands or breaking a straw (stipula) laid hold of by
two persons- and all the various modes of confirming the
declarations on either side, prove in fact the embarrassment of the
contracting parties as to how and in what way they may represent
declarations, which are always successive, as existing
simultaneously at the same moment; and these forms fail to do this.
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