Ratio

Reason, cause; nature, character. Cessante ratione, cessat ipsa lex. The reason ceasing, the law itself ceases. When the reason, which is the soul of a law, ceases to exist, the law itself should lose its operative effect. ' Thus, the essence of a contract being assent, there is no contract where assent is wanting. A right of way of necessity terminates with the necessity which gave rise to it. A litigant, or a witness, is privileged from arrest only while going to, remaining at, and returning from, the place of trial. If a corporation, made a grantee of land, be afterward dissolved, the grantor may re-enter; for the cause of the grant has ceased.* But a custom may be good though no reason for it can be assigned.' The maxim means that no law can survive the reasons on which it is founded. It needs" no statute to charge it; it abrogates itself. If the reasons on which a law rests are overborne by opposing reasons, which in the progress of society gain a controlling force, the old law, though still good as an abstract principle, and good in its application to some circumstances, must cease to apply as a' controlling principle to the new circumstances.^ Compare Repeal.

Ratio decidendi

Reason for deci4ing; the logic of a ruling.* Ratione materise. From the nature of the subject or subject-matter.'' Ratione personse. From the character of the person.' Ratione privilegii. By reason of privilege; by virtue of a franchise or pi-erogative.

8 Ratione soli.

By reason of the soil; by virtue of ownership in the land.' Ratione tennrse. By reason of possession or tenure.

396-97 (1879); Bird v. Brown, 4 Ex. *799 (1860); 133 Mass. 331; 44 N. H. 407; 37 Pa. 104; 53 id. 479; 57 id. 438; 80 id. 406.

JMattingly v

District of Columbia, 97 U. S. 690 (1878); Thomson v. Lee County, 3 Wall. 331 (1865); Beloit V. Morgan, 7 id. 624 (1868); Spaulding v. Nourse, 143 Mass. 492-94 (1887), cases. 2 See 2 Bl. Com. 15, 26, 60, 256, 337, 390; 3 id. 219; 4 id. 336; 1 id. 476, 484. s Smith, Contr. 77. < Beardsley v. City of Hartford, 50 Conn. 542 (1883), Loomis, J. See also 8 Cranch, 249; 108 U. S. 3; 80 Kan. 238; 143 Mass. 489; 44 N. J. L. 96; 60 Pa, 515; 66 id. 338; 67 id. 203; 79 id. 505; 13 E. I. 594; 67 Wis. 112. ill4U. S. 388. « 17 F. R. 612, 613; 34 La. An. 784.

Ubi eadem ratio, ibieadem jus. Where the reason is the same, the law is the same. "Like reason malteth like law." Eadem ratio, eadem lex. The same reason, the same law.

Contrariorum eontraria ratio

The reason for things which differ is different.

Dissimiliuni dissimilis ratio

For unlike things the rule is unlike.i