It is said that any benefit conferred by the promisee on the promisor, or any detriment incurred by the promisee, [290] may be a consideration.  It is also thought that every consideration may be reduced to a case of the latter sort, using the word “detriment” in a somewhat broad sense.

To illustrate the general doctrine, suppose that a man is desirous of having a cask of brandy carried from Boston to Cambridge, and that a truckman, either out of kindness or from some other motive, says that he will carry it, and it is delivered to him accordingly.  If he carelessly staves in the cask, there would perhaps be no need to allege that he undertook to carry it, and on principle, and according to the older cases, if an undertaking was alleged, no consideration for the assumpsit need be stated. 1 The ground of complaint in that case would be a wrong, irrespective of contract.  But if the complaint was that he did not carry it as agreed, the plaintiff’s difficulty would be that the truckman was not bound to do so unless there was a consideration for his promise.  Suppose, therefore, that it was alleged that he promised to do so in consideration of the delivery to him.  Would this be a sufficient consideration?  The oldest cases, going on the notion of benefit to the promisor, said that it could not be, for it was a trouble, not a benefit. 2 Then take it from the side of detriment.  The delivery is a necessary condition to the promisor’s doing the kindness, and if he does it, the delivery, so far from being a detriment to the promisee, is a clear benefit to him.

But this argument is a fallacy.  Clearly the delivery would be sufficient consideration to enable the owner to declare in assumpsit for the breach of those duties which [291] arose, irrespective of contract, from the defendant’s having undertaken to deal with the thing. 1 It would be a sufficient consideration for any promise not involving a dealing with the thing for its performance, for instance, to pay a thousand dollars. 2 And the law has not pronounced the consideration good or bad according to the nature of the promise founded upon it.  The delivery is a sufficient consideration for any promise. 3

The argument on the other side leaves out of sight the point of time at which the sufficiency of the consideration is to be determined.  This is the moment when the consideration is furnished.  At that moment the delivery of the cask is a detriment in the strictest sense.  The owner of the cask has given up a present control over it, which he has a right to keep, and he has got in return, not a performance for which a delivery was necessary, but a mere promise of performance.  The performance is still future. 4

But it will be seen that, although the delivery may be a consideration, it will not necessarily be one.  A promise to carry might be made and accepted on the understanding that it was mere matter of favor, without consideration, and not legally binding.  In that case the detriment of delivery would be incurred by the promisee as before, but obviously it would be incurred for the sole purpose of enabling the promisor to carry as agreed.