If Hohfeld's analysis of fundamental legal conceptions is valid it promises to afford a very simple means of confirming or refuting Maine's thesis that social progress has hitherto been from status to contract. Anthropology may elucidate the issues of human development thereby put at stake. Legal theory may corroborate or contradict the outcome of testing Maine with Hohfeld. Beyond that, however, the process of verification depends neither on empirical data nor speculative thought. Instead of social science or legal philosophy, it is the outcome of abstract logic. On this account Maine's thesis that status has hitherto given way to contract among the progressive societies is at risk of being dismissed as a logical fallacy.

By the latter part of the sixteenth century the theory of liability on bills of exchange had been adapted to common law theory of contract so as to lie in assumpsit. In 1787 it was fully settled by the House of Lords that all “contracts in writing … [which are] merely written and not specialties … are parol” and require consideration. Promissory notes and bills of exchange fell into this category. Indeed, “bills and notes were contracts and being such there was no persuasive reason why the basis of liability on a bill or note should be any different from that on any other written contract for payment of money.” While there is no provision in the Bills of Exchange Act (“the Act”) directly to the point, it is well established indeed that consideration of “value” is needed for the creation of an obligation under a negotiable instrument. According to Chalmers, “where B, by way of gift, makes a note in favour of C, C cannot recover from B.”