in a general sense, denotes any active power or cause. Agents are either natural or moral. Natural agents are such inanimate bodies as have a power to act upon other bodies in a certain and determinate manner, as gravity, fire, &c. Moral agents, on the contrary, are rational creatures, capable of regulating their actions by a certain rule.

Agent, is also used to denote a person intrusted with the management of an affair, whether belonging to a society, company, or private person.

Agents of bank and exchange, in the commercial policy of France, are much the same with our exchange-brokers.

Agent and patient, in law, is said of a person who is the doer of a thing, and also the party to whom it is done.

Agents in rebus, in antiquity, signifies officers employed under the emperors of Constantinople, and differing only in name from the frumentarii, whom they succeeded. See FRUMENTARI.