in Law, are contracts by which a qualified property may be transferred to the hirer or borrower; in which there is only this difference, that hiring is always for a price or stipend, or additional recompense; borrowing is merely gratuitous. But the law in both cases is the same. They are both contracts, whereby the possession and transient property is transferred for a particular time or use, on condition and agreement to restore the goods so hired or borrowed, as soon as the time is expired or the use performed, together with the price or stipend (in case of hiring) either expressly agreed upon by the parties, or left to be implied by law, according to the value of the service. By this mutual contract, the hirer or borrower gains a temporary property in the thing hired, accompanied with an implied condition to use it with moderation, and not to abuse it; and the owner or lender retains a reverential interest in the same, and acquires a new property in the price or reward. Thus if a man hires or borrows a horse for a month, he has the possession and a qualified property therein during that period; on the expiration of which his qualified property determines, and the owner becomes (in case of hiring) entitled also to the premium or price for which the horse was hired.

There is one species of this price or reward the most usual of any, but concerning which many good and learned men have in former times very much perplexed themselves and other people, by raising doubts about Borrowing its legality in foro coniecturis. That is, when money is lent on a contract to receive not only the principal sum again, but also an increase by way of compensation for the use, which is generally called interest by those who think it lawful, and usury by those who do not so. But as to this, see the article INTEREST.