CONFESSIONS OF SAINT AUGUSTINE. 272 CONFLICT OF LAWS. CONFESSIONS OF SAINT AUGUS- TINE, The. a work by Saint Augustine in thirteen books, of which the first ten are auto- biographical. The remaining three ai'e e.xegetical, treating the first portion of Genesis. CONFIDENTIAL COMMUNICATION. See Pkivii.eged Communication. CONFIEMATION (Lat. confirmatio, from <!oii/innuie, to strengthen, from com-, together + firiiiure, to make firm, from firmus, firm). In the ancient Church, the rite so named was admin- istered immediately after baptism, which is still the custom in the Greek and African churches. In the Konian Catholic Church, for the last 300 or 400 years, the bishops have interposed a delay of seven years after infant baptism ; in the l^utheran Church, the rite is usually delayed for from tliirteen to sixteen years ; and in the Eng- lish Churcli, from fourteen to eighteen years. The ceremony consists in the impositicm of hands, accompanied by an invocation of the Holy Ghost as the Comforter and Strengthener. But botli in the Lutheran and English churches, the ceremony is made the occasion of requiring, from those who ■have been baptized in infancy, a renewal in their o«ii persons of the baptismal vow made for them by their godfathers and godmothers, wlio are thereby released from their responsibilit.y. None ■can partake of the Lord's Supper, in these •churches, unless they have been confirmed. In the Koman Catholic Church, confirmation is held to be one of the seven sacraments, and in its administration, unction and the sign of the cross are used ; in addition to the imposition of hands, the person confirmed receives a light blow on the cheek, to remind him that he must in future suffer affronts for the name of Christ. In the English Thirty-nine Articles, confirmation is de- clared not to be one of the sacraments, and the above ceremonies have been discontinued since the Reformation. See Sacrament. CONFIRMATION. In old English law, a conveyance of an estate or riglit in lands to one who has the possession or some estate therein, the object being to confirm or render sure and indefeasible an estate which, but for such con- firmation, is defective and voidable. It may be illustrated by the case of a disseizin, where the disseizee, or rightful owner, confirms the estate of the disseizor, who is in adverse possession of the land, vesting an absolute and indefeasible title in the latter. A confirmation was effected by deed and was nearly equivalent to a release (q.v.), by which it has been superseded. The confirmation is now, as a separate mode of con- veyance, obsolete, though the term is still some- times employed to describe the release of an outstanding claim to land to the party in posses- sion. See Conveyance. CONFISCATION (Lat. confiscaiw, from coii- fiscare, to confiscate, from com-, together + fiscu.i, basket, treasury). The forfeiture of lands or goods to the Crown or Stat*. At Rome iona confiscaia were goods forfeited to the Emperor's treasury. Though sometimes employed in Eng- lish and American law as synonymous with for- feiture for crime, confiscation is, at common law, a term of much more limited signification, and should probably be confined to the cases of the seizure by the Crown of waifs (honn irainnta) , or goods scattered by a thief in his flight, and of goods found in the possession of a felon and dis- claimed by him. See Escheat; Fobfeitube; Eminent Domain. Under certain statutes, however, the State ex- ercises the right to confiscate goods for violation of law, as in case of false entries of goods under customs and other revenue laws, and for viola- tions of excise and internal revenue laws of the United States. The seizure and sale of real jjroperty by the State for non-payment of taxes is a similar proceeding. Both international law and municipal law rec- ognize the riglit of the sovereign authorities to confiscate the goods of an alien enemy found within the State, but the right is in fact seldom exercised in modern times. CONFLICT OF LAWS. An opposition or contrariety between the laws of diii'erent juris- dictions affecting the rights of the same indi- vidual. In the decision of legal eonti'oversies every court regularly applies its own law (lex fori), i.e. the law prevailing within its jurisdic- tion; but exceptionally, and not infrequently, justice requires, and the domestic law itself authorizes, the application of foreign law. The cases in which the question arises whether domes- tie or foreign law should be applied are figura- tively temied cases of conflict; and 'conflict of laws' is the title under which it is customary to set forth the rules by which such conflicts are adjusted. Because this branch of the law li.as been of international growth, and because the rules applied in the different nations are in the main similar, it is sometimes described as 'international private law.' Apart from other objections, this term is too narrow; for the rules in question apply not merely to conflicts between the laws of different nations, but also to conflicts between different cantonal or provincial laws within the same State, and to conflicts between the laws of different States within the same empire or federation. To a New York court, the law of New Jersey is as foreign as that of Eng- land or of France, and the same rules govern its application. This branch of modern law was developed on the Continent of Europe in the Middle Ages; and because in the later Middle Ages all purely local rules, whether of written or unwritten law, were termed statutes (slaliitfi), it was first known as the doctrine of 'collision of statutes.' It took form as a body of judicial usages, but its development was large- ly controlled by the writings of leading jurists. Until the sixteenth century the authoritative writers were Italians (Bartolus and Baldus) ; from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, they were French (Duuioulin, D'Argentrt, Bouhier, and Boullenois), or Dutch (Burgnndus, Rodenburg, P. and J. Voet, and Huber) : in the nineteenth century the most important treatises were those of the American, Story, and the Ger- man. Savigny. By What Law Speciai. Relations are Gov- erned. Since Savigny, the effort of writers and of courts has been to determine by what local law each class of legal relations is properly gov- erned. A substantia] consensus exists on many of the chief points. ( 1 ) Domestic relations are regularly governed by the law of the husband's and father's domicile (lex domicilii) . (2) Sue- cession, whether testamentary or ah intesfnfo, is governed by the law of the decedent's domicile. iOn the Continent of Europe this is generally
