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1. Little or no direct personal relation among proprietors Or between the proprietors and the business; such relations as do exist are on the impersonal basis of capital invested. 2. Control and management by elected representatives Acting in trust for the proprietors. 3. Liability of proprietors limited to their investment or To some fixed amount proportioned to their investment. Fiction of Corporate Entity Both the Continental courts and the English courts have tended always to regard the corporation or company as if it were a group of individuals, while in this country the tendency has been to follow strictly Chief Justice Marshall's famous definition in the Dartmouth College case in 1819, wherein he spoke of the corporation as "an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of the law." The logical simplicity of this view appeals strongly to the legal mind, and many beautiful bits of fine-spun reasoning based upon it are to be found in the records of our courts. But unfortunately, it happens to be far removed from the facts of every-day business life. We all know that in practice the corporation has no existence and no interests apart from the existence and interests of its shareholders, creditors, and officers. In an ideal world, possibly, men would devote them THE CORPORATION 27 Selves to building up a business corporation for its own sake, just as many men have devoted themselves to building up religious and governmental corporations, and in that case there would be some solid basis for the lawyer's line of reasoning....