The principles of moral and political philosophy

BOSTON SCHQO:^ EDITION.

*"' '• ;..-» '•' '•» '-..

f THE

PRINCIPLES

OF

•MORAL AND POLITICAL

BY WILLIAM PALEY, D. D.

FOR THE EXAMINATION OF STUDENTS.

JOHN FROST,

MAYHEW GRAMMAR SCHOOL, BOSTON

TWO VOLUMES IN ONE.
VOL. I.

BOSTON :

:NJAMIN B. MUSSEY & co,,

29 CORNHILL.
1852.

Entered according ; in the yrer 1832.

.

TO THE

RIGHT REVEREND

EDMUND LAW, D. D.

LORD BISHOP OF CARLISLE.

MY LORD,

HAD the obligations which I owe to your Lordship's
kindness been much less or much fewer than they are, had
personal gratitude left any place in my mind for deliberation
or for inquiry, in selecting a name which every reader might
confess to be prefixed with propriety to a work that, in many
of its parts, bears no obscure relation to the general princi-
ples ot natural and revealed religion, I should have found
myself directed by many considerations to that of the Bish-
op of Carlisle. A long life spent in the most interesting of
all human pursuits — the investigation of moral and religious
truth, in constant and unwearied endeavours to advance the
discovery, communication, and success, of both ; a life so
occupied, and arrived at that period which renders every
life venerable, commands respect by a title which no virtuous
mind will dispute ; which no mind sensible of the importance
of these studies to the supreme concernments of mankind
will not rejoice to see acknowledged. Whatever difference,
or whatever opposition, some who peruse your Lordship's
writings may perceive between your conclusions and their
own, the good and wise of all persuasions will revere that
industry which has for its object the illustration or defence
of our common Christianity Your Lordship's researches

IV DEDICATION.

have never lost sight of one purpose, namely, to recover
the simplicity of the Gospel from beneath that load of un-
authorized additions which the ignorance of some ages, and
the learning of others, the superstition of weak, and the craft
of designing men, have (unhappily for its interest) heaped
upon it. And this purpose, I am convinced, was dictated
by the purest motive ; by a firm and, I think, a just opinion,
that whatever renders religion more rational renders it more
credible ; that he who, by a diligent and faithful examina-
tion of the original records, dismisses from the system one ar-
ticle which contradicts the apprehension, the experience, or
the reasoning of mankind, does more towards recommending
the belief, and, with the belief, the influence of Christianity,
to the understandings and consciences of serious inquirers,
and througli them to universal reception and authority, than
can be effected by a thousand contenders for creeds and or-
dinances of human establishment.

When the doctrine of Transubstantiation had taken pos-
session of the Christian world, it was not without the indus
try of learned men that it came at length to be discovered
that no such doctrine was contained in the New Testament
But had those excellent persons done nothing more by then
discovery than abolished an innocent superstition, or changed
some directions in the ceremonial of public worship, they
had merited little of that veneration with which the gratitude
of Protestant Churches remembers their services. What
they did for mankind was this : they exonerated Christianity
of a weight which sunk it. If indolence or timidity had
checked these exertions, or suppressed the fruit and publi-
cation of these inquiries, is it too much to affirm, that infi-
delity would at this day have been universal 1

I do not mean, my Lord, by the mention of this example
to insinuate, that any popular opinion which your Lordship
may have encountered ought to be compared with Tran-
substantiation, or that the assurance with which we reject
that extravagant absurdity is attainable in the controversies
in which your Lordship has been engaged ; but I mean, by

DEDICATION. V

calling to mind those great reformers of the public faith, to
observe, or rather to express my own persuasion, that to
restore the purity is most effectually to promote the progress
of Christianity ; and that the same virtuous motive, which
hath sanctified their labours, suggested yours. At a time
when some men appear not to perceive any good, and others
to suspect an evil tendency, in that spirit of examination
and research which is gone forth in Christian countries, this
testimony is become due, not only to the probity of your
Lordship's views, but to the general cause of intellectual and
religious liberty.

That your Lordship's life may be prolonged in health
and honour ; that it may continue to afford an instructive
proof, how serene and easy old age can be made by the
memory of important and well intended labours, by the pos»
session of public and deserved esteem, by the presence of
many grateful relatives ; above all, by the resources of re-
ligion, by an unshaken confidence in the designs of a " faith-
ful Creator," and a settled trust in the truth and in the
promises of Christianity, is the fervent prayer of,

MY LORD,
Your Lordship's dutiful,

Most obliged,
And most devoted servant,

WILLIAM PALEY.
Carlisle, Feb. 10, 1785.

CONTENTS,

BOOK I.

PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS.
Chap. P»ge

1. DEFINITION and Use of Science - - 21

2. The Law of Honour ----- 21

3. The Law of the Land - - - - 22

4. The Scriptures - .... JW*-^

5. The Moral Sense - - - - - 26

6. Human Happiness - - - - • 32

7. Virtue ----..

BOOK II.

MORAL OBLIGATION.

1. The Question, Why am I obliged to keep my

Word? considered - - - - 52

2. What we mean when we say a Man is obliged

to do a thing ------ 63

8. The Question, Why am I obliged to keep my

Word? resumed - - - - - 54

4. The Will of God 66

V CONTENTS.

Chap. Pag,

5. The Divine Benevolence - - - - 58
C^tftility --.....61

7. The necessity of General Rules - - - 63

8. The Consideration of General Consequences

pursued -.-....65

9. Of Right 68

10. The Division of Rights - - - - 69
11 The General Rights of Mankind- - - 74

BOOK III.

RELATIVE DUTIES.

PART I.

OF RELTIVE DUTIES WHICH ARE DETERMINATE.

1. Of Property 80

2. The Use of the Institution of Property - 81

3. The History of Property - - - - 88

4. In what the Right of Property is founded - 85

5. Promises -----..90

6. Contracts - - - - - - -101

7. Contracts of Sale - - - - - 101

8. Contracts of Hazard ----- 105

9. Contracts of Lending of inconsumable Pro-

perty - - - ... 106

10. Contracts concerning the Lending of Money - 108

11. Contracts of Labour — Service - - - 113

12. Contracts of Labour — Commissions - - 116

13. Contracts of Labour — Partnership - 119

14. Contracts of Labour — Offices - * 120

CONTENTS. IX

Chap Pag«

15. Lies - 128

16. Oaths 126

17. Oaths in Evidence - - - - - 132

18. Oath of Allegiance 133

19. Oath against Bribery in the Election of Mem-

bers of Parliament - - - - - 186

20. Oath against Simony ----- 137

21. Oaths to observe Local Statutes- - - 139

22. Subscription to Articles of Religion - - 141

23. Wills 142

PART II.

OF RELATIVE DUTIES WHICH ARE INDETERMI-
NATE, AND OF THE CRIMES OPPOSITE TO THESE.

1. Charity 148

2. Charity — The Treatment of our Domestics

and Dependents ----- 149

3. Slavery ------- 150

4. Charity — Professional Assistance - - 153

5. Charity — Pecuniary Bounty - 155

6. Resentment - - - - - -164

7. Anger 164

8. Revenge ------- 166

. 9. Duelling 170

10. Litigation - - - - - - -173

11. Gratitude .... - 176

12. Slander - . . 177

CONTENTS.

PART III.

Dr RELATIVE DUTIES WHICH RESULT FROM TH«
CONSTITUTION OF THE SEXES, AND OP TH«
CRIMES OPPOSED TO THESE.

1. Of the Public Use of Marriage Institutions - 180

2. Fornication -----. 181
&. Seduction - - - - v- 186

4. Adultery 188

6. Incest ------- 192

6. Polygamy ------- 194

7. Divorce ------ 198

8. Marriage 205

9. Of the Duty of Parents - - - - 208

10. The Rights of Parents - - - - 221

11. The Duty of Children - - 228

PREFACE.

IN the treatises that I have met with upon the subject of
morals, I appear to myself to have remarked the following
imperfections ; — either that the principle was erroneous,
or that it was indistinctly explained, or that the rules
deduced from it were not sufficiently adapted to real life
and to actual situations. The writings of Grotius, and the
larger work of Puffendorff, are of too forensic a cast, too
much mixed up with the civil law and with the jurispru-
dence of Germany, to answer precisely the design of a sys-
tem of ethics, — the direction of private consciences in the
general conduct of human life. Perhaps, indeed, they are
not to be regarded as institutes of morality calculated to in-
struct an individual in his duty, so much as a species of law
books and law authorities, suited to the practice of those
courts of justice, whose decisions are regulated by general
principles of natural equity, in conjunction with the max-
ims of the Roman code ; of which kind, I understand, there
are many upon the Continent. To which may be added,
concerning both these authors, that they are more occupied
in describing the rights and usages of independent communi-
ties than is necossary in a work which professes not to ad-
just the correspondence of nations, but to delineate the of-
fices of domestic life. The profusion also of classical quo-
tations with which many of their pages abound, seems to
me a fault from which it will not be easy to excuse them.
If these extracts be intended as decorations of style, the
composition is overloaded with ornaments of one kind. To
any thing more than ornament they can make no cla,im.
To propose them as serious arguments, gravely to attempt
to establish or fortify a moral duty by the testimony of a
Creek or Roman poet, is to trifle wiih the attention of the

reader, or rather to take it off from all just principles of rea-
soning in morals.

Of our ov n writers in this branch of philosophy, I find
none that 1 think perfectly free from the three objections
which I have stated. There is likewise a fourth property
observable almost in all of them, namely^ that they divide
too much the law of Nature from the precepts of Revelation ;
some authors industriously declining the mention of Scripture
authorities, as belonging to a different province ; and others
reserving them for a separate volume : which appears to me
much the same defect, as if a commentator on the laws of
England should content himself with stating upon each
head the common law of the land, without taking any notice
of acts of parliament ; or should choose to give his readers
the common law in one book, and the statute law in another.
" When the obligations of morality are taught," says a pi-
ous and celebrated writer, " let the sanctions of Christianity
never be forgotten : by which it will be shown that they give
strength and lustre to each other : religion will appear to be
the voice of reason, and morality will be the will of God."*

The manner also which modern writers have treated of
subjects of morality is, in my judgment, liable to much
exception. It has become of late a fashion to deliver moral
institutes in strings or series of detached propositions, with-
out subjoining a continued argument or regular dissertation
to any of them. This sententious apophthegmatizing style,
by crowding propositions and paragraphs too fast upon the
mind, and by carrying the eye of the reader from subject to
subject in too quick a succession, gains not a sufficient hold
upon the attention, to leave either the memory furnished or
the understanding satisfied. However useful a syllabus of
topics or a series of propositions may be in the hands of a
lecturer, or as a guide to a student, who is supposed to con-
sult other books, or to institute upon each subject research-
es of his own, the method is by no means convenient for ordi-

* Preface to " The Preceptor," by Dr. Jotir.sim

PREFACE. Xiii

nary readers ; because few readers are sucn thinkers as to
want only a hint to set their thoughts at work upon ; or such
as will pause and tarry at every proposition, till they have
traced ouf its dependency, proof, relation, and consequences,
before they permit themselves to step on to another. A res-
pectable writer of this class* has comprised his doctrine of
slavery in the three following propositions : —

" No one is born a slave ; because every one is born with
all his original rights.

" No one can become a slave ; because no one from being
a person can, in the language of the Roman law, become a
thing, or subject of property.

" The supposed property of the master in the slave, there-
fore, is matter of usurpation, not of right."

It maybe possible to deduce, from these few adages, such
a theory of the primitive rights of human nature as will evince
the illegality of slavery : but surely an author requires too
much of his reader, when he expects him to make these de-
ductions for himself; or to supply, perhaps from some re-
mote chapter of the same treatise, the several proofs and ex-
planations which are necessary to render the meaning and
truth of these assertions intelligible.

There is a fault, the opposite of this, which some moralists
who have adopted a different and, I think, a better plan of
composition, have not always been careful to avoid ; namely,
the dwelling upon verbal and elementary distinctions, with a
labour and prolixity proportioned much more to the subtlety
of the question, than to its value and importance in the pro-
secution of the subject. A writer upon the law of nature,f
whose explications in every part of philosophy, though al-
ways diffuse, are often very successful, has employed three
long sections in endeavouring to prove that " permissions
are not laws." The discussion of this controversy, how-
ever essential it might be to dialectic precision, was certain-

* Dr. Ferguson, author of " Institutes of Moral Philosophy." 1767.
•j Dr. Rutherforlh, author of " Institutes of Natural Law."
VOL. 1. 2

ly not necessary to the pogress of a work designed to de-
scribe the duties and obligations of civil life. The reader
becomes impatient when he is detained by disquisitions which
have no other object than the settling of terms and phrases;
and, what is worse, they for whose use such books are chief-
ly intended will not be persuaded to read them at all.

I am led to propose these strictures, not by any propensity
to depreciate the labours of my predecessors, much less to
invite a comparison between the merits of their'performances
and my own ; but solely by the consideration, that when a
writer offers a book to the public, upon a subject on which
the public are already in possession of many others, he is
bound by a kind of literary justice to inform his readers, dis-
tinctly and specifically, what it is he professes to supply, and
what he expects to improve. The imperfections above enu-
merated are those which I have endeavoured to avoid or
remedy. Of the execution the reader must judge ; but this
was the design.

Concerning the principle of morals it would be premature
to speak : but concerning the manner of unfolding and ex-
plaining that principle, I have somewhat which I wish to be
remarked. An experience of nine years in the office of a
public tutor in one of the universities, and in that depaitment
of education to which these chapters relate, afforded me fre-
quent occasion to observe that, in discoursing to young minds
upon topics of morality, it required much more pains to make
them perceive the difficulty than to understand the solution :
that, unless the subject was so drawn up to a poiHt, as to
exhibit the full force of an objection, or the exact place of a
doubt, before any explanation was entered upon, — in other
words, unless some curiosity was excited before it was at-
tempted to be satisfied, the labour of the teacher was lost.
When information was not desired, it was seldom, I found,
retained. I have made this observation my guide in the fol-
lowing work : that is, upon each occasion I have endeavour-
ed, before I suffered myself to proceed in the disquisition,
to put the reader in complete possession of the question ;

PREFACE. XV

and to do it in the way that 1 thought most likely to stir up
his own doubts and solicitude about it.

In pursuing the principle of morals through the detail of
cases to which it is applicable, I have had in view to accom-
modate both the choice of the subjects and the manner of
handling them to the situations which arise in the life of an
inhabitant of this country in these times. This is the thing
that I think to be principally wanting in former treatises ;
and perhaps the chief advantage whicli will be found in mine.
I have examined no doubts, I have discussed no obscurities,
I have encountered no errors, I have adverted to no contro-
versies, but what I have seen actually to exist. If some of
the questions treated of appear to a more instructed reader
minute or puerile, I desire such reader to be assured, that I
have found them occasions of difficulty to young minds ; and
what I have observed in young minds, I should expect to
meet with in all who approach these subjects for the first
time. Upon each article of human duty, I have combined
with the conclusions of reason the declarations of Scripture,
when they are to be had, as of coordinate authority, and as
both terminating in the same sanctions.

In the manner of the work, I have endeavoured so to at.-
temper the opposite plans above animadverted upon, as that
the reader may not accuse me, either of too much haste or
too much delay. I have bestowed upon each subject enough
of dissertation to give a body and substance to the chapter
in which it is treated of, as well as coherence and perspicuir-
ty : on the other hand, I have seldom, I hope, exercised the
patience of the reader by the length arid prolixity of my es-
says, or disappointed that patience at last by the tenuity and
unimportance of the conclusion.

There are two particulars in the following work, for which
it may be thought necessary that I should offer some excuse.
The first of which is, that I have scarcely ever referred to
any other book ; or mentioned the name of the author whose
thoughts, and sometimes, possibly, whose very expressions,
I have adopted. My method of writing has constantly been
this ; to extract wkat I could from my own stores and my

XVI PREFACE.

own reflections in the first place ; to put down that, and af-
terwards to consult upon each subject such readings as fell
in my way : which order, 1 am convinced, is the only one
whereby any person can keep his thoughts from sliding into
other men's trains. The effect of such a plan upon the pro-
duction itself will be, that, whilst some parts in matter or
manner may be new, others will be little else than a repeti-
tion of the old. I make no pretensions to perfect originality :
I claim to be something more than a mere compiler. Much,
no doubt, is borrowed ; but the fact is, that the notes for this
work having been prepared for some years, and such things
having been from time to time inserted in them as appear-
ed to me worth preserving, and such insertions made com-
monly without the name of the author from whom they were
taken, I should, at this time, have found a difficulty in re-
covering those names with sufficient exactness to be able to
render to every man his own. Nor, to speak the truth, did
it appear to me worth while to repeat the search merely for
this purpose. When authorities are relied upon, names
must be produced ; when a discovery has been made in sci-
ence, it may be unjust to borrow the invention without ac-
knowledging the author. But in an argumentative treatise,
and upon a subject which allows no place for discovery or
invention, properly so called; and in which all that can be-
long to a writer is his mode of reasoning or his judgment of
probabilities ; I should have thought it superfluous, had it
been easier to me than it was, to have interrupted my text,
or crowded my margin, with references to every author
whose sentiments I have made use of. There is, however,
one work to which I owe so much that it would be ungrate*
.rul not to confess the obligation : I mean the writings of the
late Abraham Tucker, Esq. part of which were published
by himself, and the remainder since his death, under the
title of " The Light of Nature pursued, by Edward Search,
Esq." I have found in this writer more original thinking
and observation, upon the several subjects that he has taken
in hand, than in any other, not to say, than in all others put
together. His talent also for illustration is unrivalled. But

PREFACE. XVfl

his thoughts are diffused through a long, various, and irregu-
lar work. I shall account it no mean praise, if I have been
sometimes able to dispose into method, to collect into heads
and articles, or to exhibit in more compact and tangible
masses, what, in that otherwise excellent performance, is
spread over too much surface.

The next circumstance, for which some apology may be
eipected, is the joining of moral and political philosophy to-
gether, or the addition of a book of politics to a system of
ethics. Against this objection, if it be made one, I might
defend myself by the example of many approved writers, who
have treated de offieiis hominis et civis, or, as some choose
to express it, " of the rights and obligations of man, in his
individual and social capacity," in the same book. I might
allege also, that the part a member of the commonwealth
shall take in political contentions, the vote he shall give, the
counsels he shall approve, the support he shall afford, or the
opposition he shall make, to any system of public measures,
— is as much a question of personal duty, as much con-
cerns the conscience of the individual who deliberates, as the
determination of any doubt which relates to the conduct of
private life; that consequently political philosophy is, pro-
perly speaking, a continuation of moral philosophy; or rather
indeed a part of it, supposing moral philosophy to have for
its aim the information of the human conscience in every
deliberation that is likely to come before it. I might avail
myself of these excuses, if I wanted them; but the vindica-
tion upon which I rely is the following : In stating the prin-
ciple of morals, the reader will observe that I have employ-
ed some industry in explaining the theory, and showing the
necessity of general rules; without the full and constant
consideration of which, I am persuaded that no system of
moral philosophy can be satisfactory or consistent. This
foundation being laid, or rather this habit being formed, the
discussion of political subjects, to which, more than to al-
nost any other, general rules are applicable, became clear
and easy. Whereas had these topics been assigned to a
distinct work, it would have been necessary to have repeated

VOL. 1. 2 *

XVin PREFACE.

the same rudiments, to have established over again the same
principles, as those which we have already exemplified and
rendered familiar to the reader, in the former parts of this.
In a word, if there appear to any one too great a diversity,
or too wide a distance, between the subjects treated of in the
course of the present volume, let him be reminded, that
the doctrine of general rules pervades and connects the
whole.

It may not be improper, however, to admonish the reader,
that, under the name of politics, he is not to look for those
occasional controversies, which the occurrences of the present
day, or any temporary situation of public affairs, may ex-
cite ; and most of which, if not beneath the dignity, it is be-
side the purpose, of a philosophical institution to advert to.
He will perceive, that the several disquisitions are framed
with a reference to the condition of this country, and of this
government ; but it seemed to me to belong to the design of
a work like the following, not so much to discuss each al-
tercated point with the particularity of a political pamphlet
upon the subject, as to deliver those universal principles, and
to exhibit that mode and train of reasoning in politics, by the
due application of which every man might be enabled to at-
tain to just conclusions of his own. I am not ignorant of
an objection that has been advanced against all abstract
speculations concerning the origin, principle, or limitation
of civil authority ; namely, that such speculations possess
little or no influence upon the conduct either of the state or
of the subject, of the governors or the governed ; nor are
attended with any useful donsequences to either; that in
times of tranquillity they are not wanted ; in times of con
fusion they are never heard. This representation, however,
in my opinion, is not just. Times of tumult, it is true, are
not the times to learn ; but the choice which men make of
their side and party, in the most critical occasions of the
commonwealth, may nevertheless depend upon the lessons
they have received, the books they have read, and the opin-
ions they have imbibed, in seasons of leisure and quietness.
Some judicious persons, who were present at Geneva during

PREFACE. JOS

the troubles which lately convulsed that city, thought they
perceived, in the contentions there carrying on, the opera-
tion of that political theory, which the writings of Rousseau,
and the unbounded esteem in which these writings are hoi-
den by his countrymen, had diffused amongst the people.
Throughout the political disputes that have within these few
years taken place in Great Britain, in her sister kingdom,
and in her foreign dependencies, it was impossible not to ob-
serve, in the language of party, in the resolutions of public
meetings, in debate, in conversation, in the general strain of
those fugitive and diurnal addresses to the public which such
occasions call forth, the prevalency of those ideas of civil
authority which are displayed in the works of Mr. Locke
The credit of that great name, the courage and liberality of
his principles, the skill and clearness with which his argu-
ments are proposed, no less than the weight of the arguments
themselves, have given a reputation and currency to his opin-
ions, of which I am persuaded, in any unsettled state of
public affairs, the influence would be felt. As this is not a
place for examining the truth or tendency of these doctrines,
I would not be understood, by what I have said, to express
any judgment concerning either. I mean only to remark,
that such doctrines are not without effect ; and that it is of
practical importance to have the principles from which the
obligations of social union, and the extent of civil obedience,
are derived, rightly explained, and well understood. Indeed,
as far as I have observed, in political, beyond all other sub-
jects, where men are without some fundamental and scien-
tific principles to resort to, they are liable to have their un-
derstandings played upon by cant phrases and unmeaning
terms, in which every party in every country possesses a
vocabulary. We appear astonished when we see the multi-
tude led away by sounds ; but we should remember that, if
sounds work miracles, it is always upon ignorance. The
influence of names is in exact proportion to the want of
knowledge.

These are the observations with which I have judged it
expedient to prepare the attention of my reader. Concern-

XX PREFACE.

ing the personal motives which engaged me in the following
attempt, it is not necessary that I say much : the nature of
my academical situation, a great deal of leisure since my
retirement from it, the recommendation of an honoured and
excellent friend, the authority of the venerable prelate to whom
these labours are inscribed, the not perceiving in what way I
could employ my time or talents better, and my disapproba-
tion, in literary men, of that fastidious indolence which sits
still because it disdains to do little, were the considerations
that directed my thoughts to this design. Nor have I repent-
ed of the undertaking. Whatever be the fate or reception
of this work, it owes its author nothing. In sickness and in
health I have found in it that which can alone alleviate
the one or give enjoyment to the other, — occupation and
engagement.

BOOK I.

PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS.

CHAPTER I.

DEFINITION AND USE OF THE SCIENCE,

MORAL Philosophy, Morality, Ethics, Casuistry,
Natural Law, mean all the same thing; namely, That
Science which teaches men their duty, and the
reasons of it.

The use of such a study depends upon this, that,
without it, the rules of life, by which men are ordina-
rily governed, oftentimes mislead them, through a de-
fect either in the rule or in the application.

These rules are, the Law of Honour, the Law of
the Land, and the Scriptures.

CHAPTER II.

THE LAW OF HONOUR.

THE Law of Honour is a system of rules construct-
ed by people of fashion, and calculated to facilitate
their intercourse with one another; and for no other
purpose.

22 LAW OF THE LAND.

Consequently, nothing is adverted to by the Law
of Honour, but what tends to incommode this inter
course.

Hence this law only prescribes and regulates the
duties betwixt equals; omitting such as relate to the
Supreme Being, as well as those which we owe to our
inferiors.

For which reason, profaneness, neglect of public
worship or private devotion, cruelty to servants, rigo-
rous treatment of tenants or other dependants, want of
charity to the poor, injuries done to tradesmen by in-
solvency or delay of payment, with numberless exam-
ples of the same kind, are accounted no breaches of
honour; because a man is not a less agreeable com-
panion for these vices, nor the worse to deal with in
those concerns which are usually transacted between
one gentleman and another.

Again; the Law of Honour, being constituted by
men occupied in the pursuit of pleasure, and for the
mutual conveniency of such men, will be found, as
might be expected from the character and design of
the law-makers, to be, in most instances, favourable
to the licentious indulgence of the natural passions.

Thus it allows of fornication, adultery, drunkenness,
prodigality, duelling, and of revenge in the extreme,
and lays no stress upon the virtues opposite to these.

CHAPTER III.

THE LAW OF THE LAND.

THAT part of mankind who are beneath the Law
of Honour often make the Law of the Land their
rule of life; that is, they are satisfied with themselves,
so long as they do or omit nothing, for the doing or
omitting of which the Law can punish them.

Whereas every system of human Laws, considered
as a rule of life, labours under the two following de-
fects:—

1. Human Laws omit many duties, as not objects

THE SCRIPTURES. 23

of compulsion; such as piety to God, bounty to the
poor, forgiveness of injuries, education of children,
gratitude to benefactors.

The law never speaks but to command, nor com-
mands but where it can compel; consequently those
duties, which by their nature must be voluntary, are
left out of the statute-book, as lying beyond the reach
of its operation and authority.

2. Human laws permit, or, which is the same thing,
suffer to go unpunished, many crimes, because they
are incapable of being denned by any previous des-
cription.— Of which nature are luxury, prodigality, par-
tiality in voting at those elections in which the qualifi-
cations of the candidate ought to determine the sue-
cess, caprice in the disposition of men's fortunes at
their death, disrespect to parents, and a multitude
of similar examples.

For, this is the alternative: either the law must de-
fine beforehand and with precision the offences which
it punishes; or it must be left to the discretion of the
magistrate to determine upon each particular accusa-
tion, whether it constitutes that offence which the law
designed to punish, or not; which is, in effect, leaving
to the magistrate to punish or not to punish, at his
pleasure, the individual who is brought before him;
which is just so much tyranny. Where, therefore, as
in the instances above mentioned, the distinction be-
tween right and wrong is of too subtile or of too secret a
nature to be ascertained by any preconcerted language,
the law of most countries, especially of free states,
rather than commit the liberty of the subject to the
discretion of the magistrate, leaves men in such cases
to themselves.

CHAPTER IV.

THE SCRIPTURES.

WHOEVER expects to find in the Scriptures a spe-
cific direction for every moral doubt that arises looks

24 THE SCRIPTURES.

for more than he will meet with. And to what mag-
nitude such a detail of particular precepts would have
enlarged the sacred volume, may be partly understood
from the following consideration: — The laws of this
country, including the acts of the legislature, and the
decisions of our supreme courts of justice, are not con-
tained in fewer than fifty folio volumes; and yet it is
not once in ten attempts that you can find the case
you look for, in any law-book whatever; to say noth-
ing of those numerous points of conduct, concerning
which the law professes not to prescribe or determine
any thing. Had then the same particularity, which
obtains in human laws so far as they go, been attempt-
ed in the Scriptures, throughout the whole extent of
morality, it is manifest they would have been by much
too bulky to be either read or circulated: or rather,
as St. John says, " even the world itself could not
contain the books that should be written."

Morality is taught in scripture L his wise. — General
rules are laid down of piety, justice, benevolence, and
purity; such as, worshipping God inspirit and in truth;
doing as we would be done by; loving our neighbour
as ourselves; forgiving others, as we expect forgiveness
from God; that mercy is better than sacrifice; that
not that which entereth into a man (nor, by parity of
reason, any ceremonial pollutions,) but that which
proceedcth from the heart, defileth him. These rules
are occasionally illustrated, either by fictitious exam-
ples, as in the parable of the good Samaritan; and of
the cruel servant, who refused to his fellow servant
that indulgence and compassion which his master had
shewn to him; or in instances which actually pre-
sented themselves, as in Christ's reproof of his disci-
ples at the Samaritan village; his praise of the poor
widow, who cast in her last mite; his censure of the
Pharisees who chose out the chief rooms, — and of the
tradition, whereby they evaded the command 1o sus-
tain their indigent parents: or, lastly, in the solution
of questions, which those tvho were about our Sa-
viour proposed to him ; as his answer to the young
man who asked him, "What lack I yet?" and to the
honest scribe, who had found out, even in that age

THE SCRIPTURES. 25

and country, that " to love God and his neighbour,
was more than all whole burnt-offerings and sacri-
fice."

And this is in truth the way in which all practical
sciences are taught, as Arithmetic Grammar, Navi-
gation, and the like. — Rules are laid down, and exam-
ples are subjoined: not that these examples are the
cases, much less all the cases, which will actually oc-
cur; but by way only of explaining the principle of the
rule, and as so many specimens of the method of ap-
plying it. The chief difference is, that the examples
in Scripture are not annexed to the rules with the didac-
tic regularity to which we are now-a-days accustomed,
but delivered dispersedly, as particular occasions sug-
gested them; which gave them, however, (especially
to those who heard them, and were present on the oc-
casions which produced them,) an energy and per-
suasion, much beyond what the same or any instances
would have appeai jd with, in their places in a sys-
tem.

Beside this, the Scriptures commonly presuppose,
in the persons to whom they speak, a knowledge of
the principles of natural justice; and are employed
not so much to teach new rules of morality, as to en-
force the practice of it by new sanctions, and by a
greater certainty ; which last seems to be the pro-
per business of a revelation from God, and what was
most wanted.

Thus the " unjust, covenant-breakers, and extortion-
ers," are condemned in Scripture, supposing it known,
or leaving it, where it admits of doubt, to moralists to
determine what injustice, extortion, or breach of cove-
nant are.

The above considerations are intended to prove that
the Scriptures do not supersede the use of the science
of which we profess to treat, and at the same time to
acquit them of any charge of imperfection or insuffi-
ciency on that account. 3

26 MORAL SENSE.

CHAPTER V.

THE MORAL SENSE.

"THE father of Cains Toranius had been pro-
scribed by the triumvirate. — Caius Toranius> com-
ing over to the interests of that party, discovered to
the officers, who were in pursuit of his father's life,
the place where he concealed himself, and gave them
withal a description, by which they might distinguish
his person, when they found him. The old man, more
anxious for the safety and fortunes of his son than
about the little that might remain of his ov.n life^ be-
gan immediately to inquire of the officers who seized
him, whether his son was well; whether he had done
his duty to the satisfaction of his generals? * That son
(replied one of the officers,) so dear to thy affections,
betrayed thee to us; by his information thou art ap-
prehended, and diest.' The officer with this, struck
a poinard to his heart, and the unhappy parent fell,
not so much affected by his fate as by the means to
which he owed it."*

Now the question is, whether, if this story were re-
lated to the wild boy caught some years ago in the
woods of Hanover, or to a savage without experience,
and without instruction, cut off* in his infancy from all
intercourse with his species, and, consequently, under
no possible influence of example, authority, education,
sympathy, or habit; whether, I say, such a one would
feel, upon the relation, any degree of that sentiment

*" Caius Toranius triumvirum partes secutus, proscripti
patris sui praetorii et ornati viri latebras, astatem, notasque
corporis, quibus agnosci posset, centurionibus edidit, qui eum
persecuti sunt. Sencx de filii magis vitji et increments
quaSm de reliquo spiritu suo solicitus, an incolumis esset, et
an irnperatoribus satisfaceret, interrogareeoscccpit. E qui-
bus unus : ' Ab illo,' inquit, * quern tantopere diligis, der.ion-
stratus nostro ministerio, filii indicio occideris :' protimisque
pectus ejus gladio trajecit. Collapsus itaque est infelix,
auctore csedis, qu£m ipsct caede, miserior." — Valer. Max.
lib. ix. cap. 11.

MORAL. SENSE. 27

of disapprobation of Toranius's conduct which we
feel, or not ?

They who maintain the existence of a moral sense;
of innate maxims; of a natural conscience; that the
love of virtue and hatred of vice are instinctive, or the
perception of right and wrong intuitive (all which are
only different ways of expressing the same opinion,)
affirm that he would.

They who deny the existence of a moral sense, &c.
affirm that he would not.

And, upon this, issue is joined.

As the experiment has never been made, and from
the difficulty of procuring a subject (not to mention
the impossibility of proposing the question to him, if
we had one,) is never likely to be made, what would
be the event can only be judged of from probable
reasons.

They who contend for the affirmative observe, that
we approve examples of generosity, gratitude, fidelity,
&c. and condemn the contrary, instantly, without de-
liberation, without having any interest of our own
concerned in them, ofttimes without being conscious
of, or able to give any reason for, our approbation:
that this approbation is uniform and universal, the
same sorts of conduct being approved or disapproved
in all ages and countries of the world; — circumstances,
say they, which strongly indicate the operation of an
instinct or moral sense.

On the other hand, answers have been given to most
of these arguments, by the patrons of the opposite
system; and,

First, as to the uniformity above alleged, they con-
trovert the fact. They remark, from authentic ac-
counts of historians and travellers, that there is scarce-
ly a single vice which, in some age or country of the
world, has not been countenanced by public opinion
that in one country it is esteemed an office of piety in
children to sustain their aged parents; in another, to
despatch them out of the way: that suicide, in one age
of the world, has been heroism, is in another felony:
that theft, which is punished by most laws, by the laws
of Sparta was not unfrequently rewarded: that the

28 MORAL, SEXSE.

promiscuous commerce of the sexes, although con-
demned by the regulations and censure of all civilized
nations, is practised by the savages of the tropical
regions without reserve, compunction or disgrace:
that crimes, of which it is no longer permitted us even
to speak, have had their advocates amongst the sages
of very renowned times: that, if an inhabitant of the
polished nations of Europe be delighted with the ap-
pearance, wherever he meets with it,' of happiness,
tranquillity, and comfort, a wild American is no less
diverted with the writhings and contortions of a victim
at the stake: that even amongst ourselves, and in the
present improved state of moral knowledge, we are
far from a perfect consent in our opinions or feelings:
that you shall hear duelling alternately reprobated and
applauded, according to the sex, age, or station of the
person you converse with: that the forgiveness of in-
'uries and insults is accounted by one sort of people
magnanimity, by another meanness: that in the abovo
instances, and perhaps in most others, moral approba-
tion follows the fashions and institutions of the coun
try we live in; which fashions also and institutions
themselves have grown out of the exigencies, the cli
mate, situation, or local circumstances of the country
or have been set up by the authority of an arbitrar)
chieftain, or the unaccountable caprice of the multi-
tude:— all which, they observe, looks very little like
the steady hand and indelible characters of Nature.
But,

Secondly, Because, after these exceptions and abate-
ments, it cannot be denied but that some sorts of
actions command and receive the esteem of mankind
more than others; and that the approbation of them
is general though not universal: as to this they say,
that the general approbation of virtue, even in instances
where we have no interest of our own to induce us to
it, may be accounted for, without the assistance of a
moral sense; thus:

" Having experienced, in some instance, a particu-
lar conduct to be beneficial to ourselves, or observed
that it would be so, a sentiment of approbation rises
up in our minds; which sentiment afterwards accom

MORAL SENSE. 29

panics the idea or mention of the same conduct, al-
though the private advantage which first excited it no
longer exist."

And this continuance of the passion, after the rea-
son of it has ceased, is nothing more, say they, than
what happens in other cases; especially in the love of
money, which is in no person so eager as it is often-
times found to be in a rich old miser, without family
to provide for, or friend to oblige by it, and to whom
consequently it is no longer (and he may be sensible
of it too) of any real use or value; yet is this man as
much overjoyed with gain, and mortified by losses, as
be was the first day he opened his shop, and when his
very subsistence depended upon his success in it.

By these means the custom of approving certain
actions commenced: and when once such a custom
hath got footing in the world, it is no difficult thing to
explain how it is transmitted and continued; for then J
the greatest part of tKbse who approve of virtue ap- '*!
prove of it from authority, by imitation, and from a j
habit of approving such and such actions, inculcated I
in early youth, and receiving, as men grow up, con-
tinual accessions of strength and vigour, from censure
and encouragement, from the books they read, the
conversations they hear, the current application of
epithets, the general turn of language, and the various
other causes by which it universally comes to pass, that
a society of men, touched in the feeblest degree with
the same passion, soon communicate to one another a
great degree of it.* This is the case with most of us

* From instances of popular tumults, seditions, factions,
panics, and of all passions which are shared with a multitude,
we may learn the, influence of society, in exciting and sup-
porting any emotion ; while the most ungovernable disorders
are raised, we find, by that means, from the slightest and
most frivolous occasions. He must be more or less than
man who kindles not in the common blaze. What wonder
then, that moral sentiments are found of such influence in
life, though springing from principles which may appear, at
first sight, somewhat small and delicate." — Humfs Inquiry
concerning the Principles of Morals, Sect. ix. p. 326

3*

30 MORAL SENSE.

at present; and is the cause also, that the process of
association, described in the last paragraph but one,
is little now either perceived or wanted.

Amongst the causes assigned for the continuance
and diffusion of the same moral sentiments amongst
- mankind, we have mentioned imitation. The efficacy
of this principle is most observable in children: in-
deed, if there be any thing in them which deserves
the name of an instinct, it is their propensity to imi-
tation. No\v there is nothing which children imitate
or apply more readily than expressions of affection and
aversion, of approbation, hatred, resentment, and the
like; and when these passions and expressions are
once connected, which they soon will be by the same
association which unites words with their ideas, the
passion will follow the expression, and attach upon
the object to which the child has been accustomed to
apply the epithet. In a word, when almost every
thing else is learned by imitation, can we wonder to
find the same cause concerned in the generation of
our moral sentiments ?

Another considerable objection to the system of
moral instincts is this, that there are no maxims in
the science which can well be deemed innate, as none
perhaps can be assigned which are absolutely and
universally true; in other words, which do not bend to
circumstances. Veracity, which seems, if any be, a
natural duty, is excused in many cases towards an
enemy, a thief, or a madman. The obligation of
promises, which is a first principle in morality, de-
pends upon the circumstances under which they were
made: they may have been unlawful, or become so
since, or inconsistent with former promises, or errone-
ous, or extorted; under all which cases, instances may
be suggested, where the obligation to perform the
promise would be very dubious: and so of most other
general rules, when they come to be actually applied.

An argument has been also proposed on the same
side of the question, of this kind. Together with the
instinct, there must have been implanted, it is said, a
clear and precise idea of the object upon which it was
to attach. The instinct and the idea of the object are

MORAL SENSE. 31

inseparable even in imagination, and as necessarily
accompany each other as any correlative ideas what-
ever: that is, in plainer terms, if we be prompted by
nature to the approbation of particular actions, we
must have received also from nature a distinct concep-
tion of the action we are thus prompted to approve;
which we certainly have not received.

But as this argument bears alike against all in-
stincts, and against their existence in brutes as well
as in men, it will hardly, I suppose, produce convic-
tion, though it may be difficult to find an answer to it.

Upon the whole, it~ seems to me, either that there
exist no such instincts as compose what is called the
moral sense, or that they are not now to be distin-
guished from prejudices and habits ; on which account
they cannot be depended upon in moral reasoning: i
mean, that it is not a safe way of arguing, to assume
certain principles as so many dictates, impulses, and
instincts of nature, and then to draw conclusions from
these principles, as to the rectitude or wrongness of
actions, independent of the tendency of such actions,
or of any other consideration whatever.

Aristotle lays down, as a fundamental and self-evi-
dent maxim, that nature intended barbarians to be
slaves; and proceeds to deduce from this maxim a
train of conclusions, calculated to justify the policy
which then prevailed. And I question whether the
same maxim be not still self-evident to the company
of merchants trading to the coast of Africa.

Nothing is so soon made as a maxim; and it appears
from the example of Aristotle, that authority and con-
venience, education, prejudice, and general practice
have no small share in the making of them; and that
the laws of custom are very apt to be mistaken for the
order of nature.

For wrhich reason, I suspect, that a system of mo-
rality, built upon instincts, will only find out reasons
and excuses for opinions and practices already estab-
lished,— will seldom correct or reform either.

But further, suppose we admit the existence of these
instincts; what, it may be asked, is their authority t
No man, you say, can act ir deliberate opposition to

82 HUMAN HAPPINESS,

them, without a secret remorse of conscience. Bui
this remorse may be borne with: and if the sinner
choose to bear with it, for the sake of the pleasure or
the profit -which he expects from his wickedness; or
finds the pleasure of the sin to exceed the remorse of
conscience, of which he alone is the judge, and con-
cerning which, when he feels them both together, he
can hardly be mistaken, the moral instinct man, so far
as I can understand, has nothing more to offer.

For if he allege that these instincts are so many indi-
cations of the will of God, and consequently presages
of what we are to look for hereafter; this, I answer,
is to resort to a rule and a motive ulterior to the in-
stincts themselves, and at which rule and motive we
shall by and by arrive by a surer road: — I say surer,
so long as there remains a controversy whether there
be any instinctive maxims at all; or any difficulty in
ascertaining what maxims are instinctive.

This celebrated question therefore becomes in our
system a question of pure curiosity; and as such, we
dismiss it to the determination of those who are more
inquisitive, than we are concerned to be, about the na-
tural history and constitution of the human species.

CHAPTER VI.

HUMAN HAPPINESS.

THE word happy is a relative, term: that is, when
we call a man happy, we mean that he is happier than
some others, with whom we compare him; than the
generality of others; or than he himself was in some
other situation: — thus, speaking of one who has just
compassed the object of a long pursuit, "Now," we
say, " he is happy;" and in a like comparative sense,
compared, that is, with the general lot of mankind,
we call a man happy who possesses health and com-
petency.

In strictness, any condition may be denominated
happy, in which the amount or aggregate of pleasure

HUMAN HAPPINESS. 33

exceeds that of pain; and the degree of happiness de-
pends upon the quantity of this excess.

And the greatest quantity of it ordinarily attainable
in human life is what we mean by happiness, when
we inquire or pronounce what human happiness con-
sists in.*

In which inquiry I will omit much usual declama-
tion on the dignity and capacity of our nature; the
supJHority of the soul to the body, of the rational to
the animal part of our constitution; upon the worthi-
ness, refinement, and delicacy of some satisfactions,
or the meanness, grossness, and sensuality of others;
because I hold that pleasures differ in nothing but in

* If any positive signification, distinct from what we mean
by pleasure, can be affixed to the term " happiness,5' I should
take it to denote a certain state of the nervous system in
that part of the human frame in which we feel joy and grief
passions and affections. Whether this part be the heart,
which the turn, of most languages would lead us to believe,
or the diaphragm, as Buffon, or the upper orifice of the sto-
mach, as Van Halmont thought; or rather be a kind of find
net-work, lining the whole region of the prsecordia, as ot.hers»
have imagined; it is possible, not only that each painful sen
sation may violently shake and disturb the fibres at the time,
but that a series of such may at length so derange the tex-
ture of the system as to produce a perpetual irritation, which
will show itself by fretfulness, impatience, and restlessness.
It is possible also, on the other hand, that a succession of
pleasurable sensations may have such an effe€t upon this sub-
tile organization as to cause the fibres to relax, and return in-
to their place and order, and thereby to recover, or, if not
lost, to preserve that harmonious confirmation which gives to
the mind its sense of complacency and satisfaction. This
state may be denominated happines3,and is so far distinguisha-
ble from pleasure, that it does not refer to any partictiular
object of enjoyment, or consist, like pleasure, in the gratifi-
cation of one or more of the senses, but is rather the secon-
dary effect which such objects and gratifications produce up-
on the nervous system, or the state in which they leave it.
These conjectures belong not, however, to our province.
The comparative sense, in which we have explained the term
Happiness, is more popular, and is sufficient far the purpose
of the present chapter.

84 HUMAN HAPPINESS.

continuance and intensity: from a just computation of
which, confirmed by what we observe of the apparent
cheerfulness, tranquillity, and contentment of men of
different tastes, tempers, stations, and pursuits every
question concerning human happiness must receive its
decision.

It will be our business to show, if we can,

1. What Human Happiness does not consis^in:

2. What it does consist in.

FJRST, then,<tlappmess does not consist in the
pleasures of sense, in whatever profusion or variety
they be enjoyed. By the pleasures of sense, I mean,
as well as the animal gratifications of eating, drinking,
and that by which the species is continued, as the
more refined pleasures of music, painting, architecture,
gardening, splendid shows, theatric exhibitions; and
the pleasures, lastly, of active sports, as of hunting,
shooting, fishing, &c. For,

1st, These_pjeasures continue but a little while at
a time. This is true of them all, especially of the
grosser sort of them. Laying aside the preparation
and the expectation, and computing strictly the actual
sensation, we shall be surprised to find how inconside-
rable a portion of our time they occupy, how few
hours in the four and twenty they are able to fill up.

2dly, These pleasures, by repetition, lose their
relish. It is a property of the machine, for which we
know no remedy, that the organs by which we per-
ceive pleasure are blunted and benumbed by being
frequently exercised in the same way. There is hard-
ly any one who has not found the difference between
a gratification, when new, and when familiar; or any
pleasure which does not become indifferent as it grows
habitual.

3dly, The eagerness for hi^li and intense delights
takes away the relish from all others; and as such
delights fall rarely in our way, the greater part of our
time becomes, from this cause, empty and uneasy.

There is hardly any delusion by which men are
greater sufferers in their happiness than by their ex-
pecting too much from what is called pleasure; that
is, from those intense delights which vulgarly engross

HUMAN HAPPINESS 35

the name of pleasure. The very expectation spoils
them. When they do come, we are often engaged in
taking pains to persuade ourselves how much we are
pleased, rather than enjoying any pleasure which
springs naturally out of the object. And whenever
we depend upon being vastly delighted, we always go
home secretly grieved at missing our aim. Likewise,
as has been observed just now, when this humour of
being prodigiously delighted has once taken hold of.
the imagination, it hinders us from providing for, or
acquiescing in, those gently soothing engagements,
the due variety and succession of which are the only
things that supply a vein or continued stream of hap-
piness.

What I have been able to observe of that part of
mankind, whose professed pursuit is pleasure, and who
are withheld in the pursuit by no restraints of fortune,
or scruples of consciences, corresponds sufficiently with
this' account. I have commonly remarked in such
men a restless and inextinguishable passion for va-
riety; a great part of their time to be vacant, and so
much of it irksome; and that, with whatever eager-
ness and expectation they set out, they become, by
degrees, fastidious in their choice of pleasures, lan-
guid in the enjoyment, yet miserable under the want
of it.

The truth seems to be, that there is a limit at which
these pleasures soon arrive, and from which they ever
afterwards decline. They are by necessity of short
duration, as the organs cannot hold on their emotions
beyond a certain length of time; and if you endea-
vour to compensate for this imperfection in their na-
ture by the frequency with which you repeat them,
you suffer more than you gain, by the fatigue of tho
faculties, and the diminution of sensibility.

We have said nothing in this account, of the loss of
opportunities or the decay of faculties, which, when-
ever they happen, leave the voluptuary destitute and
desperate ; teased by desires that can never be grati-
fied, and the memory of pleasures which must return
no more.

It will also be allowed by those who have experi-

86 HUMAN HAPPINESS.

enced it, and perhaps by those alone, that pleasure
which is purchased by the encumbrance of our fortune,
is purchased too dear; the pleasure never compen-
sating for the perpetual irritation of embarrassed cir-
cumstances.

These pleasures, after all, have their value; and
as the young are always too eager in their pursuit of
them, the old are sometimes tc>p remiss, that is, too
studious of their ease, to be at the pains for them
which they really deserve.

SECONDLY; Neither does happiness consist in an
exemption from pain, labour, care, business, suspense,
molestation, and " those evils which are without;"
such a state being usually attended, not with ease, but
with depression of spirits, a tastelessness in all our
ideas, imaginary anxieties, and the whole train of
hypochondriacal affections.

For which reason, the expectations of those who
retire from their shops and countinghouses, to enjoy
the remainder of their days in leisure and tranquillity,
,are seldom answered by the effect; much less of such
as, in a fit of chagrin, shut, themselves up in cloisters
and hermitages, or quit the world, and their stations
in it, for solitude and repose.

Where there exists a known external cause of un
easiness, the cause may be removed, and the uneasi-
ness, will cease. But those imaginary distresses which
men feel for want of real ones (and which are equal-
ly tormenting, and BO far equally,) as they depend
upon no single or assignable subject of uneasiness,
admit oftentimes of no application of relief.

Hence a moderate pain, upon which the attention
may fasten and spend itself, is to many a refreshment
as a fit of the gout will sometimes cure the spleen.
And the same of any less violent agitation of the
mind, as a literary controversy, a lawsuit, a contested
election, and, above all, gaming; the passion for which,
in men of fortune and liberal minds, is only to be ac-
counted for on this principle.

THIRDLY; Neither does happiness consist in great-
ness, rank, or elevated station.

Were it true that all superiority afforded pleasure,

HUMAN HAPPINESS. 37

it would follow, that by how much we were the greater,
that is, the more persons we were superior to, in the
same proportion, so far as depended upon this cause,
we should be the happier; but so it is, that no supe-
riority yields any satisfaction, save that which we
possess or obtain over those with whom we immedi-
ately compare ourselves. The shepherd perceives no
pleasure in his superiority over his dog; the farmer,
in his superiority over the shepherd; the lord, in his
superiority over the farmer; nor the king, lastly, in
his superiority over the lord. Superiority, where
there is no competition, is seldom contemplated; what
most men are quite unconscious of.

But if the same shepherd can run, fight, or wrestle,
better than the peasants of his village; if the farmer
can show better cattle, if he keep a better horse, or be
supposed to have a longer purse, than any farmer in
the hundred; if the lord have more interest in an
election* greater favour at court, a better house, or
larger estate than any nobleman in the country; if
the king possess a more extensive territory, a more
powerful fleet or army, a more splendid establishment,
more loyal subjects, or more weight and authority in
adjusting the affairs of nations, than any prince in
Europe; — in all these cases, the parties feel an actual
satisfaction in their superiority.

Now the conclusion that follows from hence is this;
that the pleasures of ambition, which are supposed to
be peculiar to high stations, are in reality common to
all conditions. The farrier who shoes a horse better,
and who is in greater request for his skill than any
man within ten miles of him, possesses, for all that I
can see, the delight of distinction and of excelling, as
truly and substantially as the statesman, the soldier,
and the scholar, who have filled Europe with the
reputation of their wisdom, their valour, or their
knowledge.

No superiority appears to be of any account, but
superiority over a rival. This, it is manifest, may
exist wherever rivalshi-ps do; and rivalships fall out
amongst men of all ranks and degrees. The object
of emulation, the dignity or magnitude of this object

VOL. i. 4

38 HUMAN HAPPINESS.

makes no difference; as it is not what either pos-
sesses that constitutes the pleasure, but what one pos-
sesses more than the other.

Philosophy smiles at the contempt with which the
rich and great speak of the petty strifes and compe-
titions of the poor; not reflecting that these strifes and
competitions are just as reasonable as their own, and
the pleasures which success affords, the same.

Our position is, that happiness does not consist in
greatness. And this position we make out by show-
ing, that even what are supposed to be the peculiar
advantages of greatness, the pleasures of ambition
and superiority, are in reality common to all condi-
tions. But whether the pursuits of ambition be ever
wise, whether they contribute more to the happiness
or misery of the pursuers, is a different question; and
a question concerning which we may be allowed to
entertain great doubt. The pleasure of success is
exquisite; so also is the anxiety of the pursuit, and
the pain of disappointment; — and what is the worst
part of the account, the pleasure is shortlived. We
soon cease to look back upon those whom we have
left behind; now contests are engaged in, new pros-
pects unfold themselves; a succession of struggles is»
kept up, whilst there is a rival left within the com-
pass of our views and profession; and when there is
none, the pleasure with the pursuit is at an end.

II. We have seen what happiness does not consist
in. We are next to consider in what it does consist.

In the conduct of life the great matter is to know
beforehand what will please us, and what pleasure
will hold out. So far as we know this, our choice
will be justified by the event. And this knowledge is
more scarce and difficult than at first sight it may
seem to be: for sometimes pleasures, which are won-
derfully alluring and flattering in the prospect, turn
out in the possession extremely insipid; or do not
hold out as we expected: at other times pleasures
start up which never entered into our calculation,
and which we might have missed of by not foresee-
ing: whence we have reason to believe, that we ac-
tually do miss of manv pleasures from the same cause.

HUMAN HAPPINESS. 39

I say to know "beforehand;" for, after the experi-
ment is tried, it is commonly impracticable to retreat
or change; beside that shifting and changing is apt
to generate a habit of restlessness, which is destructive
of the happiness of every condition.

By the reason of the original diversity of taste,
capacity, and constitution, observable in the human
species, and the still greater variety which habit and
fashion have introduced in these particulars, it is
impossible to propose any plan of happiness which
will succeed to all, or any method of life which is
universally eligible or practicable.

All that can be said is, that there remains a pre-
sumption in favour of those conditions of life, in which
men generally appear most cheerful and contented.
For though the apparent happiness of mankind be
not always a true measure of their real happiness, it
is the best measure we have.

Taking this for my guide, I am inclined to believe
that happiness consists,

1. In the exercise of the social affections.

Those persons commonly possess goo3 spirits who
have about them many objects of affection and en-
dearment, as wife, children, kindred, friends. And
to the want of these may be1 imputed the peevishness
of monks, and of such as lead a monastic life.

Of the same nature with the indulgence of our do-
mestic affections, and equally refreshing to the spirits,
is the pleasure which results from acts of bounty and
beneficence, exercised either in giving money, or in
imparting, to those who want it, the assistance of our
skill and profession.

Another main article of human happiness is,

2. The exemse of _.cuir_ikciiUifiiS^, either of body or
mind, in the pursuit of some engaging end.

It seems to be true, that no plenitude of present
gratifications can make the possessor happy for a con*
tinuance, unless he have something in reserve — some-
thing to hope for, and look forward to. This I con-
elude to be the case, from comparing the alacrity and
spirits of men who are engaged in any pursuit which
interests them, with the dejection and ennui of almost

40 HUMAN HAPPINESS.

all, who are either born to so much that they want
nothing more, or who have used up their satisfactions
too soon, and drained the sources of them.

It is this intolerable vacuity of mind which carries
the rich and great to the horse course and the gaming
table; and often engages them in contests and pur-
suits, of which the success bears no proportion to the
solicitude and expense with which it is sought. An
election for a disputed borough shall cost the parties
iwenty or thirty thousand pounds each, — to say no-
thing of the anxiety, humiliation, and fatigue of the
canvass; when a seat in the house of commons, of
exactly the same value, may be had for a tenth part
of the money, and with no trouble. I do not mention
this to blame the rich and great (perhaps they cannot
do better,) but in confirmation of what I have ad-
vanced.

Hope, which thus appears to be of so much im-
portance to our happiness, is of two kinds; — where
there is something to be done towards attaining the
object of our hope, and where there is nothing to be
done. The first alone is of any value; the latter
being apt to corrupt into impatience, having no
power but to sit still and wait, which soon grows
tiresome.

The doctrine delivered under this head may be
readily admitted; but how to provide ourselves with
a succession of pleasurable engagements is the diffi-
culty. This requires two things: judgment in the
choice of ends adapted to our opportunities; and a
command of imagination, so as to be able, when the
judgment has made choice of an end, to transfer a
pleasure to the means : after which, the end may be
forgotten as soon as we will.

Hence those pleasures are most valuable, not which
are most exquisite in the fruition, but which are most
productive of engagement and activity in the pursuit.
* A man who is in earnest in his endeavours after
the happiness of a future state has, in this respect, an
advantage over all the world; for he has constantly
before his eyes an object of supreme importance, pro-
ductive of perpetual engagement and activity, and of

HUMAN HAPPINESS 41

arhich the pursuit (which can be said of no pursuit
besides) lasts him to his life's end. Yet even lie must
have many ends, besides the far end ; but then they
will conduct to that, be subordinate, and in some way
or other capable of being referred to that, and derive
their satisfaction, or an addition of satisfaction, from
that.

Engagement is every thing: the more significant,
however j our engagements are, the better; such as the
planning of laws, institutions, manufactures, charities,
improvements, public works; and the endeavouring,
by our interest, address, solicitations, and activity, to
carry them into effect: or, upon a smaller scale, the
procuring of a maintainance and fortune for our fami-
lies by a course of industry and application to our
callings, which forms and gives motion to the com-
mon occupations of life; training up a child; prose-
cuting a scheme for his future establishment; mak-
ing ourselves masters of a language or a science; im-
proving or managing an estate; labouring after a
piece of preferment; and lastly, any engagement which
is innocent is better than none; as the writing of a
book, the building of a house, the laying out of a gar-
den, the digging of a fishpond, — even the raising of a
cucumber or a tulip.

Whilst our minds are taken up with the objects or
business before us we are commonly happy, whatever
the object or business be; when the mirid is absent
and the thoughts are wandering to something else
than what is passing in the place in which we are,
we are often miserable.

3. Happiness depends upon the prudent consti-
tution of the habits.

The art in which the secret of human happiness in
a great measure consists, is to set the habits in such a
manner, that every change may be a change for the
better. The habits themselves are much the same"
for whatever is made habitual becomes smooth, and
easy, and nearly indifferent. The return to an old
habit is likewise easy, whatever the habit be. There-
fore the advantage is with those habits which allow
•>f an indulgence in the deviation from them. The

4*

42 HUMAN HAPPINESS.

luxurious receive no greater pleasures from their dain-
ties than the peasant does from his bread and cheese:
but the peasant, whenever he goes abroad, finds a
feast; whereas the epicure must be well entertained
to escape disgust. Those who spend every day at
cards, and those who go every day to plough, pass
their time much alike; intent upon what they are
about, wanting nothing, regretting nothing, they are
both for the time in a state of ease: but then, what-
ever suspends the occupation of the cardplayer dis-
tresses him; whereas to the labourer every interrup-
tion is a refreshment: and this appears in the differ-
ent effects that Sunday produces upon the two, which
proves a day of recreation to the one, but a lamenta-
ble burden to the other. The man who has learned
to live alone feels his spirits enlivened whenever he
enters into company, and takes his leave without
regret; another, who has long been accustomed to a
crowd, or continual succession of company, experi-
ences in company no elevation of spirits, nor any
greater satisfaction than what the man of a retired
life finds in his chimney corner. So far their condi-
tions are equal: but let a change of place, fortune,
or situation separate the companion from his circle,,
his visitors, his club, common room, or coffeehouse;
and the difference and advantage in the choice and
constitution of the two habits will show itself. Soli-
tude comes to the one clothed with melancholy; to
the other it brings liberty and quiet. You will see
the one fretful and restless, at a loss how to dispose
of his time till the hour come round when he may
forget himself in bed: the other, easy and satisfied,
taking up his book or his pipe as soon as he finds
himself alone; ready to admit any little amusement
that casts up, or to turn his hands and attention to
the first business that presents itself; or content, with-
out either, to sit stiU, and let his train of thought glide
indolently through his brain, without much use, per-
haps, or pleasure, but without hankering after any
thing better, or without irritation. — A reader, who
has inured himself to books of science and argumen-
tation, if a novel, a well written pamphlet, an article

HUMAN HAPPINESS. 43

of news, a narrative of a curious voyage, or a journal
of a traveller fall in his way, sits down to the repast
with relish; enjoys his entertainment while it lasts,
and can return, when it is over, to his graver reading
without distaste. Another, with whom nothing will
go down but works of humour and pleasantry, or
whose curiosity must be interested by perpetual no-
velty, will consume a bookseller's window in half a
forenoon; during which time he is rather in search of
diversion than diverted; and as books to his taste are
few and short, and rapidly read over, the stock is
soon exhausted, when he is left without resource from
this principal supply of harmless amusement.

So far as circumstances of fortune conduce to hap-
piness, it is not the income which any man possesses,
but the increase of income that affords the pleasure.
Two persons, of whom one begins with a hundredj
and advances his income to a thousand pounds a
year, and the other sets off with a thousand, and dwin-
dles down to a hundred, may, in the course of their
time, have the receipt and spending of the same sum
of money; yet their satisfaction, so far as fortune is
concerned in it, will be very different: the series and
sum total of their incomes being the same, it makes a
wide difference at which end they begin.

4. Happiness consists in health,

By health I understand, as well freedom from bo-
dily distempers, as that tranquillity, firmness, and
alacrity of mind, which we call good spirits; and
which may properly enough be included in our notion
of health, as depending commonly upon the same
causes, and yielding to the same management, as our
bodily constitution.

Health, in this sense, is the one thing needful.
Therefore no pains, expense, self-denial, or restraint
to which we subject ourselves for the sake of health,
is too much. Whether it require us to relinquish
lucrative situations, to abstain from favourite indul-
gences, to control intemperate passions, or undergo
tedious regimens; whatever difficulties it lays us
under, a man, who pursues his happiness rationally
and resolutely, will be content to submit.

44 VIRTUE

When we are in perfect health and spirits, we feel
m ourselves a happiness independent of any particu-
lar outward gratification whatever, and of which we
can give no account. This is an enjoyment which
the Deity has annexed to life; and it probably con-
stitutes, in a great measure, the happiness of infants
and brutes, especially of the lower and sedentary or-
ders of animals, as of oysters, periwinkles, and the
like; for which I have sometimes been at a loss to
find out amusement.

The above account of human happiness will justify
the two following conclusions, which, although found
in most books of morality, have seldom, I think, been
supported by any snificient reason: —

FIRST, That happiness is pretty equally distributed
amongst the different orders of civil society:

SECONDLY, That vice has no advantage over virtue,
even with respect to this world's happiness.

CHAPTER VII.

VIRTUE is " the doing good to mankind, in obe-
dience to the will of God} and for the sake of ever-
lasting happiness."

According to which definition, " the good of man-
kind," is the subject; the " will of God," the rule;
and " everlasting happiness," the motive, of human
virtue.

Virtue has been divided by some moralists into
benevolence, prudence, fortitude, and temperance.
Benevolence proposes good ends; prudence suggests
the best means of attaining them; fortitude enables
us to encounter the difficulties, dangers, and discou-
ragements which stand in our way in pursuit of these
ends; temperance repels and overcomes the passions
that obstruct it. Benevolence, for instance, prompts
us to undertake the cause of an oppressed orphan:
prudence suggests the best means of going about it:

VIRTUE. 45

fortitude enables us to confront the danger, and bear
up against the loss, disgrace, or repulse that may
attend our undertaking; and temperance keeps under
the love of money, of ease, or amusement which might
divert us from it.

Virtue is distinguished by others into two branches
only, prudence and benevolence : prudence, attentive
to our own interest; benevolence, to that of our fellow
creatures: both directed to the same end, the increase
of happiness in nature ; and taking equal concern in
the future as in the present.

The four c ARDINAL, virtues are prudence, fortitude,
temperance, and justice.

But the division of virtue, to which we are in mo-
dern times most accustomed, is into duties: —

Towards God ; as piety, reverence, resignation,
gratitude, &c.

Towards other men (or relative duties;) as justice,
charity, fidelity, loyalty, &c.

Towards ourselves ,• as chastity, sobriety, tempe-
rance, preservation of life, cate of health, &c.

More of these distinctions have been proposed,
which it is not worth while to set down.

I shall proceed to state a few observations, which
relate to the general regulation of human conduct;
unconnected indeed with each other, but very wor-
thy of attention ; and which fall as properly under the
title of this chapter as of any future one.

1. Mankind act more from habit than reflection.

It is on few only and great occasions that men de-
liberate at all; on fewer still, that they institute any
thing like a regular inquiry into the moral rectitude
or depravity of what they are about to do; or wait for
the result of it. We are for the most part determined
xat once; and by an impulse, which is the effect and
energy of preestablished habits. And this constitu-
tion seems well adapted to the exigencies of human
life, and to the imbecility of our moral principle. In
the current occasions and rapid opportunities of life,
there is oftentimes little leisure for reflection; and

46 VIRTUE.

were there more, a man, who has to reason about his
duty, when the temptation to transgress it is upon
him, is almost sure to reason himself into an error.

§If we are in BO great a degree passive under our
bits, Where, it is asked, is the exercise of virtue,
3 guilt of vice, or any use of moral and religious
owledge ? I answer, In the forming and contracting
these habits.

And hence results a rule of life of considerable im-
portance, viz. that many things are to be done and
abstained from, solely for the sake of habit. We will
explain ourselves by an example or two. — A beggar,
with the appearance of extreme distress, asks our cha-
rity. If we come to argue the rrKitter, whether the
distress be real, whether it be not brought upon him-
self, whether it be of public advantage to admit such
application, whether it be not to encourage idleness
and vagrancy, whether it may not invite impostors to
our doors, whether the money can be well spared, or
might not be better applied; when these considera-
tions are put together, it may appear very doubtful,
whether we ought or ought not to give any thing.
But when we reflect, that the misery before our eyes
excites our pity, whether we will or not; that it is of
the utmost consequence to us to cultivate this tender-
ness of mind: that it is a quality cherished by indul-
gence, and soon stifled by opposition; — when this, I
say is considered, a wise man will do that for his own
sake which he would have hesitated to do for the pe-
titioner's; he will give way to his compassion rather
than offer violence to a habit of so much general use.

A man of confirmed good habits will act in the same
manner, without any consideration at all.

This may serve for one instance: another is the fol-
lowing:— A man has been brought up from his in-
fancy with a dread of lying. An occasion presents
itself where, at the expense of a little veracity, he may
divert his company, set off his own wit with advan-
tage, attract the notice and engage the partiality of
all about him. This is not a small temptation. And
when he looks at the other side of the question, he
sees no mischief that can ensue frcm this liberty, no

VIRTUE. 47

slander of any man's reputation, no prejudice likely
to arise to any man's interest. Were there nothing
further to be considered, it would be difficult to show
why a man under such circumstances might not in-
dulge his humour. But when he reflects that his
pcruplcs about lying have hitherto preserved him free
from this vice; that occasions like the present will
return, where the inducement will be equally strong,
but the indulgence much less innocent; that his
scruples will wear away by a few transgressions, and
leave him subject to one of the meanest and most
pernicious of all bad habits, — a habit of lying, when-
ever it will serve his turn: when all this, I say, is con-
sidered, a wise man will forego the present, or a much
greater pleasure, rather than lay the foundation of a
character so vicious and contemptible.

From what has been said may be explained also
the nature of habitual virtue. By the definition of
virtue, placed at the beginning of this chapter, it ap-
pears, that the good of mankind is the subject, the
will of God the rule, and everlasting happiness the
motive and end of all virtue. Yet, in fact, a man
shall perform many an act of virtue, without having
either the good of mankind, the will of God, or ever-
lasting happiness in his thought. How is this to bo
understood ? In the same manner as that a man may
be a very good servant, without being conscious, at
every turn of a particular regard to his master's will,
or of an express attention to his master's interest; in-
deed, your best old servants are of this sort: but then
he must have served for a length of time under the
actual direction of these motives to bring it to this; in
which service his merit and virtue consist.

There are habits, not only of drinking, swearing,
and lying, and of some other things, which are com-
monly acknowledged to be habits, and called so; but
of every modification of action, speech, and thought:
Man is a bundle of habits.

There are habits of industry, attention, vigilance,
advertency; of a prompt obedience to the judgment
occurring, or of yielding to the first impulse of pas-
sion ; of extending our views to the future, or of rest-

48 VIRTUE.

ing upon the present. ; of apprehending, methodizing,
reasoning; of indolence and dilatoriness; of vanity,
self-conceit, melancholy, partiality; of fretfulness,
suspicion, captiousness, censoriousness; of pride, ambi-
tion, covetousness; of overreaching, intriguing, pro-
jecting; in a word, there is not a quality or function,
either of body or mind, which does not feel the influ-
ence of this great law of animated nature.

2. The Christian Religion hath not ascertained the
precise quantity of virtue necessary to salvation.

This has been made an objection to Christianity;
but without reason. For, as all revelation, however
imparted originally, must be transmitted by the ordi-
nary vehicle of language, it behoves those who make
the objection to show, that any form of words could
be devised, that might express this quantity; or that
it is possible to constitute a standard of moral attain-
ments, accommodated to the almost infinite diversity
which subsists in the capacities and opportunities of
different men.

It seems most agreeable to our conceptions of jus-
tice, and is consonant enough to the language of
Scripture,* to suppose, that there are prepared for us
rewards and punishments, of all possible degrees,
from the most exalted happiness down to extreme
misery: so that " our labour is never in vain:" what-

* " lie which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly ;
and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully."
2 Cor. ix. 6. — " And that servant which knew his Lord's
will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his
will, shall be beaten with many stripes ; but he tnat knew
not shall be beaten with few stripes." Luke xii. 47, 48. —
•"' Whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my
name, because ye belong to Christ ; verily I say unto you
he shall not lose his reward ;" to wit, intimating that there
is in reserve a proportionable reward for even the smallest
act of virtue. Mark ix. 41. — See also the parable of the
pounds, Luke xix 16, &c. ; where he whose pound had gain-
ed ten pounds, was placed over ten cities ; and he whose
pound had gained five pounds, was placed over five cities

VIRTUE. 49

ever advancement we make in virtue f we pro eureka
proportionable accession of future happiness; as, on
the other hancT, every accumulation of vice is the
" treasuring up so much wrath against the day of
wrath." It has been said, that it can never be a just
economy of Providence, to admit one part of mankind
into heaven, and condemn the other to hell; since
there must be very little to choose, between the worst
man who is received into heaven, and the best who is
excluded. And how know we, it might be answered,
but that there may be as little to choose in the con-
ditions ?

Without entering into a detail of Scripture morality,
which would anticipate our subject, the following gen-
eral positions may be advanced, I think, with safety.

1. That a state of happiness is not to be expected
by those who are conscious of no moral or religious
rule: I mean those who cannot with truth say, that
they have been prompted to one action, or withholden
from one gratification, by any regard to*virtue or re-
ligion, either immediate or habitual.

There needs no other proof of this, than the consi-
deration that a brute would be as proper an object of
reward as such a man, and that, if the case were so,
the penal sanctions of religion could have no place.
For, whom would you punish, if you make such a one
as this happy ? — or rather, indeed, religion itself, both
natural and revealed, would cease to have either use
or authority.

2. That a state of happiness is not to be expected
by those who reserve to themselves the habitual prac-
tice of any one sin, or neglect of one known duty;

Because no obedience can proceed upon proper
motives, which is not universal, that is, which is not
directed to every command of God alike, as they all
stand upon the same authority;

Because such an allowance would in effect amount
to a toleration of every vice in the world ;

And because the strain of Scripture language ex-
cludes any such hope. When our duties are recited,
they are put collectively, that is, as all and every of
them required in the Christian character. " Add to

VOL. I. 5

50 VIRTUE.

your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to
knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience,
and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly
kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity."* On
the other hand, when vices are enumerated, they are
put disjunctively, that is, as separately and severally
excluding the sinner from heaven. '* Neither forni-
cators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate,
nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves,
nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extor-
tioners shall inherit the kingdom of heaven, "t

Those texts of Scripture which seem to lean a con-
trary way, as that " charity shall cover the multitude
of sins;"^: that "he which con verteth a sinner from
the error of his way shall hide a multitude of sins;"^
cannot, I think for the reasons abovementioned, be
extended to sins deliberately, habitually, and obsti
nately persisted in.

3. That testate of mere unprofitableness will not go
unpunished.

This is expressly laid down by Christ, in the parable
of the talents, which supersedes all further reasoning
upon the subject. " Then he which had received one
talent came, and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art
an austere man, reaping where thou hast not sown,
and gathering where thou hast not strewed: and I
was afraid, and hid thy talent in the earth; lo, there
thou hast that is thine. His lord answered and said
unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou
knevvest (or knewest thou?) that I reap where I sow-
ed not, and gather where I have not strawed; thou
oughtest therefore to have put my money to the ex-
changers, and then, at my coming, I should have receiv-
ed mine own with usury. Take therefore the talent
from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents;
for unto every one that hath shall be given, and he
shall have abundance; but from him that hath not
shall be taken away even that which he hath: and

* 2 Pet. i. 5, 6, 7. t Cor. vi. 9, 10.

} 1 Pet. iv. 8. § James, v. 20.

VIRTUE. 61

cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness,
there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."*

3. In every question of conduct, where one side is
doubtful, and the other side safe, we are bound to take
the safe side.

This is best explained by an instance; and I know
of none more to our purpose than that of suicide.
Suppose, for examples sake, that it appear doubtful to
a reasoner upon the subject, whether he may lawfully
destroy himself: He can have no doubt, that it is law-
ful for him to let it alone. Here therefore is a case,
in which one side is doubtful, and the other side safe.
By virtue, therefore, of our rule, he is bound to pur-
sue the safe side, that is, to forbear from offering vio-
lence to himself, whilst a doubt remains upon his
mind concerning the lawfulness of suicide.

It is prudent^ you allow, to take the safe side. But
our observation means something more. We assert
that the artion concerning which we doubt, whatever
it may be in itself, or to another, would, in us, whilst
this doubt remains upon our minds, be certainly sinful.
The case is expressly so adjudged by St. Paul, with
whose authority we will for the present rest contented.
— " I know and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that
there is nothing unclean of itself; but to him that
esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is un-
clean. Happy is he that condemneth not himself in
that thing which he alloweth; and he that doubteth is
damned (condemned) if he eat, for whatsoever is not
of faith (i. e. not done with a full persuasion of the
lawfulness of it) is sin."t

» Mat. xxv. 24, &c. f Rora. xiv 14, 22, 23.

BOOK II.

MORAL OBLIGATION.

CHAPTER I.

THE QUESTION, " WHY AM I OBLIGED TO KEEP
MY WORD?" CONSIDERED.

WHY am I obliged to keep my word ?

Because it is right says one. — Because it is agree-
able to the fitness of things, says another. — Because
it is conformable to reason and nature, says a third — •
Because it is conformable to truth, says a fourth. —
Because it promotes the public good, says a fifth. —
Because it is required by the will of God, concludes a
sixth.

Upon which different accounts two things are ob-
servable ; —

FIRST, that they all ultimately coincide.

The fitness of things means their fitness to produce
happiness: the nature of things means that actual
constitution of the world, by which some things, as
such and such actions, for example, produce happi-
ness, and others misery: Reason is the principle by
which we discover or judge of this constitution: truth
is this judgment expressed or drawn out into proposi-
tions. So that it necessarily comes to pass, that what
promotes the public happiness, or happiness on the
whole, is agreeable to the fitness of things, to nature,
to reason, and to truth: and such (as will appear by
and by) is the divine character, that what promotes
the general happiness is required by the will of God;
and what has all the above properties must needs be
right; for right means no more than conformity to
the rule we go by, whatever that rule be.

MORAL, OBLIGATION. 63

And this is the reason that moralists from whatever
different principles they set out, commonly meet in
their conclusions; that is, they enjoin the same con-
duct, prescribe the same rules of duty, and, with a few
exceptions, deliver upon dubious cases the same de-
terminations.

SECONDLY, It is to be observed, that these answers
all leave the matter short; for the inquirer may turn
round upon his teacher with a second question, in
which he will expect to be satisfied, namely, Why
am I obliged to do what is right; to act agreeably to
the fitness of things; to conform to reason, nature, or
truth; to promote the public good, or to obey the
will of God ?

The proper method of conducting the inquiry is,
FIRST, to examine what we mean when we say a man
is obliged to do any thing; and THEN to show why he
is obliged to do the thing which we have proposed as
an example, namely, " to keep his word."

CHAPTER II.

WHAT WE MEAN WHEN WE SAY A MAN IS
" OBLIGED" TO DO A THING.

A MAN is said to be obliged* " ivhen he is urged by
a violent motive, resulting from the command of an-
other."

FIRST, " The motive must be violent." If a per-
son, who has done me some little service, or has a
small place in his disposal, ask me upon some occasion
for my vote, I may possibly give it him from a motive
of gratitude or expectation: but I should hardly say
that I was obliged to give it him; because the induce*
ment does not rise high enough. Whereas if a father
or a master, any great benefactor, or one on whom my
fortune depends, requires my vote, I give it him of
course: and my answer to al! who ask me why I voted
so and so is, that my father or my master obliged me;
that I had received so many favours from, or had so

VOL i. 6*

54 MORAL OBLIGATION.

great a dependence upon such a one, that I was oblig-
ed to vote as he direct me.

SECONDLY, " It must result from the command of
another." Offer a man a gratuity for doing any thing,
for seizing, for example, an offender; he is not obliged
by your offer to do it, nor would he say he is; though
he may be induced, persuaded, prevailed upon,
tempted. If a magistrate or the man's immediate su-
perior command it, he considers himself as obliged to
comply, though possibly he would lose less by a refu-
sal in this case than in the former.

I will not undertake to say that the words obligation
and obliged are used uniformly in this sense, or always
with this distinction; nor is it possible to tie down
popular phrases to any constant signification: bui1
wherever the motive is violent enough, and coupler
with the idea of command, authority, law, or the will
of a superior, there, I take it, we always reckon our
selves to be obliged.

And from this account of obligation it follows, tha ,
we can T>e obliged to nothing but what we ourselve>
are to gain or lose something by; for nothing els*
can be a " violent motive" to us. As we should not
be obliged to obey the laws of the magistrate, unless
rewards or punishments, pleasure or pain, somehow .
or other, depended upon our obedience; so neithei
should we, without the same reason, be obliged to do
what is right, to practise virtue, or to obey the com-
mands of God.

CHAPIFR III.

THE QUESTION, " WHY AM I OBLIGED TO KEEP
MY WORD?" RESUMED.

LET it be remembered, that to be obliged is " to
be urged by a violent motive, resulting from the com-
mand of another."

And then let it be asked, Why am I obliged to keep
my word ? and the answer will be, Because I am *' urg-
ed to do BO by a violent motive" (namely, the ex-

MORAL, OBLIGATION. 55

pectation of being after this life rewarded, if I do,
or punished for its if I do not,) " resulting from the
command of another" (namely, of God.)

This solution goes to the bottom of the subject, as
no further question can reasonably be asked.

Therefore, private happiness is our motive, and the~\
will of God our rule.

When I first turned my thoughts to moral specula-
tions, an air of mystery seemed to hang over the
whole subject; which arose, I believe, from hence, —
that I supposed, with many authors whom I had read,
that to be obliged to do a thing was very different
from being induced only to do it ; and that the obliga-
tion to practise virtue, to do what is right, just, &c.
was quite another thing, and of another kind, than
the obligation which a soldier is under to obey his
officer, a servant his master, or any of the civil and
ordinary obligations of human life. Whereas from
what has been said, it appears that moral obligation
is like all other obligations; and that obligation is
nothing more than an inducement of sufficient strength,
and resulting, in some way, from the command of
another.

There is always understood to be a difference be-
tween an act of prudence and an act of duty. Thus,
if I distrusted a man who owed me a sum of money, I
should reckon it an act of prudence to get another
person bound with him; but I should hardly call it
an act of duty. On the other hand, it would be
thought a very unusual and loose kind of language,
to say, that, as I had made such a promise, it was
prudent to perform it; or that, as my friend, when he
went abroad, placed a box of jewels in my hands, it
would be prudent in me to preserve it for him till he
returned.

Now, in what, you will ask, does the difference
consist ? inasmuch as, according to our account of the
matter, both in the one case and the other, in acts of
duty as well as acts of prudence, we consider solely
what we ourselves shall gain or lose by the act.

The difference, and the only difference, is this;
that, in the one case, we consider what we shall gain

T6 WILL OF GOD.

or lose in the present world; in the other case, we
consider also what we shall gain or lose in the world
Lto_come.

They who would establish a system of morality, in-
dependent of a future state, must look out for some
different idea of moral obligation; unless they can
show that virtue conducts the possessor to certain hap-
piness in this life, or to a much greater share of it
than he could attain by a different behaviour.
To us there are two great questions:

1. Will there be after this life any distribution of
rewards and punishments at all ?

2. If there be, what actions will be rewarded, and
what will be punished ?

The first question comprises the credibility of the
Christian Religion, together with the presumptive
proofs of a future retribution from the light of nature
The second question comprises the province of morali
ty. Both questions are too much for one work,
The affirmative therefore of the first, although we
confess that it is the foundation upon which the whol<
fabric rests, must in this treatise be taken for granted

CHAPTER IV.

THE WILL, OF GOD.

As the will of God is our rule; to inquire what is
our duty, or what we are obliged to do, in any instance,
is, in effect, to inquire what is the will of God in that
instance ? wh;ch consequently becomes the whole bu-
siness of morality.

Now there are two methods of coming at the will
( of God on any point:

1. By his express declarations, when they are to be
had, and which must be sought for in Scripture.

2. By what we can discover of his designs and dis-
positions from his works; or, as we usually call it, the
light of nature

WILL OF GOD. 67

And heue we may observe the absurdity of separat-
ing natural and revealed religion from each other.
The object of both is the same — to discover the will
of God; — and, provided we do but discover it, it mat-
ters nothing by what means.

An ambassador, judging by what he knows of his
sovereign's disposition, and arguing from what he has
observed of his conduct, or is acquainted with of his
designs, may take his measures in many cases with
safety, and presume with great probability how his
master would have him act on most occasions that
arise: but if he have his commission and instructions
ia his pocket, it would be strange not to look into
them. He will be directed by both rules: when his
instructions are clear and positive, there is an end to
all further deliberation (unless indeed he suspect their
authenticity:) where his instructions are silent or
dubious, he will endeavour to supply or explain them,
by what he has been able to collect from other quar-
ters of his master's general inclination or intentions.

Mr. Hume, in his fourth Appendix to his Principles
of Morals, has been pleased to complain of the mod-
ern scheme of uniting Ethics with the Christian The-
ology. They who find themselves disposed to join
in this complaint will do well to observe what Mr.
Hume himself has been able to make of morality
without this union. And for that purpose let them
read the second part of the ninth section of the above
essay; which part contains the practical application
of the whole treatise, — a treatise which Mr. Hume
declares to be " incomparably the best he ever wrote."
When they have read it over, let them consider, whe-
ther any motives there proposed are likely to be found
sufficient to withhold men from the gratification of lust,
revenge, envy, ambition, avarice; or to prevent the
existence of these passions. Unless they rise up from
this celebrated essay with stronger impressions upon
their minds than it ever left upon mine, they will ac-
knowledge the necessity of additional sanctions. But
the necessity of these sanctions is not now the ques-
tion. If they b3 in fact established, if the rewards
and punishments held forth in the gospel will actually

58 DIVINE BENEVOLENCE.

come to pass, they must be considered. Such as
reject the Christian religion are to make the best shift
they can to build up a system, and lay the foundation
of morality, without it. But it appears to me a great
inconsistency in those \vho receive Christianity, and
expect something to come of it, to endeavour to keep
all such expectations out of sight in their reasonings
concerning human duty.

yvv^/The metn°d of coming at the will of God, concern-
j *n& any action, by the light of nature, is to inquire
i into " the tendency of the action to promote or climi-
| nish the general happiness." This rule proceeds upon
/ the presumption, that God Almighty wills and wishes
! the happiness of his creatures; and, consequently, that
those actions which promote that will and wish must
v be agreeable to him; and the contrary.

As this presumption is the foundation of our whole
system, it becomes necessary to explain the reasons
upon which it rests.

CHAPTER V.

THE DIVINE BENEVOLENCE.

WHEN God created the human species, either he
wished their happiness, or he "wished their misery, or
he was indifferent and unconcerned about both.

If he had wished our misery, he might have made
sure of his purpose, by forming our senses to be so
many sores and pains to us, as they are now instru-
ments of gratification and enjoyment: or by placing
us amidst objects so ill suited to our perceptions, as to
have continually offended us, instead of ministering to
our refreshment and delight. He might have made,
for example, every thing we tasted bitter; every
thing we saw loathsome; every thing we touched a
sting; every smell a stench; and every sound a dis-
cord.

If he had been indifferent about our happiness or
misery, we must impute to our good fortune (as all

DIVINE BENEVOLENCE. 59

design by this supposition is excluded) boih the capa-
city of our senses to receive pleasure, and the supply
of external objects fitted to produce it. But either of
these (and still more both of them) being too much to
be attributed to accident, nothing remains but the first
supposition, that God, when he created the human
species, wished their happiness; and made for them
the provision which he has made, with that view,
and for that purpose.

The same argument may be proposed in different
terms, thus: Contrivance proves design; and the
predominant tendency of the contrivance indicates
the disposition of the designer. The world abounds
with contrivances; and all the contrivances which we
are acquainted with are directed to beneficial pur-
poses. Evil, no doubt, exists; but is never, that we
can perceive, the object of contrivance. Teeth are
contrived to eat, not to ache; their aching now and
ihen is incidental to the contrivance, perhaps insepa-
rable from it; or even, if you will, let it be called a
defect in the contrivance; but it is not the object of it.
This is a distinction which well deserves to be attend-
ed to. In describing implements of husbandry, you
would hardly say of the sickle, that it is made to cut
the reaper's fingers, though, from the construction of
the instrument, and the manner of using it, this mis-
chief often happens. But if you had occasion to
describe instruments of torture or execution. This
engine, you wrould say, is to extend the sinews; this
to dislocate the joints; this to break the bones; this
to scorch the soles of the feet. Here pain and misery
are the very objects of the contrivance. Now, noth-
ing of this sort is to be found in the works of nature.
We never discover a train of contrivance to bring about
an evil purpose. No anatomist ever discovered a
system of organization calculated to produce pain and
disease; or^ in explaining the parts of the human
body, ever said, This is to irritate; this to inflame;
this duct is to convey the gravel to the kidneys; this
gland to secrete the humour which forms the gout: if
by chance he come at a part of which he knows not
the use, the most he can say is, that it is useless; no

60 DIVINE BENEVOLENCE.

one ever suspects that it is put there to incommode, to
annoy, or to torment. Since then God hath called
forth his consummate wisdom to contrive and provide
for our happiness, and the world appears to have
been constituted with this design at first; so long as
this constitution is upholden by him, we must in rea-
son suppose the same design to continue.

The contemplation of universal nature rather be-
wilders the mind than affects it. There is always a
bright spot in the prospect, upon which the eye rests;
a single example, perhaps, by which each man finds
himself more convinced than by all others put toge-
ther. I seem, for my own part, to see the benevolence
of the Deity more clearly in the pleasures of very
young children, than in any thing in the world. The
pleasures of grown persons may be reckoned partly of
their own procuring; especially if there has been any
industry or contrivance or pursuit to come at them;
or if they are founded, like music, painting, &c. upon
any qualification of their own acquiring. But tire
pleasures of a healthy infant are so manifestlv pro-
vided for it by another, and the benevolence of the
provision is so unquestionable that every child I see
at its sport affords to my mind a kind of sensible
evidence of the finger of God, and of the disposition
which directs it.

But the example which strikes each man most
strongly is the true example for him: and hardly two
minds hit upon the same; which shows the abun-
dance of such examples about us.

We conclude, therefore, that God wills and wishes
the happiness of his creatures. And this conclusion
being once established, we are at liberty to go on with
the rule built upon it, namely, " that the method of
coining at Ihe will of God concerning any action, by
the light of nature, is to inquire into the tendency of
that action to promote or diminish the general hap-
piness. ' '

UTILITY. 61

CHAPTER VI.

So then actions are to be estimated by their ten*
dency.* Whatever is expedient is. right. iLisJlje
utility of any moral rule alone, which constitules..th.e
obligation of it.

But to all this there seems a plain objection, viz
that many actions are useful, which no man in his
senses will allow to be right. There are occasions in
which the hand of the assassin would be very useful.
The present possessor of some great estate employs
his influence and fortune, to annoy, corrupt, or oppress
all about him. His estate would devolve, by his
death, to a successor of an opposite character. It is
useful, therefore, to despatch such a one as soon as
possible out of the way; as the nighbourhood will ex-
change thereby a pernicious tyrant for a wise and
generous benefactor. It might be useful to rob a
miser, and give the money to the poor; as the money,
no doubt, would produce more happiness by being
laid out in food and clothing for half a dozen distress-
ed families, than by continuing locked up in a miser's
chest. It may be useful to get possession of a place,
a piece of preferment, or of a seat in Parliament, by
bribery or false swearing: as by means of them we
may serve the public more effectually than in our
private station. What then shall we say ? Must we
admit these actions to be right, which would be to

* Actions in the abstract are right or wrong, according to
their tendency; the agent is virtuous or vicious, according
to his design. Thus, if the question be, Whether relieving
common beggars be right or wrong 1 we inquire into the
tendency of such a conduct to the public advantage or in-
convenience. Jf the question be, Whether a man remarka-
ble for this sort of bounty is to be esteemed virtuous for that
reason'? we inquire into his design, whether his liberality
sprang from charity or from ostentation 1 It is evident thut
our concern is with ?.c-fions in the abstract.
VOL. I 6

62 UTILITY

justify assassination, plunder, and perjury; or must
we give up our principle, that the criterion of right is
utility ?

It is not necessary to do either

The true answer is this; that these actions, after
all, are not useful, and for that reason, and that alone,
are not right.

To see this point perfectly, it must be observed,
that the bad consequences of actions are twofold, par-
{^ticular and general.

The particular bad consequence of an action is
I the mischief which that single action directly and
immediately occasions.

The general bad consequence is the violation of
kfiome necessary or useful general rule.

Thus, the particular bad consequence of the assas-
pination above described is the fright and pain which
the deceased underwent; the loss he suffered of life,
which is as valuable to a bad man as to a good one,
or more so; the prejudice and affliction of which his
death was the occasion, to his family, friends, and
dependants.

The general bad consequence is the violation of
this necessary general rule, that no man be put to
death for his crimes but by public authority.

Although, therefore, such an action have no parti-
cular bad consequences, or greater particular good
consequences yet it is not useful, by reason of the
general consequence, which is of more importance,
and which is evil. And the same of the other two
instances, and of a million more which might be
mentioned.

But as this solution supposes that the moral govern-
ment of the world must proceed by general rules, it
remains that we show the necessity of this.

NECESSITY OF GENERAL RULES. 63

CHAPTER VII.

THE NECESSITY OF GENERAL RULES.

You cannot permit one action and forbid another
without showing a difference between them. Conse-
quently, the same sort of actions must be generally
permitted or generally forbidden. Where, therefore,
the general permission of them would be pernicious,
it becomes necessary to lay down and support the rule
which generally forbids them.

Thus, to return once more to the case of the assas-
sin. The assassin knocked the rich villain on the
head, because he thought him better out of the way
than in it. If you allow this excuse in the present
instance, you must allow it to all who act in the same
manner and from the same motive ; that is, you must
allow every man to kill any one he meets whom he
thinks noxious or useless; which, in the event, would
be to commit every man's life and safety to the
spleen, fury, and fanaticism of his neighbour; — a
disposition of affairs which would soon fill the world
with misery and confusion; and ere long put an end
to human society, if not to the human species.

The necessity of general rules in human govern-
ment is apparent: but whether the same necessity
subsist in the Divine economy, in that distribution of
rewards, and punishments to which a moralist looks
forward, may be doubted.

I answer, that general rules are necessary to every
moral government: and by moral government I mean
any dispensation whose object is to influence the con-
duct of reasonable creatures.

For if, of two actions perfectly similar, one be
punished, and the other be rewarded or forgiven,
which is the consequence of rejecting general rules,
the subjects of such a dispensation would no longer
know either what to expect or how to act. Rewards
and punishments would cease to be such — would be-
come accidents. Like the stroke of a thunderbolt,
or the discovery of a mine, like a blank or a benefit

64 NECESSITY OF GENERAL RULES.

ticket in a lottery, they would occasion pain or plea-
sure when they happened; but, folio wing in no known
order, from any particular course of action, they
could have no previous influence or effect upon the
conduct.

An attention to general rules, therefore, is included
in the very idea of reward and punishment. Con-
sequently, whatever reason there is to expect future
reward and punishment at the hand of God, there is
the same reason to believe that he will proceed in the
distribution of it by general rules.

Before we prosecute the consideration of general
consequences any further, it may be proper to antici-
pate a reflection, which will be apt enough to suggest
itself in the progress of our argument.

As the general consequence of an action, upon
which so much of the guilt of a bad action depends,
consists in the example ; it should seem that if the
action be done with perfect secrecy, so as to furnish
no bad example, that part of the guilt drops off*. In
the case of suicide, for instance, if a man can so
manage matters, as to take away his own life without
being known or suspected to have done so, he is not
chargeable with any mischief from the example; nor
does his punishment seem necessary, in order to save
the authority of any general rule.

In the first place, those who reason in this manner
do not observe that they are setting up a general
rule, of all others the least to be endured; namely,
that secrecy, whenever secrecy is practicable, will
justify any action.

Were such a rule admitted, for instance in the case
above produced; is there not reason to fear that peo-
ple would be disappearing perpetually ?

In the next place, I would wish them to be well
satisfied about the points proposed in the following
queries :

1. Whether the Scriptures do not teach us to ex-

GENERAL CONSEQUENCES. 65

pect that, at the general judgment of the world, the
most secret actions will be brought to light ?*

2. For what purpose can this be, but to make them
the objects of reward and punishment ?

3. Whether, being so brought to light, they will
not fall under the operation of those equal and impar-
tial rules, by which God will deal with his creatures ?

They will then become examples, whatever they be
now; and require the same treatment from the judge
and governor of the moral world, as if they had been
detected from the first.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE CONSIDERATION OF GENERAL CONSEQUEN-
CES PURSUED.

THE general consequence of any action may be esti 1
mated, by asking what would be the consequence, il
the same sort of actions were generally permitted.-rsJ
But suppose they were, and a thousand such actions
perpetrated under this permission; is it just to charge
a single action with the collected guilt and mischief
of the whole thousand ? I answer, that the reason for
prohibiting and punishing an action (and this reason
may be called the guilt of the action, if you please)
will always be in proportion to the whole mischief
that would arise from the general impunity and tole-
ration of actions of the same sort.

"Whatever is expedient is right." But then it
must be expedient on the whole, at the long run, in
all its effects collateral and remote, as well as in those

* " In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men
by Jesus Christ." Rom. xi. 16. — " Judge nothing before
the time, until the Lord come, who will bring to light the
hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the coun-
sels of the heart." 1 Cor. iv. 5.

VOL. I. 6 *

66 GENERAL CONSEQUENCES.

which are immediate and direct; as it is obvious, that,
in computing consequences, it makes no difference in
what way or at what distance they ensue.

To impress this doctrine on the minds of young
readers, arid to teach them to extend their views be-
yond the immediate mischief of a crime, I shall here
subjoin a string of instances, in which the particular
consequence is comparatively insignificant ; and where
the malignity of the crime, and the severity with
which human laws pursue it, is almost entirely found-
ed upon the general consequence.

The particular consequence of coining is the loss
of a guinea or of half a guinea to the person who
receives the counterfeit money: the general conse-
quence (by which I mean the consequence that would
ensue, if the same practice were generally permitted)
is to abolish the use of money.

The particular consequence of forgery is a damage
of twenty or thirty pounds to the man who accepts
the forged bill: the general consequence is the stop-
page of paper currency.

The particular consequence of sheep-stealing, or
horse-stealing is a loss to the owner, to the amount
of the value of the sheep or horse stolen: the general
consequence is that the land could not be occupied,
nor the market supplied with this kind of stock.

The particular consequence of breaking into a
house empty of inhabitants is the loss of a pair *of
silver candlesticks or a few spoons: the general con-
sequence is that nobody could leave their house
empty.

The particular consequence of smuggling may be a
deduction from the national fund too minute for com-
putation: the general consequence is the destruction
of one entire branch of public revenue; a propor-
tionable increase of the burden upon other branches;
and the ruin of all fair and open trade in the article
smuggled.

The particular consequence of an officer's breaking
his parole is the loss of a prisoner, who was possibly
not worth keeping the general conseouence is that

GENERAL CONSEQUENCES. 67

this mitigation of captivity would be refused to all
others.

And what proves incontestably the superior impor-
tance of general consequences is that crimes are the
same, and treated in the same manner, though the
particular consequence be very different. The crime
and fate of the house-breaker is the same, whether
his booty be five pounds or fifty. And the reason is
that the general consequence is the same.

The want of this distinction between particular and
general consequences, or rather, the not sufficiently
attending to the latter, is the cause of that perplexity
which we meet with in ancient moralists. On the
one hand, they were sensible of the absurdity of pro-
nouncing actions good or evil, without regard to the
good or evil they produced. On the other hand,
they were startled at the conclusion to which a steady
adherence to consequences seemed sometimes to con-
duct them. To relieve this difficulty they contrived
the TO TT^WOV or the honestum, by which terms they
meant to constitute a measure of right, distinct from
utility. Whilst the utile served them, that is, whilst
it corresponded with their habitual notions of the
rectitude of actions, they went by it. When they
fell in with such cases as those mentioned in the
sixth chapter, they took leave of their guide, and
resorted to the honestum. The only account they
could give cf the matter was, that these actions might
be useful; but, because they were not at the same
time honesta, they were by no means to be deemed
just or right.

From the principles delivered in this and the two
preceding chapters, a maxim maybe explained, which
is in every man's mouth, and in most men's without
meaning, viz. " not to do evil, that good may come;"
that is, let us not violate a general rule for the sake
of any particular good consequence we may expect:
which is for the most part a salutary caution, the ad-
vantage seldom compensating for the violation of the
rule. Strictly speaking, that cannot be " evil" from
which " good comes;" but in this way, and with a

W OF RIGHT.

view to the distinction between particular and general
consequences, it may.

We will conclude this subject of consequences with
the following reflection. A man may imagine, that
any action of his, with respect to the public, must be
inconsiderable: so also is the agent. If his crime
produce but a small effect upon the universal interest,
his punishment or destruction bears a small propor-
tion to the sum of happiness and misery in the crea-
tion.

CHAPTER IX.

OF RIGHT.

RIGHT and obligation are reciprocal; that is, where-
ever there is a right in one person, there is a corres-
ponding obligation upon others. If one man has a
" right" to an estate; others are " obliged" to abstain
from it: — If parents have a " right" to reverence from
their children; children are " obliged" to reverence
their parents; — and so in all other instances.

Now, because moral obligation depends as we have
seen, upon the will of God; right, which is correla-
l tive to it, must depend upon the same. Right there-
^fore signifies consivleiicy with the will of God.

But if the Divine will determine the distinction oJ
right and wrong, what else is it but an identical pro-
position, to say of God, that he acts right? or how
is it possible to conceive even that he should act
wrong? Yet these assertions are intelligibTs and sig-
nificant. The case is this: By virtue of the two
principles, that God wills the happiness of his crea-
tures, and that the will of God is the measure of right
and wrong, we arrive at certain conclusions; which
conclusions become rules; and we soon learn to pro-
nounce actions right or wrong, according as they
agree or disagree with our rules, without looking any
further: and when the habit is once established of
stopping at the rules, we can go back and compare

DIVISION OF RIGHTS. 69

with these rules even the Divine conduct itself, and
yet it may be true (only not observed by us at the
time) that the rules themselves are deduced from the
Divine will.

Right is a quality of persons or of actions.

Of persons; as when we say, such a one has a
"right" to this estate; parents have a "right" to
reverence from their children; the king to allegiance
from his subjects; masters have a '* right" to their
servants' labour; a man has not a " right" over his
own life.

Of actions; as in such expressions as the following:
it is " right" to punish murdgr with death; his be-
haviour on that occasion was " right;" it is not" right"
to send an unfortunate debtor to gaol; he did or
acted " right," who gave up his place, rather than
vote against his judgment.

In this latter set of expressions, you may substitute
the definition o,f right above given for the term itself;
e. g. it is " consistent with the will of God" to punish
murder with death; — his behaviour on that occasion
was " consistent with the will of God;" — it is not
" consistent with the will of God" to send an unfor-
tunate debtor to gaol; — he did, or acted, " consis-
tently with the will of God," who gave up his place
rather than vote against his judgment.

In the former set, you must vary the construction a
little, when you introduce the definition instead of the
term. Such a one has a " right" to this estate; that
is, it is " consistent with the will of God" that such a
one should have it; — parents have a " right" to reve-
rence from their children; that is, it is " consistent
with the will of God" that children should reverence
their parents; — and the same of the rest.

CHAPTER X.

THE DIVISION OF RIGHTS.

RIGHTS, when applied to persons, are
Natural or adventitious:

70 DIVISION OF RIGHTS.

Alienable or unalienable:
Perfect or imperfect.

1. Rights are natural or adventitious

Natural rights are such as would belong to man,
although there subsisted in the world no civil govern-
ment whatever.

Adventitious rights are such as would not.

Natural rights are a man's right to his life, limbs,
and liberty; his right to the produce of his personal
labour; to the use, in common with others, of air,
light, water. If a thousand different persons, from a
thousand different corners of the world, were cast
together upon a desert island, they would from the
first be every one entitfed to these rights.

Adventitious rights are the right of a king over
his subjects; of a general over his soldiers; of a judge
over the life and liberty of a prisoner; a right to elect
or appoint magistrates, to impose taxes, decide dis-
putes, direct the descent or disposition of property; a
right, in a word, in any one man, or particular body
of men, to make laws and regulations for the rest.
For none of these rights would exist in the newly in-
habited island.

And here it will be asked, how adventitious rights
are created; or, which is the same thing, how any
new rights can accrue from the establishment of civil
society? as rights of all kinds, we remember, depend
upon the will of God, and civil society is but the or-
dinance and institution of man. For the solution of
this difficulty, we must return to our first principles
God wills the happiness of mankind; and the exist-
ence of civil society, as conducive to that happiness.
Consequently, many things, which are useful for the
support of civil society in general, or for the conduct
and conservation of particular societies already esta-
blished, are, for that reason, " consistent with the will
of God," or " right," which, without that reason, i. e.
without the establishment of civil society, would not
have been so.

From whence also it appears, that adventitious
rights, though immediately derived from human ap-
pointment, are not, for that reason, less sacred than

DIVISION OF RIGHTS. 71

natural rights, nor the obligation to respect them less
cogent. They both ultimately rely upon the same
authority — the will of God. Such a man claims a
right to a particular estate. He can show, it is true,
nothing for his right, but a rule of the civil commu-
nity to whioh he belongs; and this rule may be arbi-
trary, capricious, and absurd. Notwithstanding all
this, there would be the same sin in dispossessing the
man of his estate by craft or violence, as if it had
been assigned to him, like the partition of the country
amongst the twelve tribes, by the immediate designa-
tion and appointment of Heaven.

2. Rights are alienable or unalienable.
Which terms explain themselves.

The right we have to most of those things which we
call property, as houses, lands, money, &c. is alienable.

The right of a prince over his people, of a husband
Dver his wife, of a master over his servant, is gene-
rally and naturally unalienable.

The distinction depends upon the mode of acquir-
ing the right. If the right originate from a contract,
and be limited to the person by the express terms of
the contract, or by the common interpretation of such
contracts (which is equivalent to an express stipula-
tion,) or by a personal condition annexed to the right;
then it is unalienable. In all other cases it is aliena-
ble.

The ritht to civil libertjr is alienable; though in
the vehemence of men's zeal for it, and the language
of some political remonstrances, it has often been pro-
nounced to be an unalienable right. The true reason
why mankind hold in detestation the memory of those
who have sold their liberty to a tyrant is, that, toge-
ther with their own, they sold commonly, or endan-
gered, the liberty of others; which certainly they had
no right to dispose of.

3. Rights are perfect or imperfect.

Perfect rights may be asserted by force, or, what in
civil society comes into the place of private force, by
course of law.

Imperfect rights may not.

Examples of perfect rights. — A man's right to his

72 DIVISION OF RIGHTS.

life, person, house; for, if these be attacked, he may
repel the attack by instant violence, or punish the
aggressor by law: a man's righi to his estate, furni-
ture, clothes, money, and to all ordinary articles of
property; for, if they be injuriously taken from him,
he may compel the author of the injury to make resti
tution or satisfaction.

Examples of imperfect rights. — In elections or ap-
pointments to offices, where the qualifications a re pre-
scribed, the best qualified candidate has a right to
success; yet, if he be rejected, he has no remedy.
He can neither seize the office by force, nor obtain
redress at law: his right therefore is imperfect. A
poor neighbour has a right to relief; yet if it be
refused him, he must not extort it. A benefactor has
a right to returns of gratitude from the person he has
obliged; yet, if he meet with none, he must acquiesce
Children have a right to affection and education from
their parents; and parents, on their part, to duty and
reverence from their children: yet if these rights be
on either side withholden, there is no compulsion by
which they can be enforced.

It may be at first view difficult to apprehend how a
person should have a right to a thing, and yet have
no right to use the means necessary to obtain it. This
difficulty, like most others in morality, is resolvable
into the necessity of general rules. The reader recol-
lects, that a person is said to have a " right" to a
thing, when it is " consistent with the will of God"
that he should possess it. So that the question is
reduced to this: How it comes to* pass that it should
be consistent with the will of God that a person should
possess a thing, and yet not be consistent with the
same \\ill that he should use force to obtain it ? The
answer is, that by reason of the indetcrminateness,
either of the object, or of the circumstances of the
right, the permission offeree in this case would, in its
consequence, lead to the permission of force in other
cases, where there existed no right at all. The can-
didate above described has, no doubt, a right to suc-
cess^ but his right depends upon his qualifications,
for instance, upon his comparative virtue, learning,

DIVISION OF RIGHTS. 73

&c there must be somebody therefore to compare
them. The existence, degree, and respective import-
ance of these qualifications are all indeterminate:
there must be somebody therefore to determine them.
To allow the candidate to demand success by force is
to make him the judge of his own qualifications. You
cannot do this but you must make all other candidates
the same; which would open a door to demands with-
out number, reason, or right. In like manner, a poor
man has a right to relief from the rich; but the mode,
season, and quantum of that relief, who shall con-
tribute to it, or how much, are not ascertained. Yet
these points must be ascertained, before a claim to
relief can be prosecuted by force. For, to allow the
poor to ascertain them for themselves would be to
expose property to so many of these claims, that it
would lose its value, or rather its nature; that is, cease
indeed to be property. The same observation holds
of all other cases of imperfect rights; not to mention
that, in the instances of gratitude, affection, reverence,
and the like, force is excluded by the very idea of the
duty, which must be voluntary, or cannot exist at all.

Wherever the right is imperfect, the corresponding
obligation is so too. I am obliged to prefer the best
candidate, to relieve the poor, be grateful to my bene-
factors, take care of my children, and reverence my
parents; but in all these cases my obligation, like
their right, is imperfect.

I call these obligations "imperfect," in conformity
to the established language of writers upon the sub-
ject. The term, however, seems ill chosen, on this
account, that it leads many to imagine that there is
less guilt in the violation of an imperfect obligation
than of a perfect one; which is a groundless notion^
For an obligation being perfect or imperfect, deter-
mines only whether violence may or may not be em-
ployed to enforce it; and determines nothing else.
The degree of guilt incurred by violating the obliga-
tion is a different thing, and is determined by circum-
stances altogether independent of this distinction. A
man who by a partial, prejudiced, or corrupt vote, dis-
appoints a worthy candidate of a station in life, upon

VOL. I. 7

74 GENERAL RIGHTS OF MANKIND.

which his hopes, possibly, or livelihood, depended,
and who thereby grievously discourages merit and
emulation in others, commits, I am persuaded, a much
greater crime than if he filched a book out of a library,
or picked a pocket of a handkerchief; though in the
one case he violates only an imperfect right, in the
other a perfect one.

As positive precepts are often indeterminate in their
extent, and as the indeterminateness of an obligation
is that which mak'3s it imperfect; it comes to pass,
that positive precepts commonly produce an imperfect
obligation.

Negative precepts or prohibitions, being generally
precise, constitute accordingly perfect obligations.

The fifth commandment is positive, and the duty
which results from it is imperfect.

The sixth commandment is negative, and imposes
a perfect obligation.

Religion and virtue find their principal exercise
among the imperfect obligations; the laws of civil so-
ciety taking pretty good care of the rest.

CHAPTER XI.

THE GENERAL RIGHTS OF MANKIND.

BY the General Rights of Mankind, I mean the
rights which belong to the species collectively; the
original stock, as I may say, which they have since
distributed an:ong themselves.

These are,

. 1. A right to the fruits or vegetable produce of the
earth.

The insensible parts of the creation are incapablu
of injury; and it is nugatory to inquire into the right,
where the use can be attended with no injury. But it
may be worth observing, for the sake of an inference
which will appear below, that as God had created us
with a want and desire of food, arid provided things
suited by their nature to sustain and satisfy us, we

GENERAL RIGHTS OF MANKIND. 75

may fairly presume, that he intended we should apply
these things to that purpose.

2. A right to the flesh of animals.

This is a very different claim from the former.
Some excuse seems necessary for the pain and loss
which we occasion to brutes, by restraining them of
their liberty, mutilating their bodies, and, at last,
putting an end to their lives (which we suppose to be
the whole of their existence,) for our pleasure or con-
veniency.

The reasons alleged in vindication of this practice
are the following: that the several species of brutes
being created to prey upon one another, affords a kind
of analogy to prove that the human species were in-
tended to feed upon them; that, if let alone, they
would overrun the earth, and exclude mankind from
the occupation of it; that they are requited for what
they suffer at our hands, by our care and protection.

Upon which reasons I would observe, that the
analogy contended for is extremely lame ; since brutes
have no power to support life by any other means,
and since we have; for the whole human species
might subsist entirely upon fruit, pulse, herbs, and
roots, as many tribes of Hindoos actually do. The
two other reasons may be valid reasons, as far as they
go; for, no doubt, if man had been supported entirely
by vegetable food, a great part of those animals which
die to furnish his table would never have lived: but
they by no means justify our right over the lives of
brutes to the extent in which we exercise it. What
danger is there, for instance, of fish interfering with
us, in the occupation of their element ? or what do we
contributes to their support or preservation ?

It seem to me, that it would be difficult to defend
this right by any arguments which the light and order
of nature afford; and that we are beholden for it to
the permission recorded in Scripture, Gen. ix. 1, 2, 3.
" And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto
them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the
earth: and the fear of you, and the dread of you, shall
be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl
of the air, and upon all that moveth upon the earth,

76 GENERAL RIGHTS OF MANKIND.

and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are
they delivered; every moving thing shall be meat for
you; even as the green herb, have I given you all
things." To Adam and his posterity had been gran >-
ed, at the creation, "every green herb for meat," and
nothing more. In the last clause of the passage now
produced, the old grant is recited, and extended to the
flesh of animals; " even as the green herb, have I
given you all things." But this was not till after the
flood; the inhabitants of the antediluvian world had
therefore no such permission, that we know of. Whe-
ther they actually refrained from the flesh of animals,
is another question. Abel, we read, was a keeper of
sheep; and for what purpose he kept them, except for
food, is difficult to say (unless it were sacrifices:)
might not, however, some of the stricter sects among
the antediluvians be scrupulous as to this point ? and
might not Noah and his family be of this description?
for it is not probable that God would publish a per-
mission to authorize a practice which had never been
disputed.

Wanton, and, what is worse, studied cruelty to
brutes is certainly wrong, as coming within none of
these reasons.

From reason then, or revelation, or from both toge-
ther, it appears to be God Almighty's intention, that
the productions of the earth should be applied to the
sustentation of human life. Consequently all waste
and misapplication of these productions is contrary to
the Divine intention and will; and therefore wrong,
for the same reason that any other crime is so: Such
as, what is related of William the Conqueror, the con-
verting of twenty manors into a forest for hunting,
or, which is not much better, suffering them to con-
tinue in that state; or, the letting of large tracts of
land lie barren, because the owner cannot cultivate
them, nor will part with them to those who can; or
destroying, or suffering to perish, great part of an
article of human provision, in order to enhance the
price of the remainder (which is said to have been,

GENERAL RIGHTS OF MANKIND 77

till lately, the case with fish caught upon the English
coast;) or diminishing the breed of animals, by a
wanton or improvident consumption of the young, as
of the spawn of shell fish, or the fry of salmon, by the
use of unlawful nets, or at improper seasons. To this
head may also be referred what is the same evil in a
smaller way, the expending of human food on super-
fluous dogs or horses; and lastly, the reducing of the
quantity, in order to alter the quality, and to alter it
generally for the worse; as the distillation of spirits
from bread corn, the boiling down of solid meat for
sauces, essences, &c.

This seems to be the lesson which our Saviour,
after his manner, inculcates, when he bids his disci-
ples " gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost."
And it opens indeed a new field of duty. Schemes of
wealth or profit prompt the active part of mankind to
cast about, how they may convert their property to
the most advantage; and their own advantage, and
that of the public, commonly concur. But it has not
as yet entered into the minds of mankind to reflect,
that it is a duty to add what we can to the common
stock of provision, by extracting out of our estates the
most they will yield; or that it is any sin to neglect
this.

From the same intention of God Almighty, we also
deduce another conclusion, namely, " that nothing
ought to be made exclusive property, which can be
conveniently enjoyed in common."

It is the general intention of God Almighty, that
the produce of the earth be applied to the use of man.
This appears from the constitution of nature, or, if you
will, from his express declaration; and this is all that
appears at first. Under this general donation, one
man has the same right as another. You pluck an
apple from a tree, or take a lamb from a flock, for
your immediate use and nourishment, and I do the
same; and we both plead for what we do, the general
intention of the Supreme Proprietor. So far all is
right: but you cannot claim the whole tree or the
whole flock, and exclude me from any share of them,
and plead this general intention for what you do.

VOL X. 7*

73 GENERAL RIGHTS OF MANKIND.

The plea will not serve you; you must show some-
tiling more. You must show, by probable arguments,
at least, that it is God's intention that these things
should be parcelled out to individuals; and that the
established distribution, under which you claim,
should be upholden. Show me this, and I am satis-
fied. But until this be shown, the general intention,
which has been nade to appear, and which is all that
does appear, must prevail; and, under that, my title
is as good as yours. Now there is no argument to
induce such a presumption, but one; that the thing
cannot be enjoyed at all, or enjoyed with the same, or
with nearly the same advantage, while it continues in
common as when appropriated. This is true, where
there is not enough for all, or where the article in
question requires care or labour in the production or
preservation; but where no such reason obtains, and
the thing is in its nature capable of being enjoyed by
as many as will, it seems an arbitrary usurpation upon
the rights of mankind, to confine the use of it to any.

If a medicinal spring were discovered in a piece of
ground which was private property, copious enough
for every purpose to which it could be applied, I would
award a compensation to the owner of the field, and a
liberal profit to the author of the discovery, especially
if he had bestowed pains or expense upon the search:
but I question whether any human laws would be
justified, or would justify the owner, in prohibiting
mankind from the use of the water, or setting such a
price upon it as would almost amount to a prohibition.

If there be fisheries which are inexhaustible, as the
cod fishery upon the Banks of Newfoundland, and the
herring fishery in the British seas, are said to be; then
all those conventions, by which one or two nations
claim to themselves, and guarantee to each other, the
exclusive enjoyment of these fisheries, are so many en-
croachments upon the general rights of mankind.

Upon the same principle may be determined a
question, which makes a 'great figure in books of
natural law, uiruni mare sit liberuml that is, as 1
understand it, whether the exclusive right of navi-
gating particular seas, or a control over the naviga-
tion of these seas, can be claimed, consistently with

GENERAL RIGHTS OF MANKIND 79

the law of nature, by any nation ? What is necessary
for each nation's safety, we allow; as their own bays,
creeks, and harbours, the sea contiguous to, that is,
within cannon-shot, or three leagues, of their coast;
and upon this principle of safety (if upon any prin-
ciple) must be defended the claim of the Venetian
State to the Adriatic, of Denmark to the Baltic Sea,
and of Great Britain to the seas which invest the
island. But when Spain asserts a right to the Pacific
Ocean, or Portugal to the Indian Seas, or when any
nation extends its pretensions much beyond the limits
of its own territories, they erect a claim which inter
feres with the benevolent designs of Providence, and
which no human authority can justify.

3. Another right, which may be called a general
right, as it is incidental to every man who is in a
situation to claim it, is the right of extreme neces-
sity; by which is meant, a right to use or destroy
another's property, when it is necessary for our own
preservation to do so; as a right to take, without or
against the owner's leave, the first food, clothes, or
shelter we meet with, when we are in danger of perish-
ing through want of them; a right to throw goods
overboard, to save the ship; or to pull down a house,
in order to stop the progress of afire; and a few other
instances of the same kind. Of which right the foun-
dation seems to be this: that when property was first
instituted, the institution was not intended to operate
to the destruction of any; therefore, when such con-
sequences would follow, all regard to it is superseded.
Or rather, perhaps, these are the few cases, where
the particular consequence exceeds the general conse-
quence; where the remote mischief resulting from
the violation of the general rule is overbalanced by
the immediate advantage.

Restitution however is due, when in our power:
because the laws of property are to be adhered to, so
far as consists with safety; and because restitution,
which is one of those laws, supposes the danger to be
over. But what is to be restored ? Not the full value
of the property destroyed, but what it was worth at
the time of destroying it; which, considering the
danger it was in of perishing, might be very little.

BOOK III.

RELATIVE DUTIES.

PART I.

OF RELATIVE DUTIES WHICH ARE DETERMINATE.

CHAPTER I.

OF PROPERTY.

IF you should see a flock of pigeons in a field of
corn; and if (instead of each picking where and what
it liked, taking just as much as it wanted, and no more)
you should see ninety-nine of them gathering all they
got into a heap; reserving nothing for themselves but
the chaff and the refuse; keeping this heap for one,
and that the weakest, perhaps worst, pigeon of the
flock; sitting round, and looking on, all the winter,
whilst this one was devouring, throwing about, and
wasteing it; and if a pigeon, more hardy or hungry
than the rest, touched a grain of the hoard, all the
others instantly flying upon it, and tearing it to
pieces; — if you should see this, you would see no-
thing more than what is every day practised and
established among men. Among men, you see the
ninety and nine toiling and scraping together a heap
of superfluities for one (and this one too, oftentimes,

INSTITUTION OF PROPERTY. 81

the feeblest and worst of the whole set — a child, a
woman, a madman, or a fool;) getting nothing for
themselves all the while, but a little of the coarsest of
the provision which their own industry produces;
looking quietly on, while they see the fruits of all
their labour spent or spoiled; and if one of the num-
ber take or touch a particle of the hoard, the others
joining against him, and hanging him for the theft.

CHAPTER II.

THE USE OF THE INSTITUTION OF PROPERTY.

THERE must be some very important advantages to
account for an institution, which, in the view of it
above given, is so paradoxical and unnatural.

The principal of these advantages are the follow-
ing:

1. It increases the produce of the earth.

The earth, in climates like ours, produces little
without cultivation: and none would be found willing
to cultivate the ground, if others were to be admitted
to an equal share of the produce. The same is true
of the care of flocks and herds of tame animals.

Crabs and acorns, red deer, rabbits, game, and fish
are all which we should have to subsist upon in this
country, if we trusted to the spontaneous productions
of the soil; and it fares not much better with other
countries. A nation of North American savages, con-
sisting of two or three hundred, will take up, and be
half starved upon a tract of land which, in Europe,
and with European management, would be sufficient
for the maintainance of as many thousands.

In some fertile soils, together with great abundance
offish upon their coasts, and in regions where clothes
are unnecessary, a considerable degree of population
may subsist without property in land, which is the
case in the islands of Otaheite: but in less favoured
situations, as in the country of New Zealand, though

82 INSTITUTION OF PROPERTY.

this sort of property obtain in a small degree, the in-
habitants, for want of a more secure and regular esta-
blishment of it, arc driven oftentimes by the scarcity
of provision to devour one another.

2. It preserves the produce of the earth to matu-
rity.

We may judge what would be the effects of a com-
munity of right to the productions of the earth, from
the trifling specimens which we see of it at present.
A cherry tree in a hedgerow, nuts in a wood, the grass
of an unstinted pasture, are seldom of much advan-
tage to any body, because people do not wait for the
proper season of reaping them. Corn, if any were
sown, would never ripen; lambs and calves would
never grow up to sheep and cows, because the first
person that met them would reflect that he had better
take them as they are, than leave them for another.

3. It prevents contests.

War and waste, tumult and confusion, must be un-
avoidable and eternal, where there is not enough for
all, and where there are no rules to adjust the division.

4. It improves the conveniency of living.

This it does two ways. It enables mankind to
divide themselves into distinct professions; which is
impossible, unless a man can exchange the produc-
tions of his own art for what he wants from others ;
and exchange implies property. Much of the advan-
tage of civilized over savage life depends upon this.
When a man is from necessity his own tailor, tent-
maker, carpenter, cook, huntsman, and fisherman, it
is not probable that he will be expert at any of his
callings. Hence the rude habitations, furniture, cloth-
ing, and implements of savages; and the tedious
length of time which all their operations require.

It likewise encourages those arts by which the ac-
commodations of human life are supplied, by appro-
priating to the artist the benefit of his discoveries and
improvements; without which appropriation ingenuity
will never be exerted with effect.

Upon these several accounts we may venture, with
a few exceptions, to pronounce that even the poorest
ind the worst provided, in countries where property

HISTORY OF PROPERTY. 83

and the consequences of property prevail, are in a
better situation, with respect to food, raiment, houses,
and what are called the necessaries of life, than any
are in places where most things remain in common.

The balance, therefore, upon the whole, must pre-
ponderate in favour of property with a manifest and
great excess.

Inequality of property, in the degree in which it
exists in most countries of Europe, abstractedly con-
sidered, is an evil; but it is an evil which flows from
those rules concerning the acquisition and disposal of
property, by which men are incited to industry, and
by which the object of their industry is rendered se-
cure and valuable. If there be any great inequality
unconnected with this origin, it ought to be corrected

CHAPTER III.

THE HISTORY OF PROPERTY.

THE first objects of property were the fruits which
a man gathered, and the wild animals he caught; next
to these, the tents or houses which he built, the tools
he made use of to catch or prepare his food; and
afterwards weapons of war and offence. Many of
the savage tribes in North America have advanced
no further than this yet ; for they are said to reap their
harvest, and return the produce of their market with
foreigners, into the common hoard or treasury of the
tribe. Flocks and herds of tame animals soon became
property: Abel, the second from Adam, was a keeper
of sheep; sheep and oxen, camels and asses, com-
posed the wealth of the Jewish patriarchs, as they do
etill of the modern* Arabs. As the world was first
peopled in the East, where there existed a great
scarcity of water, wells probably were next made
property; as we learn from the frequent and serious
mention of them in the Old Testament; the conten-

84 HISTORY OP PROPERTY.

tions and treaties about them;* and from its being
recorded, among the most memorable achievements
of very eminent men, that they dug or discovered a
well. Land, which is now so important a part of
property, which alone our laws call real property, and
regard upon all occasions with such peculiar atten-
tion, was probably not made property in any country,
till long after the institution of many other species of
property, that is, till the country became populous,
and tillage began to be thought of. The first parti-
tion of an estate which we read of was that which
took place between Abram and Lot, and was one of
the simplest imaginable: " If thou wilt take the left
hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart
to the right hand, then I will go to the left," There
are no traces of property in land in Caesar's account
of Britain; little of it in the history of the Jewish
patriarchs; none of it found amongst the nations of
North America; the Scythians are expressly said to
have appropriated their cattle and houses, but to have
left their land in common.

Property in immovables continued at first no longer
than the occupation; that is, so long as a man's fam ly
continued in possession of a cave, or whilst his flocks
depastured upon a neighbouring hill, no one attempt-
ed, or thought he had a right, to disturb or drive them
out; but when the man quitted his cave, or changed
his pasture, the first who found them unoccupied en-
tered upon them, by the same title as his predecessors ;
and made way in his turn for any one that happened
to succeed him. All more permanent property in land
was probably posterior to civil government and to
laws; and therefore settled by these, or according to
the will of the reigning chief.

* Genesis, xxi. 25 ; xxvi. 18.

RIGHT OF PROPERTY. 86

CHAPTER IV.

IN WHAT THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY IB
FOUNDED.

WE now speak of Property in Land: and there is a
difficulty in explaining the origin of this property
consistently with the law of nature; for the land was
once, no doubt, common; and the question is, how
any particular part of it could justly be taken out of
the common, and so appropriated to the first owner,
as to give him a better right to it than others; and,
what is more, a right to exclude nil others from it.

Moralists have given many different accounts of
this matter: which diversity alone, perhaps, is a proof
that none of them are satisfactory.

One tells us that mankind, when they suffered a
particular person to occupy a piece of ground, by
tacit consent relinquished their right to it; and as
the piece of ground, they say, belonged to mankind
collectively, and mankind thus gave up their right to
the first peaceable occupier, it thenceforward became
his property, and no oae afterwards had a right to
molest him in it.

The objection to this account is, that consent can
never be presumed from silence, where the person
whose consent is required knows nothing about the
matter; which must have been the case with all man-
kind, except the neighbourhood of the place where
the appropriation was made. And to suppose that
the piece of ground previouly belonged to the neigh-
bourhood, and that they had a just power of confer-
ring a right to it upon whom they pleased, is to sup-
pose the question resolved, and a partition of land to
have already taken place.

Another says, that each man's limbs and labour are
his own exclusively; that, by occupying a piece of
ground, a man inseparably mixes his labour with it;
by which means the piece of ground becomes thence-
forward his own, as you cannot take it from him with-

VOL. i. 8

86 RIGHT OF PROPERTY.

out depriving him at the same time of something
which is indisputably his.

This is Mr. Locke's solution; and seems indeed a
fair reason, where the value of the labour bears a
considerable proportion to the value of the thing; or
where the thing derives its chief use and value from
the labour Thus game and fish, though they be
common whilst at large in the woods or water, instantly
become the property of the person that catches them;
because an animal when caught is much more valua-
ble than when at liberty: and this increase of value,
which is inseparable from and makes a great part of
the whole value, is strictly the property of the fowler
or fisherman, being the produce of his personal labour
For the same reason, wood or iron, manufactured into
utensils, becomes the property of the manufacturer
because the value of the workmanship far exceeds that
of the materials. And upon a similar principle, a
parcel of unappropriated ground, which a man should
pare, burn, plough, harrow, and sow, for the produc-
tion of corn, would justly enough be thereby made his
own. But this will hardly hold, in the manner it has
been applied, of taking a ceremonious possession of a
tract of land, as navigators do of new discovered
islands, by erecting a standard, engraving an inscrip-
tion, or publishing a proclamation to the birds and
beasts; or of turning your cattle into a piece of
ground, setting up a landmark, digging a ditch, or
planting a hedge round it. Nor will even the clear-
ing, manuring, and ploughing of a field give the first
occupier a right to it in perpetuity, and after this cul-
tivation and all effects of it are ceased.

Another and, in my opinion, a better account of
the first right of ownership is the following: That,
as God has provided these things for the use of all,
he has of consequence given each leave to take of them
what he wants: by virtue, therefore, of this leave, a
man may appropriate what he stands in need of to his
own use, without asking or waiting for the consent of
others; in like manner as, when an entertainment is
provided for the freeholders of a county, each free-
holder goes, and eats and drinks what he wants 01

RIGHT OF PROPERTY. 87

chooses, without having or waiting for the consent of
the other guests.

But then this reason justifies property, as far as
necessaries alone, or, at the most, as far as a compe-
tent provision for our natural exigences. For, in the
entertainment we speak of (allowing the comparison
to hold in all points,) although every particular free-
holder may sit down and eat till he be satisfied, with-
out any other leave than that of the master o£ the
feast, or any other proof of that leave than the gene-
ral invitation, or the manifest design with which the
entertainment is provided ; yet you would hardly per-
mit any one to fill his pockets or his wallet, or to carry
away with him a quantity of provision to be hoarded
up, or wasted, or given to his dogs, or stewed down
into sauces, or converted into articles of superfluous
luxury; especially if, by so doing, Jie pinched the
guests at the lower end of the table.

These are the accounts that have been given of the
matter by the best writers upon the subject; but, were
these accounts perfectly unexceptionable, they would
none of them, I fear, avail us in vindicating our pre-
sent claims of property in land, unless it were more
probable than it is, that our estates were actually
acquired, at first, in some of the ways which these
accounts suppose; and that a regular regard had been
paid to justice, in every successive transmission of
them since; for, if one link in the chain fail, every
title posterior to it falls to the ground.

The real foundation of our right is THE LAW OF

THE LAND.

It is the intention of God that the produce of the
earth be applied to the use of man: this intention
cannot be fulfilled without establishing property: it.
is consistent therefore with his will that property be
established. The land cannot be divided into sepa-
rate property, without leaving it to the law of the
country to regulate that division: it is consistent
therefore with the same will, that the law should
regulate the division; and, consequently, " consistent
with the will of God," or "riffht," that I should po?
eess that share which these regulations assign me.

88 RIGHT OF PROPERTY.

By whatever circuitous train of reasoning you at-
tempt to derive this right, it must terminate at last in
the will of God; the straightest, therefore, and short-
est way of arriving at this will is the best.

Hence it appears, that my right to an estate does
not at all depend upon the manner or justice of the
original acquisition; nor upon the justice of each sub-
sequent change of possession. Jt is not, for instance,
the less, nor ought it to be impeached, because the
estate was taken possession of at first by a family of
aboriginal Britons, who happened to be stronger than
their neighbours, nor because the British possessor
was turned out by a Roman, or the Roman by a
Saxon invader; nor because it was seized, without
colour of right or reason, by a follower of the Norman
adventurer; from whom, after many interruptions of
fraud and violence, it has at length devolved to me.

Nor does the owner's right depend upon the expe-
diency of the law which gives it to him. On one side
of a brook an estate descends to the eldest son; on tho
other side, to all the children alike. The right of the
claimants under both laws of inheritance is equal;
though the expediency of such opposite rules must
necessarily be different.

The principles we have laid down upon this sub-
ject apparently tend to a conclusion of which a bad
use is apt to be made. As the right of property de-
penda upon the law of the land, it seems to follow
that a man has a right to keep and take every thing
which the law will allow him to keep and take; which
in many cases will authori/e the most flagitious chi-
canery. If a creditor upon a simple contract neglect
-to demand his debt for six years, the debtor may re
fuse to pay it: would it be right therefore to do so
where he is conscious of the justice of the debt ? If a
person who is under twenty-one years of age contract
a bargain (other than for necessaries,) he may void it
by pleading his minority: but would «this be a fair
plea, where the bargain was originally just ? — The
distinction to be taken in such cases is this: With
the law, we acknowledge, resides the disposal of pro-
perty; so long, therefore, as we keep within the de-

RIGHT OF PROPERTY. 89

sign and intention of a law, that law will justify us,
as well in for o conscientia, as in for o humane, what-
ever be the equity or expediency of the law itself.
But when we convert to one purpose a rule or ex-
pression of law which is intended for another purpose,
then we plead in our justification, not the intention of
the law, but the words: that is, we plead a dead letter,
which can signify nothing; for words without mean-
ing or intention have no force or effect in justice;
much less words taken contrary to the meaning and
intention of the speaker or writer. To apply this dis-
tinction to the examples just now proposed: — In order
to protect men against antiquated demands, from
which it is not probable they should have preserved
the evidence of their discharge, the law prescribes a
limited time to certain species of private securities,
beyond which it will not enforce them, or lend its
assistance to the recovery of the debt. If a man be
ignorant or dubious of the justice of the demand made
upon him, he may conscientiously plead this limita-
tion; because he applies the rule of law to the pur-
pose for which it was intended. But when he refuses
to pay a debt, of the reality of which he is conscious,
he cannot, as before, plead the intention of the sta-
tute, and the supreme authority of law; unless he
could show, that the law intended to interpose its su-
preme authority, to acquit men of debts, of the exist-
ence and justice of which they were themselves sensi-
ble. Again, to preserve youth from the practices and
impositions to which their inexperience exposes them,
the law compels the payment of no debts incurred
within a certain age, nor the performance of any en-
gagements, except for such necessaries as are suited
to their condition and fortunes If a young person
therefore perceive that he has been practised or im-
posed upon, he may honestly avail himself of the pri-
vilege of his nonage, to defeat the circumvention.
But if he shelter himself under this privilege, to avoid
a fair obligation, or an equitable contract, he extends
the privilege to a case in which it is not allowed by
intention of law, and in which consequently it does
not, in natural justice, exist.

VOL. i. 8 *

90 PROMISES.

As property is the principal subject of justice, or of
" the determinate relative duties," we have put down
what \ve had to say upon it in the first place: we now
proceed to state these duties in the best order we can.

CHAPTER V.

PROMISES.

1. From rvhence the obligation to perform promises

arises.

2. In what sense promises are to be interpreted.

3. In what cases promises are not binding.

1. From whence the obligation to perform promises
arises.

They who argue from innate moral principles sup-
pose a sense of the obligation of promises to be one of
them; but, without assuming this, or any thing else,
without proof, the obligation to perform promises ma}'
be deduced from the necessity of such a conduct to
the well-being, or the existence, indeed, of human
society.

Men act from expectation. Expectation is in most
cases determined by the assurances and engagements
which we receive from others. If no dependance
could be placed upon these assurances, it would be
impossible to know what judgment to form of many
future events, or how to regulate our conduct with
respect to them. Confidence, therefore, in promises
is essential to the intercourse of human life; because,
without it, the greatest part of our conduct would
proceed upon chance. But there could be no confi-
dence in promises if men were not obliged to perform
them: the obligation therefore to perform promises is
essentia1 to the same ends, and in the same degree.

Some may imagine, that if this obligation were
suspended, a general caution and mutual distrust
would ensue, which might do as well: but this is
imagined, without considering how, every hour of
our lives, we trust to and depend upon others ; and

PROMISES. 91

how impossible it is to stir a step, or, what is worse,
to sit still a moment, without such trust and depend-
ance. I am now writing at my ease, not doubting
(or rather never distrusting, and therefore never think-
ing about it,) that the butcher will send in the joint
of meat which I ordered; that his servant will bring
it ; that my cook will dress it ; that my footman will
serve it up; and that I shall find it upon table at one
o'clock. Yet have I nothing for all this but the pro-
mise of the butcher, and the implied promise of his
servant and mine. And the same holds of the most
important as well as the most familiar occurrences of
social life. In the one the intervention of promises is
formal, and is seen and acknowledged: our instance,
therefore, is intended to show it in the other, where
it is not so distinctly observed.

2. In what sense promises are to be interpreted.

Where the terms of promise admit of more senses
than one, the promise is to be performed " in that
sense in which the promiser apprehended, at the time,
that the promisee received it.*'

It is not the sense in which the promiser actually
intended it that always governs the interpretation of
an equivocal promise; because, at that rate, you
might excite expectations which you never meant, nor
would be obliged to satisfy. Much less is it the sense
in which the promisee actually received the promise;
for, according to that rule, you might be drawn into
engagements which you never designed to undertake.
It must therefore be the sense (for there is no other
remaining) in which the promiser believed that the
promisee accepted his promise.

This will not differ from the actual intention of the
promiser, where the promise is given without collusion
or reserve: but we put the rule in the above form, to
exclude evasion in cases in which the popular mean-
ing of a phrase, and the strict grammatical significa-
tion of the words differ; or, in general, wherever the
promiser attempts to make his escape through some
ambiguity in the expressions which he used. "

Temures promised the garrison of Sebastia, that if
they would surrender, no blood should be shed. The

92 PROMISES.

garrison surrendered; and Temures buried them all
alive. Now Temures fulfilled the promise in one
sense, and in the sense too in which he intended it at
the time; but not in the sense in which the garrison of
Sebastia actually received it, nor in the sense in
which Temures himself knew that the garrison re-
ceived it: which last sense, according to our rule,
was the sense in which he was in conscience bound
to have performed it.

From the account we have given of the obligation
of promises, it is evident that this obligation depends
upon the expectations which we knowingly and vol-
untarily excite. Consequently, any action or conduct,
towards another, which we are sensible excites expec-
tations in that other, is as much a promise, and creates
as strict an obligation as the most express assurances).
Taking, for instance, a kinsman's child, and educating
him for a liberal profession, or in a manner suitable
only for the heir of a large fortune, as much obliges
us to place him in that profession, or to leave him
such a fortune, as if we had given him a promise tn
do so under our hands and seals. In like manner, a
great man, who encourages an indigent retainer; or
a minister of state, who distinguishes and caresses aC
his levee one who is in a situation to be obliged by his
patronage; engages, by such behaviour, to provide
for him. — This is the foundation of tacit promises.

You may either simply declare your present inten
tion, or you may accompany your declaration with an
engagement to abide by it, which constitutes a com-
plete promise. In the first case, the duty is satisfied
if you were sincere at the time; that is, if you enter-
tained at the time, the intention you expressed, how-
ever soon, or for whatever reason, you afterwards
change it. In the latter case, you have parted with
the liberty of changing. All this is plain: but it
must be observed, that most of those forms of speech,
which, strictly taken, amount to no more than de-
clarations of present intention, do yet, in the usual
way of understanding them, excite the expectation,
and therefore carry with them the force of absolute
promises. Such as, "I intend you this place" — " I

PROMISES.

design to leave you this estate" — "I purpcee giving
you my vote" — " I mean to serve you." In which,
although the "intention," the " design," the " pur-
pose," the " meaning," be expressed in words of the
present time, yet you cannot afterwards recede from
them without a breach of good faith. If you choose
therefore to make known your present intention, and
yet to reserve to yourself the liberty of changing it,
you must guard your expressions by an additional
clause, as " I intend at present," — " If I do not al-
ter,"— or the like. And after all, as there can be no
reason for communicating your intention, but to
excite some degree of expectation or other, a wanton
change of an intention which is once disclosed, always
disappoints somebody; and is always for that reason
wrong.

There is, in some men, an infirmity with regard to
promises, which often betrays them into great distress.
From the confusion, or hesitation, or obscurity, with
which they express themselves, especially when over-
awed or taken by surprise, they sometimes encourage
expectations, and bring upon themselves demands,
which, possibly, they never dreamed of. This is a
want, not so much of integrity as of presence of mind.

3. In what cases promises are not binding.

1. Promises are not binding where the performance
is impossible.

But observe, that the promisor is guilty of a fraud,
if he be secretly aware of the impossibility at the
time of making the promise. For, when any one
promises a thing, he asserts his belief, at least, of the
possibility of performing it ; as no one can accept or
understand a promise under any other supposition.
Instances of this sort are the following: The minister
promises a place, which he knows to be engaged, or
not at his disposal: — A father, in settling marriage
articles, promises to leave his daughter an estate,
which he knows to be entailed upon the heir male of
his family: — A merchant promises a ship, or share of
a ship, which he is privately advised is lost at sea:
— An incumbent promises to resign a living, being
previously assured that his resignatior will not be

94 PROMISES.

accepted by the bishop. The promiser, as in thesa
cases, with knowledge of the impossibility, is justly
answerable in an equivalent ; but otherwise not.

When the promiser himself occasions the impossi-
bility, it is neither more nor less than a direct breach
of the promise ; as when a soldier maims or a servant
disables himself, to get rid of his engagements.

2. Promises are not binding when the performance
is unlawful.

There are two cases of this: one, where the unlaw-
fulness is known to the parties at the time of making
the promise; as, where an assassin promises his
employer to despatch his rival or his enemy; a ser-
vant to betray his master; a pimp to procure a mis-
tress; or a friend to give his assistance in a scheme
of seduction. The parties in these cases are not
obliged to perform what the promise requires, because
they were under a prior obligation to the contrary,
From which prior obligation what is there to dis-
charge them ? Their promise — their own act and
deed. But an obligation, from which a man can dis-
charge himself by his own act, is no obligation at all
The guilt therefore of such promises lies in the
making, not in the breaking of them; and if, in the
interval betwixt the promise and the performance, a
man so far recover his reflection as to repent of his
engagements, he ought certainly to break through
them.

The other case is, where the unlawfulness did not
exist, or was not known, at the time of making the
promise; as where a merchant promises his corres-
pondent abroad, to send him a ship load of corn at a
time appointed, and before the time arrive an embargo
is laid upon the exportation of corn: — A woman gives
a promise of marriage; before the marriage, she dis-
covers that her intended husband is too nearly related
to her, or that, he has a wife yet living. In all such
cases, where the contrary does not appear, it must be
presumed that the parties supposed what they pro-
mised to be lawful, and that the promise proceeded
entirely upon this supposition. The lawfulness there-
fore becomes a condition of the promise; which con-

PROMISES. 95

<lition failing, the obligation ceases. Of the same
nature was Herod s promise to his daughter-in-law,
" that he would give her whatever she asked, even to
the half of his kingdom." The promise was not
unlawful in the terms in which Herod delivered it,
and when it became so by the daughter's choice, by
her demanding " John the Baptist's head,'' Herod
was discharged from the obligation of it, for the rea-
son now laid down, as well as for that given in the
last paragraph.

This rule, " that promises are void, where the per-
formance is unlawful," extends also to imperfect obli-
gations; for the reason of the rule holds of all obliga-
tions. Thus, if you promise a man a place or your
vote, and he afterwards render himself unfit to receive
either, you are absolved from the obligation of your
promise; or, if a better candidate appear, and if it be
a case in which you are bound by oath, or otherwise,
to govern yourself by the qualification, the promise
must be broken through.

And here I would recommend, to young persons
especially, a caution, from the neglect of which many
involve themselves in embarrassment and disgrace;
and that is, " never to give a promise, which may
interfere in the event with their duty;" for, if it do
so interfere, their duty must be discharged, though
at the expense of their promise, and not unusually of
tbek good name.

The specific performance of promises is reckoned a
perfect obligation. And many casuists have laid
down, in opposition to what has been here asserted,
that, where a perfect and an imperfect obligation
clash, the perfect obligation is to be preferred. For
which opinion, however, there seems to be no reason,
but what arises from the terms " perfect" and *' im-
perfect," the impropriety of which has been remarked
above. The truth is, of two contradictory obligations
that ought to prevail which is prior in point of time.

It is the performance being unlawful, and not any
unlawfulness in the subject or motive of the promise,
which destroys its validity: therefore a bribe, after
the vote is given; the wages of prostitution; the

96 PROMISES

reward of any crime, after the crime is committed;
ought, if promised, to be paid. For the sin and mis-
chief, by this supposition, are over; and will be nei-
ther more nor less for the performance of the promise

In like manner, a promise does not lose its obliga-
tion merely because it proceeded from an unlawful
motive. A certain person, in the lifetime of his wife,
who was then sick, had paid his addresses and pro-
mised marriage to another woman; — the wife died;
and the woman demanded performance of the pro-
mise. The man, who, it seems, had changed his
mind, either felt or pretended doubts concerning the
obligation of such a promise, and referred his case to
Bishop Sanderson, the most eminent, in this kind of
knowledge, of his time. Bishop Sanderson, after
writing a dissertation upon the question, adjudged the
promise to be void: in which, however, upon our
principles, he was wrong; for, however criminal the
affection might be which induced the promise, the
performance, when it was demanded, was lawful;
which is the only lawfulness required.

A promise cannot be deemed unlawful, where it
produces, when performed, no effect beyond what
would have taken place had the promise never been
made. And this is the single case, in which the obli-
gation of a promise will justify a conduct which,
unless it had been promised, would be unjust. A
captive may lawfully recover his liberty, by a pr^nise
of neutrality; for his conqueror takes nothing by the
promise, which he might not have secured by his
death or confinement; and neutrality would be inno-
cent in him, although criminal in another. It is
manifest, however, that promises, which come into
the place of coercion, can extend no further than to
passive compliances; for coercion itself could compel
no more. Upon the same principle, promises of
secrecy ought not to be violated, although the public
would derive advantage from the discovery. Such
promises contain no unlawfulness in them to destroy
their obligation; for as the information would not
have been imparted upon any other condition, the

PROMISES. 97

public lose nothing by the promise, which they would
have gained without it.

3. Promises are not binding, where they contradict
a former promise ;

Because the performance is then unlawful; which
resolves this case into the last.

4. Promises are not binding before acceptance;
that is, before notice given to the promisee; for,
where the promise is beneficial, if notice be given,
acceptance may be presumed. Until the promise be
communicated to the promisee, it is the same only as
a resolution in the mind of the promiser, which may
be altered at pleasure. For no expectation has been
excited, therefore none can be disappointed.

But suppose I declare my intention to a third per
son, who, without any authority from me, conveys my
declaration to the promisee; is that such a notice as
will be binding upon me? It certainly is not: for I
nave not done that which constitutes the essence of a
promise — I have not voluntarily excited expectation.

5. Promises are not binding which are released by
the promisee.

This is evident; but it may be sometimes doubted
who the promisee is. If I give a promise to A, of a
place to vote for B; as to a father for his son; to an
uncle for his nephew; to a friend of mine for a rela-
tion or friend of his; then A is the promisee, whose
consent I must obtain, to be released from the en-
gagement.

If I promise a place or vote to B by A, that is, if A
be a messenger to convey the promise, as if I should
eay, " You may tell B that he shall have this place,
or may depend upon my vote;" or if A be employed
to introduce B's request, and I answer in any terms
which amount to a compliance with it; then B is the
promisee

Promises to one person, for the benefit of another,
are not released by the death of the promisee; for
his death neither makes the performance impractica-
ble, nor implies any consent to release the promiser
from it.

VOL. i. 9

98 PROMISES.

6. Erroneous promises are not binding in certain
cases; as,

1. Where the error proceeds from the mistake or
misrepresentation of the promisee.

Because a promise evidently supposes the truth of
the account, which the promisee relates in order to
obtain it. A beggar solicits your charity by a story
of the most pitiable distress; you promise to relieve
him, if he will call again: — In the interval you dis-
cover his story to be made up of lies;— this discovery,
no doubt, releases you from your promise. One who
wants your service describes the business or office for
which he would engage you; — you promise to under-
take it: when you come to enter upon it, you find
the profits less, the labour more, or some material
circumstance different from the account he gave you:
— In such case, you are not bound by your promise.

2. When the promise is understood by the pro-
misee to proceed upon a certain supposition, or when
the promisor apprehended it to be so understood, and
that supposition turns out to be false; then the pro-
mise is not binding.

This intricate rule will be best explained by an
example. A father receives an account from abroad,
of the death of his only son; — soon after which, he
promises his fortune to his nephew. The account
turns out to be false. The father, we say, is released
from his promise; not merely because he never would
have made it, had he known the truth of the case —
for that alone will not do; — but because the nephew
also himself understood the promise to proceed upon
this supposition of his cousin's death; or, at least his
uncle thought he so understood it, and could not think
otherwise. The promise proceeded upon this suppo-
sition in the promiser's own apprehension, and, as he
believed, in the apprehension of both parties; and
this belief of his is the precise circumstance which
sets him free. The foundation of the rule is plainly
this: a man is bound only to satisfy the expectation
which he intended to excite; whatever condition
therefore he intended to subject that expectation to,
becomes an essential condition of the promise.

PROMISES. 99

Errors, which come not within this description, do
not annul the obligation of a promise. I promise a
candidate my vote; — presently another candidate ap-
pears, for whom I certainly would have reserved it,
had I been acquainted with his design. Here there-
fore j as before, my promise proceeded from an error;
and I never should have given such a promise, had I
been aware of the truth of the case, as it has turned
out. — But the promisee did not know this; — he did
not receive the promise subject to any such condition,
or as proceeding from any such supposition; nor did
I at the time imagine he so received it. This error,
therefore, of mine, must fall upon my own head, and
the promise be observed notwithstanding. A father
promises a certain fortune with his daughter, sup-
posing himself to be worth so much — his circum-
stances turn out, upon examination, worse than he
was aware of. Here again the promise was errone-
ous, but, for the reason assigned in the last case, will
nevertheless oe obligatory.

The case of erroneous promises is attended with
some difficulty: for, to allow every mistake, or change
of circumstances, to dissolve the obligation of a pro-
mise \ would be to allow a latitude, which might
evacuate the force of almost all promises: and, on the
other hand, to gird the obligation so tight, as to make
no allowances for manifest and fundamental errors,
would, in many instances, be productive of great
hardship and absurdity.

It has long been controverted amongst moralists,
whether promises be binding which are extorted by
violence or fear. The obligation of all promises
results, we have seen, from the necessity or the use of
that confidence which mankind repose in them. The
question, therefore, whether these promises are bind-
ing, will depend upon this; whether mankind, upon
the whole, are benefited by the confidence placed on
such promises ? — A highwayman attacks you — and
being disappointed of his booty, threatens or prepares
to murder you; — you promise, with many solemn

100 PROMISES.

asseverations, that if he will spare your life, he shall
find a purse of money left for him at a place appoint-
ed:— upon the faith of this promise, he forbears
from further violence. Now, your life was saved by
the confidence reposed in a promise extorted by fear;
and the lives of many others may be saved by the
same. This is a good consequence. On the other
hand, confidence in promises like these, greatly facili-
tates the perpetration of robberies: they may be made
the instruments of almost unlimited extortion. This
is a bad consequence: and hi the question between
the importance of these opposite consequences, re-
sides the doubt concerning the obligation of such
promises.

There are other cases which are plainer; as where
a magistrate confines a disturber of the public peace
in gaol, till he promise to behave better; or a prisoner
of war promises, if set at liberty, to return within a
certain time. These promises, say moralists, are
oinding, because the violence or duress is just; but the
truth is, because there is the same use of confidence
in these promises, as of confidence in the promises of
a person at perfect liberty.

VOIDS are promises to God. The obligation cannot
be made out upon the same principle as that of other
promises. The violation of them, nevertheless, im-
plies a want of reverence to the supreme Being;
which is enough to make it sinful.

There appears no command or encouragement in
the Christian Scriptures to make vows; much less
any authority to break through them when they are
made. The few instances* of vows which we read
of in the New Testament were religiously observed.

The rules we have laid down concerning promises,
are applicable to vows. Thus Jephtha's vow, taken
in the sense in which that transaction is commonly
understood, was not binding; because the performance,
in that contingency, became unlawful,

* Acts, xviii. 18 ; xxu 23.

CONTRACTS.

101

CHAPTER VI.

CONTRACTS.

A CONTRACT is a mutual promise. The obligation
therefore of contracts, the sense in which they are to
be interpreted, and the cases where they are not bind-
ing, will be the same as of promises.

From the principle established in the last chapter,
" that the obligation of promises is to be measured by
the expectation which the promiser any how volunta-
rily and knowingly excites," results a rule which
governs the construction of all contracts, and is capa-
ble, from its simplicity, of being applied with great
ease and certainty, viz. That

Whatever is expected by one side, and known to
be so expected by the other, is to be deemed a part 01
condition of the contract.

The several kinds of contracts, and the order in
which we propose to consider them, may be exhibited
at one view, thus:
( Sale.
Hazard.

Contracts of <

Lending of

Labour ,

(Service.
Commissions.
Partnership.
Offices.

CHAPTER VII.

CONTRACTS OB SALE.

THE rule of justice which wants with most anxiety
to be inculcated in the making of bargains, is, that
the seller is bound in conscience to disclose the faults
of what he offers to sale. Amongst other methods of
proving this, one may be the following: —

VOL. i. 9 *

102 CONTRACTS.

I suppose it will be allowed, that to advance a
direct falsehood in recommendation of our wares, by
ascribing to them some quality which we know that
they have not, is dishonest. Now compare with this
the designed concealment of some fault, which we
know that they have. The motives and the effects of
actions are the only points of comparison, in which
their moral quality can differ; but the motive in these
two cases is the same, viz, to procure a higher price
than we expect otherwise to obtain: the effect, that
is, the prejudice to the buyer, is also the same; for he
finds himself equally out of pocket by his bargain,
whether the commodity, when he gets home with it,
turn out worse than he had supposed, by the want of
some quality which he expected, or the discovery
of some fault which he did not expect. If there-
fore actions be the same as to all moral purposes,
which proceed from the same motives and produce the
same effects; it is making a distinction without a dif-
ference, to esteem it a cheat to magnify beyond the
truth the virtues of what we have to sell, but none to
conceal its faults.

It adds to the value of this kind of honesty, that the
faults of many things are of a nature not to be known
by any, but by the persons who have used them; so
that the buyer has no security from imposition, but in
the ingenuousness and integrity of the seller.

There is one exception, however, to this rule;
namely, where the silence of the seller implies some
fault in the thing to be sold, and where the buyer
has a compensation in the price for the risk which he
runs; as where a horse, in a London repository, is
sold by public auction, without warranty; the want
of warranty is notice of some unsoundness, and pro-
duces a proportionable abatement in the price.

To this of concealing the faults of what we want to
put off", may be referred the practice of passing bad
money. This practice we sometimes hear defended
by a vulgar excuse, that we have taken the morey
for good, and must therefore get rid of it. Which
excuse is much the same as if one who had been rob-
bed upon the highway should allege, that he had a

CONTRACTS. 103

right to reimburse himself out of the pocket of the first
traveller he met: the justice of which reasoning the
traveller possibly may not comprehend.

Where there exists no monopoly or combination
the market price is always a fair price; because it
will always be proportionable to the use and scarcity
of the article. Hence, there need be no scruple about
demanding or taking the market price; and all those
expressions, "provisions are extravagantly dear,"
" corn bears an unreasonable price," and the like, im-
port no unfairness or unreasonableness in the seller.

If your tailor or your draper charge, or even ask of
you, more for a suit of clothes than the market price,
you complain that you are imposed upon; you pro-
nounce the tradesman who makes such a charge, dis-
honest; although, as the man's goods were his own,
and he had a right to prescribe the terms upon which
he would consent to part with them, it may be ques-
tioned what dishonesty the*e can be in the case, or
wherein the imposition consists. Whoever opens a
shop, or in any manner exposes goods to public sale,
virtually engages to deal with his customers at amar^
ket price; because it is upon the faith and opinion of
such an engagement, that any one comes within his
shop doors, or offers to treat with him. This is expect-
ed by the buyer; is known to be so expected by the
seller; which is enough, according to the rule deli-
vered above, to make it a part of the contract between
them, though not a syllable be said about it. The
breach of this implied contract constitutes the fraud
inquired after.

Hence, if you disclaim any such engagement, you
may set what value you please upon your property.
If, upon being asked to sell a house, you answer that
the house suits your fancy or convemency, and that
you will not turn yourself out of it under such a price;
the price fixed may be double of what the house cost,
or would fetch at a public sale, without any imputa-
tion of injustice or extortion upon you.

If the thing sold be damaged, or perish between
the sale and the delivery, ought the buyer to bear tha
loss or the seller ? This will depend upon the particu-

104 CONTRACTS

lar construction of the contract. If the seller, either
expressly or by implication or by custom, engage to
deliver the goods; as if I buy a set of china, and the
chinaman ask me to what place he shall bring or
send them, and they be broken in the conveyance,
the seller must abide by the loss. If the thing sold
remain with the seller, at the instance or for the con-
veniency of the buyer, then the buyer undertakes the
risk; as if I buy a horse, and mention, that I will
send for it on such a day (which is in effect desiring
that it may continue with the seller till I do send for
it,) then, whatever misfortune befalls the horse in the
mean time, must be at my cost.

And here, once for all, I would observe, that innu-
merable questions of this sort are determined solely
by custom; not that custom possesses any proper
authority to alter or ascertain the nature of right and
wrong; but because the contracting parties are pre-
sumed to include in their stipulation all the conditiona
which custom has annexed to contracts of the same
sort: and when the usage is notorious, and no ex-
ception made to it, this presumption is generally
agreeable to the fact.*

If I order a pipe of port from a wine merchant,
abroad; at what period the property passes from the
merchant to me; whether upon delivery of the wine at
the merchant's warehouse; upon its being put on
shipboard at Oporto; upon the arrival of the ship in
England, at its destined port; or not till the wine be
committed to my servants or deposited in my cellar;
are all questions which admit of no decision, but what
custom points out. Whence, in justice, as well as
law, what is called the custom of merchants regulates
the construction of mercantile concerns.

* It happens here, as in many cases, that what the parties
ought to do, and what a judge or arbitrator would award to
be done, may be very different. What the parties ought to
do, by virtue of their contract, depends upon their conscious-
ness at the time of making it : whereas a third person finds
it necessary to found his judgment upon presumptions, which
presumptions may be false, although the most probable that
be could proceed b^.

CONTRACTS. 106

CHAPTER VIII.

CONTRACTS OF HAZARD.

BY Contracts of Hazard, I mean gaming and insu-
rance.

What say some of this kind of contracts, " that
one side ought not to have any advantage over tha
other," is neither practicable nor true. It is not prac-
ticable; for that perfect equality of skill and judg-
ment which this rule requires is seldom to be met
with. I might not have it in my power to play with
fairness a game at cards, billiards, or tennis; lay a
wager at a horse race; or underwrite a policy of in-
surance, once in a twelvemonth, if I must wait till I
meet with a person whose art, skill, and judgment in
these matters is neither greater nor less than my own.
Nor is this equality requisite to the justice of the
contract. One party may give to the other the whole
of the stake, if he please, and the other party may
justly accept it, if it be given him; much more there-
fore may one give to the other a part of the stake; or,
what is exactly the same thing, an advantage in the
chance of winning the whole.

The proper restriction is, that neither side have an
advantage by means of which the other is not aware;
for this is an advantage taken without being given.
Although the event be still an uncertainty, your ad-
vantage in the chance has a certain value; and so
much of the stake as th.it value amounts to is taken
from your adversary without his knowledge, and
therefore without his consent. If I sit down to a
game at whist, and have an advantage over the ad-
versary, by means of a better memory, closer atten-
tion, or a superior knowledge of the rules and chances
of the game, the advantage is fair* because it is ob-
tained by means of which the adversary is aware;
for he is aware when he sits down with me that I
shall exert the skill that I possess to the utmost. But
if I gain an advantage by packing the cards, glancing
my eye into the adversary's hands, or by concerted

106 CONTRACTS OF LENDING OF

signals with my partner, it is a dishonest advantage*
because it depends upon means which the adversary
never suspects that I make use of.

The same distinction holds of all contracts into
which chance enters. If I lay a wager at a horse
race, founded upon the conjecture I form from the
appearance and character and breed of the horses, I
am justly entitled to any advantage which my judg-
ment gives me: but, if I carry on a clandestine cor-
respondence with the jockeys, and find out from them,
that a trial has been actually made, or that it is set-
tled beforehand which horse shall win the race, all
such information is so much fraud, because derived
from sources which the other did not suspect, when
he proposed or accepted the wager.

In speculations in trade or in the stocks, if I exer-
cise my judgment upon the general aspect and pros-
pect of public affairs, and deal with a person who
conducts himself by the same sort of judgment, the
contract has all the equality in it which is necessary,
but if I have access to secrets of state at home, 01
private advice of some decisive measure or event
abroad, I cannot avail myself of these advantages
with justice, because they are excluded by the con-
tract, which proceeded upon the supposition that I
had no such advantage.

In insurances, in which the underwriter computes
his risk entirely from the account given by the person
insured, it is absolutely necessary to the justice and
validity of the contract, that this account be exact
and complete.

CHAPTER IX.

CONTRACTS OF LENDING OF INCONSUMABLE
PROPERTY.

WHEN the identical loan is to be returned, as a book,
a horse, a harpsichord, it is called inconsumable ; in

INCONSUMABLE PROPERTY. 107

opposition to corn, wine, money, and those things
which perish, or are parted with, in the use, and can
therefore only be restored in kind.

The questions under this head are few and simple.
The first is, if the thing lent be lost or damaged, who
ought to bear the loss or damage ? If it be damaged
by the use, or by accident in the use, for which it was
lent, the lender ought to bear it; as if I hire a job-
coach, the wear, tear, and soiling of the coach must
belong to the lender; or a horse to go a particular
journey, and in going the proposed journey the horse
die or be lamed, the loss must be the lender's: on
the contrary, if the damage be occasioned by the
fault of the borrower, or by accident in some use for
which it was not lent, then the borrower must make
it good; as if the coach be overturned or broken to
pieces by the carelessness of your coachman; or the
horse be hired to take a morning's ride upon, and you
go a hunting with him, or leap him over hedges, or
put him into your cart or carriage, and he be strained,
or staked, or galled, or accidentally hurt, or drop
down dead whilst you are thus using him, you must
make satisfaction to the owner.

The two cases are distinguished by this circum-
stance: that in one case the owner foresees the damage
or risk, and therefore consents to undertake it; in the
other case he does not.

It is possible that an estate or a house may, during
the term of a lease, be so increased or diminished in
its value, as to become worth much more or much
less than the rent agreed to be paid for it. In some
of which cases it may be doubted to whom, of natural
right, the advantage or disadvantage belongs. The
rule of justice seems to be this: If the alteration
might be expected by the parties, the hirer must take
the consequence; if it could not, the owner. An or-
chard, or a vineyard, or a mine, or a fishery, or a de-
coy may this year yield nothing, or next to nothing,
yet the tenant shall pay his rent; and if the next year
produce tenfold the usual profit, no more shall be de-
manded; because the produce is in its nature preca-
rious, and this variation might be expected. If an

108 CONTRACTS CONCERNING THE

estate in the fens of Lincolnshire, or the Isle of Ely,
be overflowed with water so as to be incapable of
occupation, the tenant, notwithstanding, is bound by
his lease; because he entered into it with a knowledge
and foresight of the danger. On the other hand, if,
by the irruption of the sea into a country where it
was never known to have come before, by the change
of the course of a river, the fall of a rock, the break-
ing out of a volcano, the bursting of a moss, the in-
cursions of an enemy, or by a mortal contagion
amongst the cattle; if, by means like these, an estate
change or lose its value, the loss shall fall upon the
owner; that is, the tenant shall either be discharged
from his agreement, or be entitled to an abatement
of rent. A house in London, by the building of a
bridge, the opening of a new road or street, may be-
come of ten times its former value; and, by contrary
causes, may be as much reduced in value: here also,
as before, the owner, not the hirer, shall be affected
by the alteration. The reason upon which our deter-
mination proceeds is this; that changes such as these,
being neither foreseen nor provided for by the con-
tracting parties, form no part or condition of the con-
tract; and therefore ought to have the same effect as
if no contract at all had been made (for none was
made with respect to them,) that is, ought to fall
upon the owner.

CHAPTER X.

CONTRACTS CONCERNING THE LENDING OP
MONEY.

THERE exists no reason in the law of nature why a
man should not be paid for the lending of his money,
as w*»ll as of any other property info which the money
might be converted.

The scruples that have been entertained upon this

LENDING OF MONEY 109

head, and upon the foundation of which the receiving
of interest or usury (for they formerly meant the same
thing,) was once prohibited in almost all Christian
countries,* arose from a passage in the law of MOSES,
Deuteronomy xxiii. 19, 20. "Thou shalt not lend
upon usury to thy brother; usury of money, usury
of victuals, usury of any thing that is lent upon
usury: unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury;
but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury."

This prohibition is now generally understood to
have been intended for the Jews alone, as part of the
civil or political law of that nation, and calculated to
preserve amongst themselves that distribution of pro-
perty, to which many of their institutions were sub-
servient: as the marriage of an heiress within her
own tribe; of a widow who was left childless to her
husband's brother; the year of jubilee, when alien-
ated estates reverted to the family of the original
proprietor: — regulations which were never thought to
be binding upon any but the commonwealth of Israel.

This interpretation is confirmed, I think, beyond
all controversy, by the distinction made in the law
between a Jew and a foreigner; — "unto a stranger
thou mayest lend upon usury, but unto thy brother
thou mayest not lend upon usury;" a distinction
which could hardly have been admitted into a law,
which the Divine Author intended to be of moral and
of universal obligation.

The rate of interest has in most countries been
regulated by law. The Roman law allowed of twelve
pounds per cent, which Justinian reduced at one
stroke to four pounds. A statute of the thirteenth
year of Queen Elizabeth, which was the first that
tolerated the receiving of interest in England at all,
restrained it to ten pounds per cent. ; a statute of James

* By a statute of James the First, interest above eight
pounds per cent, was prohibited (and consequently under
that rate allowed,) with this sage provision, That this
statute shall not be construed or expounded to allow tht
practice of usury in point of religion or conscience.

VOL. i. 10

110 CONTRACTS CONCERNING THE

the First to eight pounds; of Charles the Second to
Bix pounds: of Queen Anne to five pounds, on pain
of forfeiture of treble the value of the money lent: at
which rate and penalty the matter now stands. The
policy of these regulations is, to check the power of
accumulating wealth without industry; to give en-
couragement to trade, by enabling adventurers in it
to borrow money at a moderate price; and, of late
years, to enable the state to borrow the subject's mo-
ney itself.

Compound interest, though forbidden by the law
of England, is agreeable enough to natural equity
for interest detained after it is due becomes, to all
intents and purposes, part of the sum lent.

It is a question which sometimes occurs, how mo
ney borrowed in one country ought to be paid in
another, where the relative value of the precious
metals is not the same. For example, suppose I bor-
row a hundred guineas in London, where each guinea
is worth one-and-twenty shillings, and meet my cre-
ditor in the East Indies, w-here a guinea is worth no
more perhaps than nineteen; is it a satisfaction of
the debt to return a hundred guineas, or must I make
up so many times one and twenty shillings ? I should
think the latter; for it must be presumed that my
creditor, had he not lent me his guineas, would have
disposed of them in such a manner as to have now
had, in the place of them, so many one and twenty
shillings; and the question supposes that he neither
intended, nor ought to be a sufferer, by parting with
the possession of his money to me.

When the relative value of coin is altered by an
act of the state, if the alteration would have extended
to the identical pieces which were lent, it is enough
to return an equal number of pieces of the same deno-
mination, or their present value in any other. As, if
guineas were reduced by act of parliament to twenty
shillings, so many twenty shilings as I borrowed
guineas would be a just repayment. It would be
otherwise if the reduction was o'ving to a debasement
of the coin; for then respect ought to be had to the
comparative name of the old guinea and the new.

LENDING OF MONEY. Ill

Whoever borrows money is bound in conscience
to repay it. This every man can see; but every man
connot see, or does not however reflect, that he is, in
consequence, also bound to use the means necessary
to enable himself to repay it. " If he pay the money
when he has it, or has it to spare, he does all that
an honest man can do," and all, he imagines, that is
required of him; whilst the previous measures, which
are necessary to furnish him with that money, he
makes no part of his care, nor observes to be as much
his duty as the other; such as selling a family seat
or a family estate, contracting his plan of expense,
laying down his equipage, reducing the number of
his servants, or any of those humiliating sacrifices,
which justice requires of a man in debt, the moment
he perceives that he has no reasonable prospect of
paying his debts without them. An expectation which
depends upon the continuance of his own life, will
not satisfy an honest man, if a better provision be in
his power; for it is a breach of faith to subject a cre-
ditor, when we can help it, to the risk of our life, be
the event what it will; that not being the security to
which credit was given.

I know few subjects which have been more misun-
derstood than the law which authorizes the imprison-
ment of insolvent debtors. It has been represented
as a gratuitous cruelty which contributed nothing to
the reparation of the creditor's loss, or to the advan-
tage of the community. This prejudice arises prin-
cipally from considering the sending of a debtor to
gaol, as an act of private satisfaction to the creditor,
instead of a public punishment. As an act of satisfac-
tion or revenge, it is always wrong in the motive, and
often intemperate and undistinguishing in the exer-
cise. Consider it as a public punishment, founded
upon the same reason, and subject to the same rules
as other punishments; and the justice of it, together
with the degree to which it should be extended, and
the objects upon whom it may be inflicted, will be
apparent. There are frauds relating to insolvency,
against which it is as necessary to provide punish-
ment as for any public crimes whatever: as where a

112 CONTRACTS CONCERNING THE

man gets your money into his possession, and fortli-
with runs away with it; or, what is little better,
squanders it in vicious expenses; or stakes it at the
gaming-table; in the Alley; or upon wild adven-
tures in trade; or is conscious, at the time he borrows
it, that he can never repay it; or wilfully puts it out
of his power by profuse living: or conceals his effects,
or transfers them by collusion to another: not to men-
tion the obstinacy of some debtors, who had rather
rot in a gaol than deliver up their estates; for, to say
the truth, the first absurdity is in the law itself, which
leaves it in a debtor's power to withold any part of
his property from the claim of his creditors. The
only question is, whether the punishment be properly
placed in the hands of an exasperated creditor; for
which it may be said, that these frauds are so subtle
and versatile, that nothing but a discretionary power
can overtake them: and that no discretion is likely
to be so well informed, so vigilant, or so active as that
of the creditor.

It must be remembered, however, that the confine-
ment of a debtor in gaol is a punishment ; and that
every punishment supposes a crime. To pursue,
therefore, with the extremity of legal rigour, a sufferer,
whom the fraud or failure of others, his own want of
capacity, or the disappointments and miscarriages io
which all human affairs are subject, have reduced to
ruin, merely because we are provoked by our loss,
and seek to relieve the pain we feel by that which we
inflict, is repugnant not only to humanity but to jus-
tice: for it is to pervert a provision of law, designed
for a different and a salutary purpose, to the gratifica-
tion of private spleen and resentment. Any altera-
tion in these laws which could distinguish the de-
grees of guilt, or convert the service of the insolvent
debtor to some public profit, might be an improve-
ment; but any considerable mitigation of their rigour,
under colour of relieving the poor, would increase
their hardships. For whatever deprives the creditor
of his power of coercion, deprives him of his secu-
rity; and as this must add greatly to the difficulty of
obtaining credit, the poor, especially the lower sort

LENDING OF MONEY. 113

of tradesmen, are the first who would suffer by such
a regulation. As tradesmen must buy before they
sell, you would exclude from trade two-thirds of those
who now carry it on, if none were enabled to enter
into it without a capital sufficient for prompt pay-
ments. An advocate, therefore, for the interests of
this important class of the community will deem it
more eligible, that one out of a thousand should be
sent to gaol by his creditors, than that the nine hun-
dred and ninety-nine should be straightened and em-
barrassed, and many of them lie idle, by the want of
credit.

CHAPTER XL

CONTRACTS OF LABOUR.

SERVICE in this country is, as it ought to be, volun-
tary, and by contract; and the master's authority
extends no further than the terms or equitable con-
struction of the contract will justify.

The treatment of servants as to diet, discipline, and
accommodation, the kind and quantity of work to be
required of them, the intermission, liberty, and indul-
gence to be allowed them, must be determined in a
great measure by custom; for where the contract in-
volves so many particulars, the contracting parties
express a few perhaps of the principal, and, by mu-
tual understanding, refer the rest to the known cus-
tom of the country in like cases.

A servant is not bound to obey the unlawful com-
mands of his master; to minister, for instance, to his
unlawful pleasures; or to assist him by unlawful prac-
tices in his profession; as in smuggling or adulterat-
ing the articles in which he deals. For the servant
is bound by nothing but his own promise; and the

VOL. i. 10*

114 SERVICE.

obligation of a promise extends not to things un-
lawful.

For the same reason, the master's authority is no
justification of the servant in doing wrong; for the
servant's own promise, upon which that authority is
founded, would be none.

Clerks and apprentices ought to be employed en-
tirely in the profession or trade which they are intended
to learn. Instruction is their hire; and to deprive
them of the opportunities of instruction, by taking up
their time with occupations foreign to their business,
is to defraud them of their wages.

The master is responsible for what a servant doe
in the ordinary course of his employment; for it i
done under a general authority committed to him,
which is in justice equivalent to a specific direction.
Thus, if I pay money to a banker's clerk, the banker
is accountable, but not if I had paid it to his butler
or his footman, whose business it is not to receive mo-
ney. Upon the same principle, if I once send a ser-
vant to take up goods upon credit, whatever goods he
afterwards takes up at the same shop, so Jong as he
continues in my service, are justly chargeable to my
account.

The law of this country goes great lengths in in
tending a kind of concurrence in the master, so as to
charge him with the consequences of his servant's
conduct. If an innkeeper's servant rob his guests,
the innkeeper must make restitution; if a farrier's
servant lame a horse, the farrier must answer for the
damage; and still further, if your coachman or carter
drive over a passenger in the road, the passenger may
recover from you a satisfaction for the hurt he suffers.
But these determinations stand, I think, rather upon
the authority of the law, than any principle of natural
justice.

There is a carelessness and facility in " giving cha-
racters," as it is called, of servants, especially when
given in writing, or according to some established
form, which, to speak plainly of it, is a cheat upon
those who accept them. They are given with so little
reserve and veracity, " that I should as soon depend,"

SERVICE. 115

nays the author of the Rambler, " upon an acquittal
at the Old Bailey, by way of recommendation of a
servant 's honesty, as upon one of these characters. ' ' It
is sometimes carelessness; and sometimes also to get
rid of a bad servant without the uneasiness of a dis-
pute; for which nothing can be pleaded but the most
ungenerous of all excuses, that the person whom we
deceive is a stranger.

There is a conduct the reverse of this, but more in-
jurious, because the injury falls where there is no
remedy; I mean the obstructing of a servant's ad-
vancement because you are unwilling to spare his
service. To stand in the way of your servant's inter-
est is a poor return for his fidelity; and affords slen-
der encouragement for good behaviour in this nume-
rous and therefore important part of the community.
It is a piece of injustice which, if practised towards
an equal, the law of honour would lay hold of: as it
is, it is neither uncommon nor disreputable.

A master of a family is culpable if he permit any
vices among his domestics which he might restrain
by due discipline, and a proper interference. This
results from the general obligation to prevent misery
when in our power; and the assurance which we have
that vice and misery at the long run go together.
Care to maintain in his family a sense of virtue and
religion received the divine approbation in the person
of ABRAHAM, Gen. xviii. 19. — " I know him, that
he will command his children, and his household after
him; and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to
do justice and judgment." And indeed no authority
seems so well adapted to this purpose, as that of
masters of families; because none operates upon the
subjects of it with an influence so immediate and
constant.

What the Christian Scriptures have delivered con-
cerning the relation and reciprocal duties of masters
and servants, breathes, a spirit of liberality very little
known in ages when servitude was slavery; and
which flowed from a habit of contemplating mankind
under the common relation in which they stand to
their Creator, and with respect to their interest in

116 COMMISSIONS.

another existence:* " Servants, be obedient to them
that are your masters, according to the flesh, with fear
and trembling; in singleness of your heart, as unto
Christ; not with eye-service, as men pleasers, but as
the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from
the heart; with good will, doing service as to the
Lord, and not men ; knowing that whatsoever good
thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the
LORD, whether he be bond or free. And ye masters,
do the same thing unto them, forbearing threatening;
knowing that your Master also is in heaven ; neither
is there respect of persons with him." The idea of
referring their service to God, of considering him as
having appointed them their task, that they were
doing his will, and were to look to him for their re-
ward was new; and affords a greater security to the
master than any inferior principle, because it tends to
produce a steady and cordial obedience, in the place
of that constrained service, which can never be
trusted out of sight, and which is justly enough called
eye-service. The exhortation to masters, to keep in
view their own subjection and accountableness, was
no less seasonable.

CHAPTER XII.

CONTRACTS OF LABOUR.
COMMISSIONS.

WHOEVER undertakes another man's businessmakes
it his own, that is, promises to employ upon it the
same care, attention, and diligence that he would do
if it were actually his own : for he knows that the
business was committed to him with that expectation.
And he promises nothing more than this. Therefore
an agent is not obliged to wait, inquire, solicit, ride
about the country, toil, or study, whilst there remains
a possibility of benefiting his employer. If he exert

* Eph. vi. &— 9.

COMMISSIONS. 117

BO much of his activity, and use such caution, as the
value of the business, in his judgment, deserves; that
is, as he would have thought sufficient if the same
interest of his own had been at stake, he has dis-
charged his duty, although it should afterwards turn
out, that by more activity and longer perseverance he
might have concluded the business with greater ad-
vantage.

This rule defines the duty of factors, stewards, at-
torneys, and advocates.

One of the chief difficulties of an agent's situation
is, to know how far he may depart from his instruc-
tions, when, from some change or discovery in the
circumstances of his commission, he sees reason to
believe that his employer, if he were present, would
alter his intention. The latitude allowed to agents
in this respect will be different, according as the
commission was confidential or ministerial; and ac-
cording as the general rule and nature of the service
require a prompt and precise obedience to orders, or
not. An attorney, sent to treat for an estate, if hm
found out a flaw in the title, would desist from pro •
posing the price he was directed to propose; and
very properly. On the other hand, if the commander
in chief of an army detach an officer under him upon
a particular service, which service turns out more dif
ficult or less expedient than was supposed, insomuch
that the officer is convinced that his commander, if he
were acquainted \rith the true state in which the affair
is found, would recall his orders; yet must this officer,
if he cannot wait for fresh directions without preju-
dice to the expedition he is sent upon, pursue, at all
hazards, those which he brought out with him.

What is trusted to an agent may be lost or damaged
in his hands by misfortune. An agent who acts
without pay is clearly not answerable for the loss;
for, if he give his labour for nothing, it cannot be
presumed that he gave also security for the success
of it. If the agent be hired to the business, the ques-
tion will depend upon the apprehension of the parties
at the time of making the contract: which apprehen-
sion of theirs must be collected chiefly from custom,

118 COMMISSIONS.

by which probably it was guided. Whether a public
carrier ought to account for goods sent by him; the
owner or master of a ship for the cargo; the post-
office for letters, or bills enclosed in letters, where the
loss is not imputed to any %ult or neglect of theirs'
are questions of this sort. Any expression which by
implication amounts to a promise, will be binding
upon the agent, without custom; as where the pro-
prietors of a stage coach advertise that they will not
be accountable for money, plate, or jewels, this makes
them accountable for every thing else; or where the
price is too much for the labour, part of it may be
considered as a premium for insurance. On the other
hand, any caution on the part of the owner to guard
against danger is evidence that he considers the risk
to be his; as cutting a ^ank bill in two, to send by
the post at different times.

Universally, unless a promise, either express or
tacit, can be proved against the agent, the loss must
fall upon the owner.

The agent may be a sufferer in his own person or
property by the business which he undertakes; as
where one goes a journey for another, and lames his
horse, or is hurt himself by a fall upon the road; can
the agent in such case claim a compensation for the
misfortune ? Unless the same be provided for by ex-
press stipulation, the agent is not entitled to any com-
pensation from his employer on that account; for
where the danger is not foreseen, there can be no
reason to believe that the employer engaged to indem-
nify the agent against it: still less where it is fore-
seen; for whoever knowingly undertakes a danger-
ous employment, in common construction, takes upon
himself the danger and the consequences; as where
a fireman undertakes for a reward to rescue a box of
writings from the flames; or a sailor to bring off
passenger from a ship in a storm.

PARTNERSHIP. 119

CHAPTER XIII.

CONTRACTS OF LABOUR
PARTNERSHIP.

1 KNOW nothing upon the subject of partnership
that requires explanation, but in what manner the pro-
fits are to be divided, where one partner contributes
money and the other labour; which is a common case.

Rule. From the stock of the partnership deduct
the sum advanced, and divide the remainder between
the monied partner and the labouring partner, in the
proportion of the interest of the money to the wages
of the labourer, allowing such a rate of interest as
money might be borrowed for upon the same security,
and such wages as a journeyman would require for
the same labour and trust.

Example. A advances a thousand pounds, but
knows nothing of the business; B produces no money,
but has been brought up to the business, and under-
takes to conduct it. At the end of the year the stock
and the effects of the partnership amount to twelve
hundred pounds; consequently there are two hun-
dred pounds to be divided. Now, nobody would lend
money upon the event of the business succeeding,
which is A's security, under six per cent; — therefore
A must be allowed sixty pounds for the interest of his
money. B, before he engaged in the partnership,
earned thirty pounds a year in the same employment ;
his labour, therefore, ought to be valued at thirty
pounds: and the two hundred pounds must be di-
vided between the partners in the proportion of sixty
to thirty; that is, A must receive one hundred and
thirty-three pounds six shillings and eight pence, and
B sixty-six pounds thirteen shillings and fourpence.

If there be nothing gained, A loses his interest and
B his labour; which is right. If the original stock
be diminished, by this rule B loses only his labour, as
before; whereas A loses his interest and part of the
principal; for which eventual disadvantage A is com
pensated, by having the interest of his money com-

120 OFFICES

puted at six per cent, in the division of the profits,
when there are any.

It is true, that the division of the profit is seldom
forgotten in the constitution of the partnership, and
is therefore commonly settled by express agreements:
but these agreements, to be equitable, should pursue
the principle of the rule here laid down.

All the partners are bound to what any one of
them does in the course of the business; for, quoad
hoc each partner is considered as an authorized agent
for the rest

CHAPTER XIV.

CONTRACTS OF LABOUR.

IN many offices, as schools, fellowships of colleges,
professorships of universities, and the like, there is a
twofold contract; one with the founder, the other
with the electors.

The contract with the founder obliges the incum-
bent of the office to discharge every duty appointed
by the charter, statutes, deed of gift, or will of the
founder; because the endowment was given, and con-
sequently accepted, for that purpose, and upon those
conditions.

The contract with the electors extends this obliga-
tion to all duties that have been customarily connect-
ed with and reckoned a part of the office, though not
prescribed by the founder; for the electors expect
from the person they choose all the duties which his
predecessors have discharged; and as the person
elected cannot be ignorant of their expectation, if he
meant to have refused this condition, he ought to have
apprised them of his objection.

And here let it be observed, that the electors can
excuse the conscience of the person elected, from this
last class of duties alone; because this class results
from a contract to which the electors and the person

OFFICES. 121

elected are the only parties. The other class of
duties results from a different contract.

It is a question of some magnitude and difficulty,
what offices may be conscientiously supplied by a de-
puty.

We will state the several objections to the substi
tution of a deputy; and then it will be understood,
that a deputy may be allowed in all cases to which
these objections do not apply.

An office may not be discharged by deputy,

1. Where a particular confidence is reposed in the
judgment and conduct of the person appointed to it;
as the office of a steward, guardian, judge, com-
mander in chief by land or sea.

2. Where the custom hinders; as in the case of
schoolmasters, tutors, and of commissions in the army
or navy.

3. Where the duty cannot, from its nature, be so
well performed by a deputy; as the deputy governor
of a province may not possess the legal authority, or
the actual influence of his principal.

4. When some inconveniency would result to the
service in general from the permission of deputies in
such cases: for example, it is probable that military
merit would be much discouraged, if the duties be-
longing to commissions in the army were generally
allowed to be executed by substitutes.

The nonresidence of the parochial clergy who sup-
ply the duty of their benefices by curates, is worthy
of a more distinct consideration. And in order to
draw the question upon this case to a point we will
suppose the officiating curate to discharge every duty
which his principal, were he present, would be bound
to discharge, and in a manner equally beneficial to
the parish: under which circumstances, the only ob-
jection to the absence of the principal, at least the
only one of the foregoing objections, is the last.

And, in my judgment, the force of this objection
will be much diminished, if the absent rector or vicar
be, in the mean time, engaged in any function or em-
ployment of equal or of greater importance to the
general interest of religion. For the whole revenue

VOL. I 11

122 OFFICES.

of the national church may properly enough be con-
sidered as a common fund for the support of the na-
tional religion; and if a clergyman be serving the
cause of Christianity and Protestantism, it can make
little difference, out of what particular portion of this
fund, that is, by the tithes and glebe of wlrat particu-
lar parish, his service be requited; any more than it
can prejudice the king's service, that an officer who
has signalized his merit in America should be re-
warded with the government of a fort or castle in Ire-
land, which he never saw; but for the custody of
which, proper provision is made and care taken.

Upon the principle thus explained, this indulgence
is due to none more than to those who are occupied
in cultivating and communicating religious knowledge
or the sciences subsidiary to religion.

This way of considering the revenues of the church
as a common fund for the same purpose is the more
equitable, as the value of particular preferments bears
no proportion to the particular charge or labour.

But when a man draws upon this fund, whose stu-
dies and employments bear no relation to the object
of it, and who is no further a minister of the Christian
religion than as a cockade makes a soldier, it seems a
misapplication little better than a robbery.

And to those who have the management of such
matters I submit this question, whether the impover
ishment of the fund, by converting the best share of
it into annuities for the gay and illiterate youth of
great families, threatens not to starve and stifle the
little clerical merit that is left amongst us ?

All legal dispensations from residence proceed upon
the supposition, that the absentee is detained from his
living by some engagement of equal or of greater
public importance. Therefore, if, in a case where
no such reason can with truth be pleaded, it be said
that this question regards a right of property, and
that all right of property awaits the disposition of
law; that, therefore, if the law, which gives a man
the emoluments of a living, excuse him from residing
upon it, he is excused in conscience; we answer, that
the law does not excuse m'm by intention, and that
all other excuses are fraudulent.

128

CHAPTER XV.

A LIE is a breach of promise: for whoever serious-
ly addresses his discourse to another, tacitly promises
to speak the truth, because he knows that the truth
is expected.

Or the obligation of veracity may be made out
from the direct ill consequences of lying to social
happiness. Which consequences consist, either in
some specific injury to particular individuals, or in
the destruction of that confidence which is essential
to the intercourse of human life; for which latter
reason, a lie may be pernicious in its general tenden-
cy, and therefore criminal, though it produce no par-
ticular or visible mischief to any one.

There are falsehoods which are not lies; that is,
which are not criminal: as,

1. Where no one is deceived; which is the case
in parables, fables, novels, jests, tales to create mirth,
ludicrous embellishments of a story, where the de-
clared design of the speaker is not to inform but to
divert; compliments in the subscription of a letter,
a servant's denying his master, a prisoner's pleading
not guilty, an advocate asserting the justice, or his
belief of the justice, of his client's cause. In such in-
stances no confidence is destroyed, because none was
reposed; no promise to speak the truth is violated,
because none was given, or understood to be given.

2. Where the person to whom you speak has no
right to know the truth, or, more properly, where lit-
tle or no inconveniency results from the want of con-
fidence in such cases; as where you tell a falsehood
to a madman for his own advantage ; to a robber to
conceal your property; to an assassin to defeat or
divert him from his purpose. The particular conse-
quence is by the supposition beneficial; and as to the
general consequence, the worst that can happen is,
that the madman, the robber, the assassin will not
trust you again; which (beside that the first is inca-
pable of deducing regular conclusions from having

124 LIES.

been once deceived, and the last two not likely to
come a second time in your way) is sufficiently com-
pensated by the immediate benefit which you propose
by the falsehood.

It is upon this principle that, by the laws of war, it
is allowed to deceive an enemy by feints, false co-
lours,* spies, false intelligence, and the like; but by
no means in treaties, truces, signals of capitulation or
surrender: and the difference is that the former sup-
pose hostilities to continue, the latter are calculated
to terminate or suspend them. In the conduct of war,
and whilst the war continues there is no use, or rath-
er no place for confidence betwixt the contending par-
ties; but in whatever relates to the termination of
war, the most religious fidelity is expected, because
without it wars could not cease nor the victors be
secure, but by the entire destruction of the vanquished.
Many people indulge, in serious discourse, a habit
of fiction and exaggeration in the accounts they give
of themselves, of their acquaintance, or of the extra-
ordinary things which they have seen or heard: and
so long as the facts they relate are indifferent, and
their narratives, though false, are inoffensive, it may
seem a superstitious regard to truth to censure them
merely for truth's sake.

In the first place, it is almost impossible to pro-
nounce beforehand with certainty, concerning any
lie, that it is inoffensive. Volat irrevocabile ; and
collects sometimes accretions in its flight, which en-
tirely change its nature. It may owe possibly its
mischief to the officiousness or misrepresentation of
those who circulate it; but the mischief is, neverthe-

* There have been two or three instances of late, of Eng-
lish ships decoying an enemy into their power, by counter-
feiting signals of distress ; an artifice which ought to be re-
probated by the common indignation of mankird ! for, a few
examples of captures effected by this stratagem would put an
end to that promptitude in affording assistance to ships in
distress, which is the best virtue in a seafaring character,
and by which the perils of navigation are diminished to all.
—A. D. 1775.

LIES. 125

less, in some degree chargeable upon the original
editor.

Li the next place, this liberty in conversation de-
feats its own end. Much of the pleasure and all the
benefit of conversation depends upon our opinion of
the speaker's veracity: for which this rule leaves no
foundation. The faith indeed of a hearer must be
extremely perplexed who considers the speaker, or be-
lieves that the speaker considers himself, as under no
obligation to adhere to truth, but according to the
particular importance of what he relates.

But beside and above both these reasons, white lies
always introduce others of a darker complexion. I
have seldom known any one who deserted truth in
trifles, that could be trusted in matters of importance.
Nice distinctions are out of the question, upon occa-
sions which, like those of speech, return every hour.
The habit, therefore, of lying, when once formed, is
easily extended to serve the designs of malice or in-
terest;— like all habits, it spreads indeed of itself.

Pious frauds, as they are improperly enough called,
pretended inspirations, forged books, counterfeit mira-
cles, are impositions of a more serious nature. It 13
possible that they may sometimes, though seldom,
have been set up and encouraged with a design to do
good; but the good they aim at requires that the be-
lief of them should be perpetual, which is hardly pos-
sible; and the detection of the fraud is sure to dis-
parage the credit of all pretensions of the same nature.
Christianity has suffered more injury from this cause
than from all other causes put together.

As there may be falsehoods which are not lies, so
thsre may be lies without literal or direct falsehood.
An opening is always left for this species of prevari-
cation, when the literal and grammatical significa-
tion of a sentence is different from the popular and
customary meaning. It is the wilful deceit that
makes the lie; and we wilfully deceive when our ex-
pressions are not true in the sense in which we believe
the hearer to apprehend them: besides that it is ab-
surd to contend for any sense of words in opposition

VOL. I 11 *

126 OATHS.

to usage ; for all senses of al! words are founded upon
usage, and upon nothing else.

Or a man may act a lie; as by pointing his finger in
a wrong direction when a traveller inquires of him
his road; or when a tradesman shuts up his windows
to induce his creditors to believe that he is abroad:
for to all moral purposes, and therefore as to veracity,
speech and action are the same; speech being only a
mode of action.

Or, lastly, there may be lies of omission. A writer
of English history, who, in his account of the reign of
Charles the First, should wilfully suppress any evi-
dence of that prince's despotic measures and designs,
might be said to lie; for, by entitling his book a His-
tory of England, he engages to relate the whole truth
of the history, or, at least, all that he knows of it

CHAPTER XVI.

1. Forms of Oaths.

2. Signification.

3. Lawfulness.

4. Obligation.

5. What Oaths do not bind.

6. In what sense Oaths are to be interpreted.

1. THE forms of oaths, like other religious ceremo-
nies, have in all ages been various; consisting how-
ever, for the most part of some bodily action,* and of
a prescribed form of words. Amongst the Jews, the

* It is commonly thought that oaths are denominated cor-
poral oaths from the bodily action which accompanios them,
of laying the right hand upon a book containing the four
Gospels. This opinion, however, appears to be a mistake;
for the term is borrowed from the ancient usage of touching,
on these occasions, the corporate or cloth which covered
the consecrated elements.

OATHS. 127

juror held up his right hand towards heaven, which
explains a passage in the 144th Psalm; "Whose
mouth speaketh vanity, and their right hand is a
right hand of falsehood." The same form is retained
in Scotland still. Amongst the same Jews an oath
of fidelity was taken, by the servant's putting his
hand under the thigh of his lord, as Eliezer did to
Abraham, Gen. xxiv. 2; from whence, with no great
variation, is derived perhaps the form of doing homage
at this day, by putting the hands between the knees,
and within the hands of the liege.

Amongst the Greeks and Romans the form varied
with the subject and occasion of the oath. In private
contracts the parties took hold of each other's hand,
whilst they swore to the performance ; or they touch-
ed the altar of the god by whose divinity they swore.
Upon more solemn occasions it was the custom to
slay a victim; and the beast being struck down
with certain ceremonies and invocations, gave birth
to the expressions Tg^ve/v S^KOV ferire pactum ; and
to our English phrase translated from these, of " strik-
ing a bargain."

The forms of oaths in Christian countries are also
very different; but in no country in the world, I be-
lieve, worse contrived either to convey the meaning or
impress the obligation of an oath, than in our own.
The juror with us, after repeating the promise or
affirmation which the oath is intended to confirm,
adds, " So help me God:" or more frequently the
substance of the oath is repeated to the juror by the
officer or magistrate who administers it, adding in
the conclusion, " So help you God." The energy 01
the sentence resides in the particle so ; so, that is,
hac lege, upon condition of my speaking the truth or
performing this promise, and not otherwise, may God
help me. The juror, whilst he hears or repeats the
words of the oath, holds his right hand upon a Bible
or other book containing the four Gospels. The con-
clusion of the oath sometimes runs, " Ita me Deus
adjuvet, et hose sancta evangelia," or " So help me
God, and the contents of this book;" which last
clause forms a connexion between the words and

128 OATHS.

action of the juror, that before was wanting. The
juror then kisses the book: the kiss, however, seems
rather an act of reverence to the contents of the book
(as, in the popish ritual, the priest kisses the Gospel
before he reads it,) than any part of the oath.

This obscure and elliptical form, together with the
levity and frequency with which it is administered,
has brought about a general inadvertency to the obli-
gation of oaths; which, both in a religious and poli-
tical view, is much to be lamented: and it merits
public consideration, whether the requiring of oaths
on so many frivolous occasions, especially in the Cus-
toms, and in the qualification for petty offices, has
any other effect than to make them cheap in the
minds of the people. A pound of tea cannot travel
regularly from the ship to the consumer, without
costing half a dozen oaths at the least; and the same
security for the due discharge of their office, namely,
that of an oath, is required from a churchwarden and
an archbishop, from a petty constable and the chief-
justice of England. Let the law continue its own
sanctions, if they be thought requisite; but let it spare
the solemnity of an oath. And where, from the wan
of something better to depend upon, it is necessary to
accept men's own word or own account, let it annex
to prevarication, penalties proportioned to the public
mischief of the offence.

2. But whatever be the form of an oath, the sig-
nification is the same. It is the " calling upon God
to witness, i. e. to take notice of what we say;" and
it is " invoking his vengeance or renouncing his
favour, if what we say be false, or what we promise
be not performed."

3. Quakers and Moravians refuse to swear upon
any occasion; founding their scruples concerning the
lawfulness of oaths upon our Saviour's prohibition,
Matt. v. 34. " I say unto you, Swear not at all."

The answer which we give to this objection cannot
be understood, without first stating the whole pas-
gage: " Ye have heard that it hath been said by them
of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt
perform unto the Lord thine oaths. But I say unto

OATHS. 129

you, Swear not at all ; neither by heaven, for it is God's
throne; nor by the earth, for it is his footstool; nei-
ther by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King
Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thoii
canst not make one hair white or black. But let
your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay; nay: for
whatsoever is more than these, cometh of evil."

To reconcile with this passage of Scripture the
practice of swearing or of taking oaths when requir-
ed by law, the following observations must be attend-
ed to: —

1. It does not appear, that swearing " by heaven,"
"by the earth," " by Jerusalem," or "by their own
head," was a form of swearing ever made use of
amongst the Jews in judicial oaths: and consequently,
it is not probable that they were judicial oaths which
Christ had in his mind when he mentioned those
instances.

2. As to the seeming universality of the prohibi-
tion, " Swear not at all," the emphatic clause " not at
all" is to be read in connexion with what follows;
" not at all," i. e, neither " by the heaven," nor " by
the earth," nor " by Jerusalem," nor " by thy head:"
" not at air9 does not mean upon no occasion, but
by none of these forms. Our Saviour's argument
seems to suppose, that the people to whom he spake
made a distinction between swearing directly by the
" name of God," and swearing by those inferior ob-
jects of veneration, " the heavens," " the earth,"
" Jerusalem," or " their own head." In opposition
to which distinction he tells them, that on account of
the relation which these things bore to the Supreme
Being, to swear by any of them was in effect and
substance to swear by him ; " by heaven, for it is his
throne; by the earth, for it is his footstool; by Jeru-
salem, for it is the city of the great King; by thy head,
for it is his workmanship, not thine, — thou canst not
make one hair white or black:" for which reason he
says, " Swear not at aZ/," that is, neither directly by
God, noi indirectly by any thing related to him. This
interpretation is greatly confirmed by a passage in
the twenty-third chapter of the same Gospel, where

130 OATHS.

a similar distinction, made by the Scribes and Pha-
risees, is replied to in the same manner.

3. Our Saviour himself being " adjured by tho
living God," to declare whether he was the Christ,
the Son of God, or not, condescended to answer the
high-priest, without making any objection to the oath
(for such it was) upon which he examined him. —
" God is my witness ," says St. Paul to the Romans,
" that without ceasing I make mention of you in my
prayers:" and to the Corinthians still more strongly,
" / call God for a record upon my soul, that to
spare you, I came not as yet to Corinth." Both
these expressions contain the nature of oaths. The
Epistle to the Hebrews speaks of the custom of swear-
ing judicially, without any mark of censure or disap-
probation: " Men verily swear by the greater; an^
an oath, for confirmation, is to them an end of all
strife."

Upon the strength of these reasons, we explain on;
Saviour's words to relate, not to judicial oaths, but t«
the practice of vain, wanton, and unauthorized swear
ing in common discourse. St. James's words, chap
v. 12. are not so strong as our Saviour's, and there
fore admit the same explanation with more ease.

IV. Oaths are nugatory, that is, carry with them
no proper force of obligation, unless we believe that
God will punish false swearing with more severity
than a simple lie or breach of promise; for which
belief there are the following reasons: —

1. Perjury is a sin of greater deliberation. The
juror has the thought of God and of religion upon
his mind at the time; at least, there are very few
who can shake them off entirely. He offends, there-
fore, if he do offend, with a high hand; in the face,
that is, and in defiance of the sanctions of religion.
His offence implies a disbelief or contempt of God's
knowledge, power, and justice; which cannot be said
of a lie, where there is nothing to carry the mind to
any reflection upon the Deity or the Divine attributes
at all.

2. Perjury violates a superior confidence. Man-
kind must trust to one another; and they have nothing

OATHS. 131

better to trust to than one another's oath. Hence
legal adjudications, which govern and affect every
right and interest on this side of the grave, of necessity
proceed and depend upon oaths. Perjury, therefore,
in its general consequence, strikes at the security of
reputation, property, and even of life itself. A lie
cannot do the same mischief, because the same credit
is not given to it.*

3. God directed the Israelites to swear by his
name;t and was pleased, "in order to show the im-
mutability of his own counsel ;":£ to confirm his cove-
nant with that people by an oath: neither of which
it is probable he would have done, had he not intend-
ed to represent oaths as having some meaning and effect
beyond the obligation of a bare promise; which effect
must be owing to the severer punishment with which
he will vindicate the authority of oaths.

V. Promissory oaths are not binding where the pro-
mise itself would not be so: for the several cases of
which, see the Chapter of Promises.

VI. As oaths are designed for the security of the
imposer, it is manifest that they must be interpreted
and performed in the sense in which the imposer in-
tends them; otherwise, they afford no security to him.
And this is the meaning and reason of the rule, " ju-
rare in animum imponentis;" which rule the reader is
desired to carry along with him, whilst we proceed to
consider certain particular oaths, which are either of
greater importance, or more likely to fall in our way,
than others.

* Except, indeed, where a Quaker's or Moravian's affir-
mation is accepted in the place of an oath ; in which case, a
lie partakes, so far as this reason extends, of the nature and
guilt of perjury.

Deut. vi. 13 ; x. 20. t Heb. vi. 17.

OATH IN EVIDENCED

CHAPTER XVII.

OATH IN EVIDENCE.

THE witness swears " to speak the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth, touching the matter
in question."

Upon which it may be observed, that the designed
concealment of any truth, which relates to the matter
in agitation, is as much a violation of the oath as to
testify a positive falsehood; and this, whether the wit-
ness be interrogated as to that particular point or not.
For when the person to be examined is sworn upon a
voir dire, that is, in order to inquire whether he ought
to be admitted to give evidence in the cause at all, the
form runs thus: " You shall true answer make to all
such questions as shall be asked you:" but when he
comes to be sworn in chief, he swears " to speak the
whole truth," without restraining it» as before, to the
questions that shall be asked: which difference shows
that the law intends, in this latter case, to require of
the witness, that he give a complete and unreserved
account of what he knows of the subject of the trial,
whether the questions proposed to him reach the ex-
tent of his knowledge or not. So that if it be inquir-
ed of the witness afterwards, why he did not inform
the court so and sp, it is not a sufficient, though a
very common answer, to say, " because it was never
asked me."

I know but one exception to this rule; which is,
when a full discovery of the truth tends to accuse the
witness himself of some legal crime. The law of
England constrains no man to become his own ac-
cuser; consequently imposes the oath of testimony
with this tacit reservation. But the exception must
be confined to legal crimes. A point of honour, of
delicacy, or of reputation, may make a witness back-
ward to disclose some circumstance with which he is
acquainted; but will in no wise justify his conceal-
ment of the truth, unless it could be shown that the
law which imposes the oath intended to allow this

OATH OF ALLEGIANCE. 133

indulgence to such motives. The exception of which
we are speaking is also withdrawn by a compact be-
tween the magistrate and the witness, when an ac-
complice is' admitted to give evidence against the
partners of his crime.

Tenderness to the prisoner, although a specious
apology for concealment, is no just excuse: for if this
plea be thought sufficient, it takes the administration
of penal justice out of the hands of judges and juries,
and makes it depend upon the temper of prosecutors
and witnesses.

Questions may be asked, which are irrelative to the
cause, which affect the witness himself, or some third
person; in which, and in all cases where the witness
doubts of the pertinency and propriety of the question,
he ought to refer his doubts to the court. The an-
swer of the court, in relaxation of the oath, is autho-
rity enough to the witness; for the law which im-
poses the oath may remit what it will of the obliga-
tion; and it belongs to the court to declare what the
mind of the law is. Nevertheless, it cannot be said
universally, that the answer of the court is conclusive
upon the conscience of the witness; for his obligation
depends upon what he apprehended, at the time of
taking the oath, to be the design of the law in im-
posing it, and no after requisition or explanation by
the court can carry the obligation beyond that.

CHAPTER XVIII.

OATH OF ALLEGIANCE.

*« I DO sincerely promise and swear, that I will be
faithful, and bear true allegiance to his Majesty King
GEORGE." Formerly the oath of allegiance ran
thus: " I do promise to be true and faithful to the king
and his heirs, and truth and faith to bear, of life and
limb, and terrene honour; and not to know or hear of
any ill or damage intended him, without defending him
therefrom;" and was altered at the Revolution to the

VOL. i. 12

184 OATH OF ALLEGIANCE.

present form. So that the present oath is a relaxation
of the old one. And as the oath was intended to
ascertain, not so much the extent of the subject's obe-
dience, as the person to whom it was due, the legisla-
ture seems to have wrapped up its meaning upon the
former point, in a word purposely made choice of for
its general and indeterminate signification.

It will be most convenient to consider, first, what
the oath excludes as inconsistent with it; secondly,
what it permits.

1. The oath excludes all intention to support the
claim or pretensions of any other person or persons to
the crown and government, than the reigning sove-
reign. A Jacobite, who is persuaded of the Preten-
der's right to the crown, and who moreover designs
to join with the adherents to that cause to assert this
right, whenever a proper opportunity with a reasona-
ble prospect of success presents itself, cannot take
the oath of allegiance; or, if he could, the oath of
abjuration follows, which contains an express renun-
ciation of all opinions in favour of the claim of the
exiled family.

2. The oath excludes all design, at the tune, of
attempting to depose the reigning prince, for any rea-
son whatever. Let the justice of the Revolution be
what it would, no honest man could have taken even
the present oath of allegiance to James the Second,
who entertained, at the time of taking it, a design of
joining in the measures which were entered into to
dethrone him.

3. The oath forbids the taking up of arms against
the reigning prince, with views of private advance-
ment, or from motives of personal resentment or dis-
like. It is possible to happen in this, what frequently
happens in despotic governments, that an ambitious
general, at the head of the military force of the nation,
might, by a conjecture of fortunate circumstances,
and a great ascendency over the minds of the soldiery,
depose the prince upon the throne, and make way to
it for himself, or for some creature of his own. A
peison in this situation would be withholden from
euch an attempt by the oath of allegiance, if he paid

OATH OF ALLEGIANCE. 135

regard to it. If there were any who engaged in the
rebellion of the year forty-five, with the expectation of
titles, estates, or preferment; or because they were
disappointed, and thought themselves neglected and
ill used at court; or because they entertained a family
animosity, or personal resentment, against the king,
the favourite, or the minister; — if any were induced
to take up arms by these motives, they added to the
many crimes of an unprovoked rebellion, that of wilful
and corrupt perjury. If, in the late American war,
the same motives determined others to connect them-
selves with that opposition, their part in it was charge-
able with perfidy and falsehood to their oath, what-
ever was the justice of the opposition itself, or how-
ever well founded their own complaints might be of
private injury.

We are next to consider what the oath of allegi
ance permits, or does not require.

1. It permits resistance to the king, when his ill
behaviour or imbecility is such as to make resistance
beneficial to the community. It may fairly be pre
sumed that the Convention Parliament, which intro-
duced the oath in its present form, did not intend, by
imposing it, to exclude all resistance, since the mem-
bers of that legislature had many of them recently
taken up arms against James the Second, and the
very authority by which they sat together was itself
the effect of a successful opposition to an acknow-
ledged sovereign. Some resistance, therefore, was
meant to be allowed; and, if any, it must be that
which has the public interest for its object.

2. The oath does not require obedience to such
commands of the king as are unauthorized by law.
No such obedience is implied by the terms of the
oath: the fidelity there promised is intended of fide-
lity in opposition to his enemies, and not in opposition
to law; and allegiance, at the utmost, can only sig-
nify obedience to lawful commands. Therefore, if
the king should issue a proclamation, levying money,
or imposing any service or restraint upon the subject,
beyond what the crown is empowered by law to en-
ioin, there would exist no sort of obligation to obey

136 OATH AGAINST BRIBERY.

such a proclamation, in consequence of having taken
the oath of allegiance.

3. The oath does not require that we should con-
tinue our allegiance to the king, after he is actually
and absolutely deposed, driven into exile, carried away
captive, or otherwise rendered incapable of exercising
the regal office, whether by his fault or without it.
The promise of allegiance implies, and is understood
by all parties, to suppose that the person to whom the
promise is made, continues king; — continues, that is,
to exercise the power, and afford the protection, which
belongs to the office of king: for it is the possession
of this power which makes such a particular person
the object of the oath; without it, why should I swear
allegiance to this man, rather than to any man in the
kingdom ? Besides which, the contrary doctrine is
burthened with this consequence, that every conquest,
revolution of government, or disaster which befalls the
person of the prince, must be followed by perpetual
and irremediable anarchy.

CHAPTER XIX.

OATH AGAINST BRIBERY IN THE ELECTION OF
MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT.

" I DO swear I have not received, or had, by my-
self, or any person whatsoever in trust for me, or for my
use and benefit, directly or indirectly, any sum or
sums of money, office, place, or employment, gift, or
reward, or any promise or security for any money,
office, employment, or gift, in order to give my vote
at this election."

The several contrivances to evade this oath, such as
the electors accepting money under colour of borrow-
ing it, and giving a promissory note, or other security
for it, which is cancelled after the election; receiving
money from a stranger, or a person in disguise, or out
of a drawer, or purse, left open for the purpose; or
promises of money to be paid after the election, or

OATH AGANST SIMONY. 137

Stipulating for a place, living, or other private advan-
tage of any kind — if they escape the legal penalties
of perjury, incur the moral guilt: for they are mani-
festly within the mischief and design of the statute
which imposes the oath, and within the terms indeed
of the oath itself; for the word " indirectly" is insert-
ed on purpose to comprehend such cases as these

CHAPTER XX

OATH AGAINST SIMONY.

FROM an imaginary resemblance between the pur
chase of a benefice, and Simon Magus's attempt to
purchase the gift of the Holy Ghost (Acts viii. 19,)
the obtaining of ecclesiastical preferment by pecuni
ary considerations has been termed Simony.

The sale of advowsons is inseparable from the al-
lowance of private patronage; as patronage would
otherwise devolve to the most indigent, and for that
reason the most improper hands it could be placed in.
Nor did the law ever intend to prohibit the passing of
advowsons from one patron to another; but to restrain
the patron, who possesses the right of presenting at
the vacancy, from being influenced, in the choice of
his presentee, by a bribe or benefit to himself. It is
the same distinction with that which obtains in* a
freeholder's vote for his representative in parliament.
The right of voting, that is, the freehold to which the
right pertains, may be bought and sold as freely as
any other property; but the exercise of that right, the
vote itself, may not be purchased, or influenced by
money.

For this purpose, the law imposes upon the pre-
sentee, who is generally concerned in the simony, if
there be any, the following oath: " I do swear, that
I have made no simoniacal payment, contract, or pro-
mise, directly or indirectly, by myself, or by any
other to my knowledge, or with my consent, to any
person or persons whatsoever, for or concerning the

VOL. I. 12 *

138 OATH AGAINST SIMONY.

procuring and obtaining of this ecclesiastical place;
&c.; nor will, at any time hereafter, perform, or sa-
tisfy any such kind of payment, contract, or promise,
made by any other without my knowledge or consent:
So help me God, through Jesus Christ!"

It is extraordinary that Bishop Gibson should have
thought this oath to be against all promises whatso
ever, when the terms of the oath expressly restrain it
to simoniacal promises; and the law alone must pro-
nounce what promises, as well as what payments and
contracts, are simoniacal, and consequently come
within the oath; and what do not so.

Now the law adjudges to be simony, —

1. All payments, contracts, or promises, made by
any person for a benefice already vacant. The ad-
vowson of a void turn, by law, cannot be transferred
from one patron to another; therefore, if the void
turn be procured by money, it must be by a pecu-
niary influence upon the then subsisting patron in the
choice of his presentee, which is the very practice the
law condemns.

2. A clergyman's purchasing of the next turn of a
benefice for himself , " directly or indirectly," that is,
by himself, or by another person with his money. It
does not appear that the law prohibits a clergyman
from purchasing the perpetuity of a patronage, more
than any other person: but purchasing the perpetuity,
and forthwith selling it again with a reservation of the
next turn, and with no other design than to possess
himself of the next turn, is in fraudem legis, and in-
consistent with the oath.

3. The procuring of a piece of preferment, by
ceding to the patron any rights, or probable rights,
belonging to it. This is simony of the worst kind:
for it is not only buying preferment, but robbing the
succession to pay for it.

4. Promises to the patron of a portion of the profit,
of a remission of tithes or dues, or other advantage
out of the produce of the benefice; which kind of
compact is a pernicious condescension in the clergy,
independent of the oath; for it tends to introduce a
practice, which may very soon become general, of

LOCAL STATUTES 139

giving the revenue of churches to the lay patrons, and
supplying the duty by indigent stipendiaries.

5. General bonds of resignation, that is, bonds to
resign upon demand.

I doubt not but that the oath against simony is
binding upon the consciences of those who take it,
though I question much the expediency of requiring
it. It is very fit to debar public patrons, such as the
king, the lord chancellor, bishops, ecclesiastical cor-
porations, and the like, from this kind of traffic; be-
cause from them may be expected some regard to the
qualifications of the persons who they promote. But
the oath lays a snare for the integrity of the clergy;
and I do not perceive, that the requiring of it in cases
of private patronage produces any good effect, suffi-
cient to compensate for this danger.

Where advowsons are holden along with manors, or
other principal estates, it would be an easy regulation
to forbid that they should ever hereafter be separated;
and would, at least, keep church preferment out of
the hands of brokers.

CHAPTER XXI.

OATHS TO OBSERVE LOCAL STATUTES.

MEMBERS of colleges in the Universities, and of
other ancient foundations, are required to swear to the
observance of their respective statutes; which obser-
vance is become in some cases unlawful, in others im-
practicable, in others useless, in others inconvenient.

Unlawful directions are countermanded by the au-
thority which made them unlawful.

Impracticable directions are dispensed with by the
necessity of the case.

The Oiily question is, how far the members of these
societies *nay take upon themselves to judge of the in-
conveniency of any particular direction, and make
that a reason for laying aside the observation of it.

140 LOCAL STATUTES.

The animus imponentis, which is the measure of
the juror's duty, seems to be satisfied, when nothing
is omitted, but what, from some change in the circum-
stances under which it was prescribed, it may fairly
be presumed that the founder himself would have dis-
pensed with.

To bring a case within this rule, the inconveniency
must —

1. Be manifest; concerning which there is no doubt.

2. It must arise from some change in the circum-
stances of the institution; for, let the inconveniency
be what it will, if it existed at the time of the founda-
tion, it must be presumed that the founder did not
deem the avoiding of it of sufficient importance to
alter his plan.

3. The direction of the statute must not only be in-
convenient in the general (for so may the institution
itself be,) but prejudicial to the particular end pro-
posed by the institution: for it is this last circum-
stance which proves that the founder would have dis-
pensed with it in pursuance of his own purpose.

The statutes of some colleges forbid the speaking of
any language but Latin within the walls of the col-
lege; direct that a certain number, and not fewer than
that number, be allowed the use of an apartment
amongst them; that so many hours of each day be em-
ployed in public exercises, lectures, or disputations;
and some other articles of discipline adapted to the
tender years of the students who in former times re-
sorted to universities. Were colleges to retain such
rules, nobody nowadays would come near them. They
are laid aside therefore, though parts of the statutes,
and as such included within the oath, not merely be-
cause they are inconvenient, but because there is suf-
ficient reason to believe, that the founders themselves
would have dispensed with them, as subversive of their
own designs.

SUBSCRIPTION TO ARTICLES OF RELIGION. 141

CHAPTER XXII.

SUBSCRIPTION TO ARTICLES OF RELIGION.

SUBSCRIPTION to articles of religion, though not
more than a declaration of the subscriber's assent,
may properly enough be considered in connexion with
the subject of 'oaths, because it is governed by the
same rule of interpretation:

Which rule is the animus imponentis.

The inquiry, therefore, concerning subscription, will
be, quis imposuit, et quo animo?

The bishop who receives the subscription is not the
imposer, any more than the crier of a court, who ad-
ministers the oath to the jury and witnesses, is the per-
son that imposes it; nor, consequently, is the private
opinion or interpretation of the bishop of any signifi-
cation to the subscriber, one way or other.

The compilers of the Thirty-nine Articles are not
to be considered as the imposers of subscription, any
more than the framer or drawer up of a law is the per-
son that enacts it.

The legislature of the 13th Eliz. is the imposer,
whose intention the subscriber is bound to satisfy.

They jvho contend that nothing less can justify sub-
scription to the Thirty-nine Articles, than the actual
belief of each and every separate proposition con-
tained in them, must suppose that the legislature
expected the consent of ten thousand men, and that
in perpetual succession, not to one controverted pro-
position, but to many hundreds. It is difficult to con-
ceive how this could be expected by any who observed
the incurable diversity of human opinion upon all sub-
jects short of demonstration.

If the authors of the law did not intend this, what
did they intend ?

They intended to exclude from offices in the church,

1. All abettors of Popery:

2. Anabaptists; who were at that time a powerful
party on the Continent.

3. The Puritans; who were hostile to an episcopal
constitution: and, in general, the members of such

142 WILLS.

leading sects or foreign establishments as threatened
to overthrow our own.

Whoever finds himself comprehended within these
descriptions, ought not to subscribe. Nor can a sub-
scriber to the Articles take advantage of any latitude
which our rule may seem to allow, who is not first
convinced that he is truly and substantially satisfying
the intention of the legislature.

During the present state of ecclesiastical patronage,
in which private individuals are permitted to impose
teachers upon parishes with which they are often little
or not at alt connected, some limitation of the patron's
choice may be necessary to prevent unedifying con-
tentions between neighbouring teachers, or between
the teachers and their respective congregations. But
this danger, if it exist, may be provided against with
equal effect, by converting the articles of faith into
articles of peace.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE fundamental question upon this subject is, whe
ther Wills are of natural or of adventitious right ?
that is, whether the right of directing the disposition
of property after his death belongs to a man in a state
of nature, and by the law of nature, or whether it be
given him entirely by the positive regulations of the
country he lives in ?

The immediate produce of each man's personal
labour, as the tools, weapons, and utensils which he
manufactures, the tent or hut that he builds, and per-
haps the flocks and herds which he breeds and rears,
are as much his own as the labour was which he em-
ployed upon them, that is, are his property naturally
and absolutely; and consequently he may give or
leave them to whom he pleases, there being nothing
to limit the continuance of his right, or to restrain the
alienation of it.

WILLS. 143

But every other species of property, especially pro-
perty in land, stands upon a different foundation.

We have seen, in the Chapter upon Property, that,
in a state of nature, a man's right to a particular spot
of ground arises from his using it, and his wanting it;
consequently ceases with the use and want: so that at
his death the estate reverts to the community, without
any regard to the last owner's will, or even any pre-
ference of his family, further than as they become the
first occupiers, after him, and succeed to the same
want and use.

Moreover, as natural rights cannot, like rights
created by act of parliament, expire at the end of a
certain number of years; if the testator have a right,
by the law of nature, to dispose of his property one
moment after his death, he has the same right to di-
rect the disposition of it for a million of ages after
him; which is absurd.

The ancient apprehensions of mankind upon the
subject were conformable to this account of it: for
wills have been introduced into most countries by a
positive act of the state; as by the Laws of Solon
into Greece; by the Twelve Tables into Rome; and
that not till after a considerable progress had been
made in legislation, and in the economy of civil life.
Tacitus relates, that amongst the Germans they were
disallowed; and what is more remarkable, in this
country since the Conquest, lands could not be de-
vised by will, till within little more than two hundred
years ago, when this privilege was restored to the
subject, by an act of Parliament, in the latter end of
the reign of Henry the Eighth.

No doubt, many beneficial purposes are attained
by extending the owner's power over his property
beyond his life, and beyond his natural right. It
invites to industry; it encourages marriage; it secures
the dutifulness and dependency of children: but a li-
mit must be assigned to the duration of this power.
The utmost extent to which, in any case, entails arc
allowed by the laws of England to operate, is during
the lives in existence at the death of the testator, and

144 WILLS.

one-and-twenty years beyond these; after which, there
are ways and means of setting them aside.

From the consideration that wills are the creatures
of the municipal law which gives them their efficacy,
may be deduced a determination of the question,
whether the intention of the testator in an informal
will be binding upon the conscience of those who,
by operation of law, succeed to his estate. By an
informal will, I mean a will void in law for want of
some requisite formality, though no doubt be enter-
tained of its meaning and authenticity: as, suppose a
man make his will, devising his freehold estate to his
sister's son, and the will be attested by two only,
instead of three subscribing witnesses; would the
brother's son, who is heir at law to the testator, be
bound in conscience to resign his claim to the estate,
out of deference to his uncle's intention? or, on the
contrary, would not the devisee under the will be
bound upon discovery of this flaw in it, to surrender
the estate, suppose he had gained possession of it, to
the heir-at-law ?

Generaly speaking, the heir-at-law is not bound
by the intention of the testator: for the intention can
signify nothing, unless the person intending have a
right to govern the descent of the estate. That is the
first question. Now, this right the testator can only
derive from the law of the land: but the law confers
the right upon certain conditions, with which condi-
tions he has not complied; therefore the testator can
lay no claim to the power which he pretends to exer-
cise, as he hath not entitled himself to the benefit of
that law, by virtue of which alone the estate ought to
attend his disposal. Consequently, the devisee under
the will, who, by concealing this flaw in it, keeps
possession of the estate, is in the situation of any
other person who avails himself of his neighbour's
ignorance to detain from him his property. The will
is so much waste paper, from the defect of right in
the person who made it. Nor is this catching at an
expression of law to pervert the substantial design of
it: for I apprehend it to be the deliberate mind of
the legislature, that no will should take effect upon

WILT.S. 145

real estates, unless authenticated in the precise man-
ner which the statute describes. Had testamentary
dispositions been founded in any natural right, in-
dependent of positive constitutions, I should have
thought differently of this question: for then I should
have considered the law rather as refusing its assist-
ance to enforce the right of the devisee, than as
extinguishing or working any alteration in the right
itself.

And after all, I should choose to propose a case,
where no consideration of pity to distress, of duty to
a parent, or of gratitude to a benefactor, interfered
with the general rule of justice.

The regard due to kindred in the disposal of our
fortune (except the case of lineal kindred, which is
different,) arises either from the respect we owe to the
presumed intention of the ancestor from whom we
received our fortunes, or from the expectations which
we have encouraged. The intention of the ancestor
is presumed with greater certainty, as well as entitled
to more respect, the fewer degrees he is removed from
us; which makes the difference in the different de-
grees of kindred. For instance, it maybe presumed
to be a father's intention and desire, that the inherit-
ance which he leaves, after it has served the turn and
generation of one son, should remain a provision for
the families of his other children, equally related and
dear to him as the oldest. Whoever, therefore, with-
out cause, gives away his patrimony from his brother's
or sister's family, is guilty not so much of an injury
to them as of ingratitude to his parent. The deference
due from the possessor of a fortune to the presumed
desire of his ancestor will also vary with this circum-
stance; whether the ancestor earned the fortune by
his personal industry, acquired it by accidental suc-
cesses, or only transmitted the inheritance which he
received.

Where a man's fortune is acquired by himself, and
he has done nothing to excite expectation, but rather
has refrained from those particular attentions which
tend to cherish expectation, he is perfectly disengaged
from the force of the above reasons, and at liberty to

VOL. i. 13

146 WILLS.

leave his fortune to his friends, to charitable or pub-
lic purposes, or to whom he will: the same blood,
proximity of blood, and the like, are merely modes of
speech, implying nothing real, nor any obligation of
themselves.

There is always, however, a reason for providing
for our poor relations in preference to others who may
be equally necessitous, which is, that if we do not,
no one else will; mankind, by an established consent,
leaving the reduced branches of. good families to the
bounty of their wealthy alliances.

The not making a will is a very culpable omission,
where it is attended with the following effects; Where
it leaves daughters, or younger children, at the mercy
of the oldest son; where it distributes a personal
fortune equally amongst the children, although there
be no equality in their exigencies or situation; where
it leaves an opening for litigation; or lastly, and
principally, where it defrauds creditors; for, by a
defect in our laws, which has been long and strangely
overlooked, real estates are not subject to the payment
of debts by simple contract, unless made so by will
although credit is, in fact, generally given to the pos-
session of such estates: he therefore, who neglects to
make the necessary appointments for the payment of
his debts, as far as his effects extend, sins, as it has
been justly said, in his grave; and if he omits this on
purpose to defeat the demands of his creditors, he
dies with a deliberate fraud in his heart.

Anciently, when any one died without a will, the
bishop of the diocess took possession of his personal
fortune, in order to dispose of it for the benefit of his
soul, that is, to pious or charitable uses. It became
necessary, therefore, that the bishop should be satisfi-
ed of the authenticity of the will, when there was any,
before he resigned the right which he had to take
possession of the dead man's fortune in case of intes-
tacy. In this way, wills, and controversies relating
to wills, came within the cognizance of the ecclesias-
tical courts; under the jurisdiction of which, wills of
personals (the only wills that were made formerly)
Btill continue, though in truth no more nowaday

WILLS. 147

connected with religion, than any other instruments of
conveyance. This is a peculiarity in the English law.
Succession to intestates must be regulated by posi-
tive rules of law, there being no principle of natural
justice whereby to ascertain the proportion of the dif-
ferent claimants ; not to mention that the claim itself,
especially of collateral kindred, seems to have little
foundation in the law of nature.

These regulations should be guided by the duty
and presumed inclination of the deceased, so far as
these considerations can be consulted by general rules.
The statutes of Charles the Second, commonly called
the Statutes of Distribution, which adopt the rule of
the Roman law in the distribution of personals, are
sufficiently equitable. They assign one-third to the
widow, and two-thirds to the children; in case of no
children, one-half to the widow, and the other half to
the next of kin; where neither widow nor lineal de-
scendants survive, the whole to the next of kin, and
to be equally divided amongst kindred of equal degree,
without distinction of whole blood and half blood, or
of consanguinity by the father's or mother's side. The
descent of real estates, of houses, that is, and land,
having been settled in more remote and in ruder
times, is less reasonable. There never can be much
to complain of in a rule which every person may avoid,
by so easy a provision as that of making his will: oth-
erwise our law in this respect is chargeable with some
flagrant absurdities; such as, that an estate shall in
no wise go to jthe brother or sister of the half blood,
though it came to the deceased from the common
parent; that it shall go to the remotest relation the
intestate has in the world, rather than to his own
father or mother; or even be forfeited for want of an
heir, though both parents survive ; that the most dis-
tant paternal relation shall be preferred to an uncle,
}r own cousin, by the mother's side, notwithstanding
he estate was purchased and acquired by the intes-
ite himself.

Land not being so divisible as money, may be a
fcason for making a difference in the course of inhe-
r.ance; but there ought to be no difference but what is
funded upon that reason. The Roman law made none.

BOOK III.

PART II.

OP RELATIVE DUTIES WHICH ARE INDETERMINATE,

CHAPTER I.

CHARITY.

I USE the term Charity neither in the common sense
of bounty to the poor, nor in St. Paul's sense of be-
nevolence to all mankind; but I apply it, at present,
in a sense more commodious to my purpose, to signify
the promoting the happiness of our inferiors.

Charity, in this sense, I take to be the principal
province of virtue and religion; for, whilst worldly
prudence will direct our behaviour towards our supe-
riors and politeness towards our equals, there is little
beside the consideration of duty, or an habitual hu-
• manity which comes into the place of consideration,
to produce a proper conduct towards those who are
beneath us, and dependent upon us.

There are three principal methods of promoting the
happiness of our inferiors: —

1. By the treatment of our domestics and depen-
dants.

2. By professional assistance

3. By pecuniary bounty.

TREATMENT OF OUR DOMESTICS. 149

CHAPTER II.

CHARITY.

THE TREATMENT OF OUR DOMESTICS AND
DEPENDANTS.

A PARTY of friends setting out together upon a
journey soon find it to be the best for all sides, that,
while they are upon the road, one of the company
should wait upon the rest; another ride forward to
seek out lodging and entertainment; a third carry the
portmanteau; a fourth take charge of the horses; a
fifth bear the purse, conduct and direct the route; not
forgetting, however, that as they were equal and in-
dependent when they set out, so they are all to return
to a level again at their journey's end. The same
regard and respect; the same forbearance, lenity, and
reserve in using their service; the same mildness in
delivering commands; the same study to make their
journey comfortable and pleasant, which he whose lot
it was to direct the rest, would in common decency
think himself bound to observe towards them; ought
we to show to those who, in the casting of the parts
of human society, happen to be placed within our
power, or to depend upon us.

Another reflection of a like tendency with the for-
mer is, that our obligation to them is much greater
than theirs to us. It is a mistake to suppose, that the
rich man maintains his servants, tradesmen, tenants,
and labourers : the truth is, they maintain him. It is
their industry which supplies his table, furnishes his
wardrobe, builds his houses, adorns his equipage, pro-
vides his amusements. It is not the estate, but the
labour employed upon it, that pays his rent. All that
he does is to distribute what others produce; which
is the least part of the business.

Nor do I perceive any foundation for an opinion,
which is often handed round in genteel company, that
good usage is thrown away upon low and ordinary
minds; that they are insensible of kindness, and in-

VOL. X. 13 *

150 SLAVERY.

capable of gratitude. If by " low and ordinary minds*'
aie meant the minds of men in low and ordinary sta-
tions, they seem to be affected by benefits in the same
way that all others are, and to be no less ready to
requite them: and it would be a very unaccountable
law of nature if it were otherwise.

Whatever uneasiness we occasion to our domestics,
which neither promotes our service nor answers the
just ends of punishment, is manifestly wrong; were
it only upon the general principle of diminishing the
«um of human happiness.

By which rule we are forbidden, —

1. To enjoin unnecessary labour or confinement
from the mere love and wantonness of domination:

2. To insult our servants by harsh, scornful, or op-
probrious language;

3. To refuse them any harmless pleasures;

And, by the same principle, are also forbidden
causeless or immoderate anger, habitual peevishness,
and groundless suspicion.

CHAPTER III.

SLAVERY.

THE prohibitions of the last chapter extend to the
treatment of slaves, being founded upon a principle
independent of the contract between masters and
servants.

I define slavery to be " an obligation to labour for
the benefit of the master, without the contract or con-
sent of the servant."

This obligation may arise, consistently with the law
of nature, from three causes:

1. From crimes.

2. From captivity.

3. From debt.

In the first case, the continuance of the slavery, as
of any other punishment, ought to be proportioned to

SLAVERY. 151

the crime; in the second and third cases, it ought to
cease, as soon as the demand of the injured nation,
or private creditor, is satisfied.

The slave-trade upon the coast of Africa is not
excused by these principles. When slaves in that
country are brought to market, no questions. I believe,
are asked about the origin or justice of the vender's
title. It may be presumed, therefore, that this title
is not always, if it be ever, founded in any of the
causes above assigned.

But defect of right in the first purchase is the least
crime with which this traffic is chargeable. The na-
tives are excited to war and mutual depredation, for
the sake of supplying their contracts, or furnishing
their market with slaves. With this the wickedness
begins. The slaves, torn away from parents, wives,
children, from they: friends and companions, their
fields and flocks, rheir home an-d country, are trans-
ported to the European settlements in America, with
no other accommodation on shipboard than what is
provided for brutes. This is the second stage of
cruelty; from which the miserable exiles are deli-
vered, only to be placed, and that for life, in subjec-.
tion to a dominion and system of laws, the most mer-
ciless and tyrannical that ever were tolerated upon
the face of the earth; and from all that can be learned
by the accounts of the people upon the spot, the inor-
dinate authority which the plantation laws confer
upon the slave holder is exercised, by the English
slave holder especially, with rigour and brutality.

But necessity is pretended; the name under which
every enormity is attempted to be justified. And,
after all, what is the necessity? It has never been
proved that the land could not be cultivated there,
as it is here, by hired servants. It is said that it could
not be cultivated with quite the same conveniency
and cheapness, as by the labour of slaves; by which
means a pound of sugar, which the planter now sells
for sixpence, could not be afforded under sixpence-
halfpenny; — and this is the necessity !

The great revolution which has taken place in the
Western World may probably conduce (and who

152 SLAVERY.

knows but that it was designed?) to accelerate the
fall of this abominable tyranny; and now that this
contest, and the passions which attend it are no more ,
there may succeed perhaps a season for reflecting,
whether a legislature which had so long lent its as-
sistance to the support of an institution replete with
human misery, was fit to be trusted with an empire
the most extensive that ever obtained in any age or
quarter of the world.

Slavery was a part of the civil constitution of most
countries when Christianity appeared; yet no passage
is to be found in the Christian Scriptures by which it
is condemned or prohibited. This is true; for Chris-
tianity, soliciting admission into all nations of the
world, abstained, as it behoved it, from intermeddling
with the civil institutions of any. But does it follow,
from the silence of Scripture concerning them, that
all the civil institutions which then prevailed were
right ? or that the bad should not be exchanged for
better ?

Besides this, the discharging of slaves from all obli-
gation to obey their masters, which is the consequence
of pronouncing slavery to be unlawful, would have
had no better effect, than to let loose one half of man-
kind upon the other. Slaves would have been tempted
to embrace a religion which asserted their right to
freedom; masters would hardly have been persuaded
to consent to claims founded upon such authority;
the most calamitous of all contests, a bellum servile,
might probably have ensued, to the reproach, if not
the extinction, of the Christian name.

The truth is, the emancipation of slaves should be
gradual, and be carried on by provisions of law, and
under the protection of civil government. Christiani-
ty can only operate as an alterative. By the mild
diffusion of its light and influence, the minds of men
are insensibly prepared to perceive and correct the
enormities, which folly, or wickedness, or accident,
have introduced into their public establishments. In
this way the Greek and Roman slavery, and since
these the feudal tyranny, has declined before it. And

PROFESSIONAL, ASSITANCE. 153

we trust that, as the knowledge and authority of the
same religion advance in the world, they will banish
what remains of this odious institution.

CHAPTER IV.

PROFESSIONAL. ASSISTANCE.

THIS kind of beneficence is chiefly to be expected
from members of the legislature, magistrates, medical,
legal, and sacerdotal professions.

1. The care of the poor ought to be the principal
object of all laws; for this plain reason, that the rich
are able to take care of themselves.

Much has been, and more might, be done by the
laws of this country, towards the relief of the impo-
tent, and the protection and encouragement of the in-
dustrious poor. Whoever applies himself to collect
observations upon the state and operation of the poor
laws, and to contrive remedies for the imperfections
and abuses which he observes, and digests these reme-
dies into acts of parliament; and conducts them, by
argument or influence, through the two branches of
the legislature, or communicates his ideas to those
who are more likely to carry them into effect; deserves
well of a class of the community so numerous, that
their happiness forms a principal part of the whole.
The study and activity thus employed is charity, in
the most meritorious sense of the word.

2. The application of parochial relief is intrusted,
in the first instance, to overseers and contractors, who
have an interest in opposition to that of the poor, in-
asmuch as whatever they allow them comes in part
out of their own pocket. For this reason, the law
has deposited with justices of the peace a power of
superintendence and control: and the judicious inter-
position of this power is a most useful exertion of cha-
lity, and ofttimes within the abilty of those who have

154 PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE.

no other way of serving their generation. A country
gentleman of very moderate education, and who has
little to spare from his fortune, by learning so much
of the poor law as is to be found in Dr. Burn's Jus-
tice, and by furnishing himself with a knowledge of
the prices of labour and provision, so as to be able
to estimate the exigencies of a family, and wnat is to
be expected from their industry, may, in this way,
place out the one talent committed to him to great
account.

3. Of all private professions, that of medicine puts
it in a man's power to do the most good at the least
expense. Health, which is precious to all, is to the
poor invaluable; and their complaints, as agues, rheu-
matisms, &c. are often such as yield to medicine.
And, with respect to the expense, drugs at first hand
cost little, and advice costs nothing, where it is only
bestowed upon those who could not afford to pay
."or it.

4. The rights of the poor are not so important or
intricate as their contentions are violent and ruinous.
A lawyer or attorney, of tolerable knowledge in his
pofession, has commonly judgment enough to adjust
these disputes, with all the effect, and without the ex-
pense of a lawsuit; and he may be said to give a poor
man twenty pounds who prevents his throwing it away
upon law. A legal man, whether of the profession
or not, who, together with a spirit of conciliation,
possesses the confidence of his neighbourhood, will be
much resorted to for this purpose, especially since the
grc-Jit increase of costs has produced a general dread
of going to law.

Nor is this line of beneficence confined to arbitra-
tion. Seasonable counsel, coming with the weight
which the reputation of the adviser gives it, will often
keep or extricate the rash and uninformed out of great
difficulties.

Lastly, I know not a more exalted charity than thai
which presents a shield against the rapacity or perse-
cution of a tyrant.

%. Betwixt argument and authority (I mean that
luthority which flows from voluntary respect, and at-

PECUNIARY BOUNTY. 155

tends upon sanctity and disinterestedness of charac-
ter,) something may be done, amongst the lower orders
of mankind, towards the regulation of their conduct,
and the satisfaction of their thoughts. This office
i*elongs to the ministers of religion; or rather, who-
ever undertakes it, becomes a minister of religion.
The inferior clergy, who are nearly upon a level with
the common sort of their parishioners, and who on
that account gain an easier admission to their society
and confidence, have in this respect more in their
power than their .superiors: the discreet use of this
power constitutes one of the most respectable func-
tions of human nature.

CHAPTER V.

CHARITY.
PECUNIARY BOUNTY.

1. The obligation to bestow relief upon the poor

2. The manner of bestowing it.

3. The pretences by which men excuse themselves

from it.

1. The obligation to bestow relief upon the poor.

THEY who rank pity amongst the original impulses
of our nature, rightly contend, that when this princi-
ple prompts us to the relief of human misery, it indi-
cates the Divine intention, and our duty. Indeed,
the same conclusion is deducible from the existence
of the passion, whatever account be given of its ori-
gin. Whether it be an instinct or a habit, it is in
fact a property of our nature, which God appointed;
and the final cause for which it was appointed is to
afford to the miserable, in the compassion of their fel-
low creatures, a remedy for those inequalities and dis-
tresses which God foresaw that many must be ex-
posed to, under every general rule for the distribution
of property.

156 PECUNIARY BOUNTY.

Beside this, the poor have a claim founded in the
law of nature, which may be thus explained: — All
things were originally common. No one being able
to produce a charter from Heaven, had any better
title to a particular possession than his next neigh-
bour. There were reasons for mankind's agreeing
upon a separation of this common fund; and God for
these reasons is presumed to have ratified it. But
this separation was made and consented to, upon the
expectation and condition that every one should have
left a sufficiency for his subsistence, or the means of
procuring it ; and as no fixed laws for the regulation
of property can be so contrived as to provide for the
relief of every case and distress which may arise, these
cases and distresses, when their right and share in
the common stock were given up or taken from them,
were supposed to be left to the voluntary bounty of
those who might be acquainted with the exigencies
of their situation, and in the way of affording assist-
ance. And, therefore, when the partition of property
is rigidly maintained against the claims of indigence
and distress, it is maintained in opposition to the in-
tention of those who made it, and to His, who is the
Supreme Propietor of every thing, and who has filled
the world with plenteousness, for the sustentation and
comfort of all whom he sends into it.

The Christian Scriptures are more copious and ex-
plicit upon this duty than upon almost any other.
The description which Christ hath left us of the pro-
ceedings of the last day establishes the obligation of
bounty beyond controversy: — " When the Son of Man
shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with
him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory,
and before him shall be gathered all nations: And he
shall separate them one from another. — Then shall
the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye
blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared
for you from the foundation of the world: For I was
an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty,
and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took
me in: naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and
ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. —

PECUNIARY BOUNTY. 157

And inasmuch as ye have done it to one of the least
of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."* It
is not necessary to understand this passage as a lite-
ral account of what will actually pass on that day.
Supposing it only a scenical description of the rules
and principles by which the Supreme Arbiter of our
destiny will regulate his decisions, it conveys the same
lesson to us; it equally demonstrates of how great
value and importance these duties in the sight of God
are, and what stress will be laid upon them. The
apostles also describe this virtue as propitiating the
Divine favour in an eminent degree. And these re-
commendations have produced their effect. It does
not appear that, before the times of Christianity, an
infirmary, hospital, or public charity of any kind, ex-
isted in the world; whereas most countries in Chris-
tendom have long abounded with these institutions.
To which may be added, that a spirit of private libe-
rality seems to flourish amidst the decay of many
other virtues; not to mention the legal provision for
the poor, which obtains in this country, and which
was unknown and unthought of by the most human-
ized nations of antiquity.

St. Paul adds upon the subject an excellent direc-
tion, and which is practicable by all who have any
thing to give: — " Upon the first day of the week (or
any other stated time,) let every one of you lay by in
store, as God hath prospered him." By which I un-
derstand St. Paul to recommend what is the very thing
wanting with most men, the being charitable upon a
plan ; that is, upon a deliberate comparison of our
fortunes with the reasonable expenses and expecta-
tions of our families, to compute what we can spare,
and to lay by so much for charitable purposes in some
mode or other. The mode will be a consideration af-
terwards.

The effect which Christianity produced upon some
of its first converts was such as might be looked for
from a divine religion, coming with full force and mi-

* Matthew xxv 31.

14

158 PECUNIARY BOUNTY

raculous evidence upon the consciences of mankind.
It overwhelmed all wordly considerations in the ex-
pectations of a more important existence: — " And the
multitude of them that believed were of one heart and
of one soul; neither said any of them that aught of
the things which he possessed was his own; but they
had all things in common. — Neither was there any
among them that lacked; for as many as were pos-
sessors of lands or houses, sold them, and brought the
prices of the things that were sold, and laid them
down at the apostle 's feet ; and distribution was made un-
to every man according as he had need." Acts, iv. 32.

Nevertheless, this community of goods, however it
manifested the sincere zeal of the primitive Chistians,
is no precedent for our imitation. It was confined to
the Church at Jerusalem; continued not long there;
was never enjoined upon any, (Acts, v. 4.;) and, al-
though it might suit with the particular circumstances
of a small and select society, is altogether impractica-
ble in a large and mixed community.

The conduct of the apostles upon the occasion de-
serves to be noticed. Their followers laid down their
fortunes at their feet ; but so far were they from tak-
ing advantage of this unlimited confidence, to enrich
themselves, or to establish their own authority, that
they soon after got rid of this business, as inconsistent
with the main object of their mission, and transferred
the custody and management of the public fund to
deacons elected to that office by the people at large.
Acts, vi.

2. The manner of bestowing bounty; or the differ-
ent kinds of charity.

Every question between the different kinds of chari-
ty supposes the sum bestowed to be the same.

There are three kinds of charity which prefer a
claim to attention.

The first, and in my judgment one of the best, is
to give stated and considerable sums, by way of pen-
sion or annuity, to individuals or families, with whose
behaviour and distress we ourselves arc acquainted.
When I speak of considerable sums, I mean only that
five pounds, or any other sum, given at once or di-

PECUNIARY BOUNTY. 159

vided amongst five or fewer families, will do more
good than the same sum distributed amongst a greater
number in shillings or half-crowns; and that, because
it is more likely to be properly applied by the persons
who receive it. A poor fellow, who can find no bet-
ter use for a shilling than to drink his benefactor's
health, and purchase half an hour's recreation for him-
self, would hardly break into a guinea for any such
purpose, or be so improvident as not to lay it by for
an occasion of importance, e. g. for his rent, his cloth-
ing, fuel, or stock of winter's provision. It is a still
greater recommendation of this kind of charity, that
pensions and annuities, which are paid regularly, and
can be expected at the time, are the only way by
which we can prevent one part of a poor man's suffer-
ings— the dread of want.

2. But as this kind of charity supposes that pro-
per objects of such expensive benefactions fall within
our private knowledge and observation, which does
not happen to all, a second method of doing good,
which is in every one's power who has the money to
spare, is by subscription to public charities. Public
charities admit of this argument in their favour, that
your money goes farther towards attaining the end
for which it is given, than it can do by any private
and separate beneficence. A guinea, for example,
contributed to an infirmary, becomes the means of
providing one patient at least with a physician, sur-
geon, apothecary, with medicine, diet, lodging, and
suitable attendence; which is not the tenth part of
what the same assistance, if it could be procured at
all, would cost to a sick person or family in any other
situation.

3. The last, and, compared with the former, the low-
est exertion of benevolence is in the relief of beggars.
Nevertheless, I by no means approve the indiscrimi-
nate rejection of all who implore our alms in this way.
Some may perish by such a conduct. Men are some-
times overtaken by distress, for which all other relief
would come too late. Beside which, resolutions of
this kind compel us to offer such violence to our hu-
manity, as may go near, in a little while, to suffocate

160 PECUNIARY BOUNTY.

the principle itself; which is a very serious consida
ration. A good man, if he do not surrender himself
to his feelings without reserve, will at least lend an
ear to importunities which come accompanied with
outward attestations of distress; and after a patient
audience of the complaint, will direct himself, not so
much by any previous resolution which he may have
formed upon the subject, as by the circumstances and
credulity of the account that he receives.

There are other species of charity well contrived
to make the money expended go far ; such as keep —
ing down the price of fuel or provision, in case of mo-
nopoly or temporary scarcity, by purchasing the arti-
cles at the best market, and retailing them at prime
cost, or at a small loss; or the adding of a bounty to
particular species of labour, when the price is acci-
dentally depressed.

The proprietors of large estates have it in theii
power to facilitate the maintenance, and thereby to
encourage the establishment of families (which i,s
one of the noblest purposes to which the rich amrf
great can convert their endeavours,) by building cot-
tages, splitting farms, erecting manufactories, culti
vating wastes, embanking the sea, draining marshes,
and other expedients, which the situation of each
estate points out. If the profits of these undertak-
ings do not repay the expense, let the authors of
them place the difference to the account of charity.
It is true of almost all such projects, that the public
is a gainer by them, what ever the owner be. And
where the loss can be spared, this consideration is
sufficient.

It is become a question of some importance, under
what circumstances works of charity ought to be done
in private, and when they may be made public with-
out detracting from the merit of the action, if indeed
they ever may; the Author of our religion having de-
livered a rule upon this subject which seems 1o enjoin
universal secrecy: — " When th»u doest alms, let not
thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth; that
thy alms may be in secret, and thy Father, which
eeeth in secret, himself shall reward thee openly."

PECUNIARY BOUNTY. 1G1

(Matt. vi. 3, 4.) From the preamble to this prohibi-
tion I think it, however, plain that our Saviour's sole
design was to forbid ostentation, arid all publishing
of good works which proceeds from thai motive: —
" Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to
be seen of them ; otherwise ye have no reward of your
Father which is in heaven: therefore, when thou
doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee,
as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the
streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I
say unto you, they have their reward." — Ver. 1, 2.
There are motives for the doing our alms in public,
beside those of ostentation, with which therefore our
Saviour's rule has no concern: such as, to testify our
approbation of some particular species of charity, and
to recommend it to others; to take off the prejudice
which the want, or, which is the same thing, the sup-
pression, of our name in the list of contributors might
excite against the charity, or against ourselves. And,
BO long as these motives are free from any mixture of
vanity, they are in no danger of invading our Saviour's
prohibition; they rather seem to comply with another
direction which he has left us: " Let your light so
shine before men, that they may see your good works.,
and glorify your Father which is in heaven." If it
be necessary to propose a precise distinction upon the
subject, I can think of none better than fhe following:
When our bounty is beyond our fortune and station,
that is, when it is more than could be expected from
us, our charity should be private, if privacy be prac-
ticable: when it is not more than might be expected,
it may be public; for we cannot hope to influence
others to the imitation of extraordinary generosity,
and therefore \vant, in the former case, the only justi-
fiable reason for making it public.

Having thus described several different exertions
of charity, it may not be improper to take notice of a
species of liberality, which is not charity, in any sense
of the word: I mean the giving of entertainments or
liquor, for the sake of popularity; or the rewarding,
treating, and maintaining the companions of our
diversions, as hunters, shooters fishers, and the like,

VOL. I. 14*

162 PECUNIAR? BOUNTY.

I do not say thaf this is criminal; I only say that it
is not charity; and that we are not to suppose, be-
cause we give, and give to the poor, that it will stand
in the place, or supersede the obligation of more me-
ritorious and disinterested bounty.

3. The pretences by which men excuse themselves
from giving to the poor.

1. " That they have nothing to spare," i. e. nothing
for which they have not provided some other use;
nothing which their plan of expense, together with
the savings they have resolved to lay by, will not ex-
haust: never reflecting whether it be in their power y
or that it is their duly to retrench their expenses, and
contract their plan, " that they may have to give to
them that need:" or rather, that this ought to havn
been part of their plan originally.

2. " That they have families of their own, and that
charity begins at home." The extent of this plea will
be considered, when we come to explain the duty oJ
parents.

3. " That charity does not consist in giving money
but in benevolence, philanthropy, love to all mankind
goodness of heart," &c. Hear St. James: " If a bro
ther or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food
and one of you say unto them, Depart in peace; be
ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them
not those things which are needful to the body ; what
doth it profit ?" (James, ii. 15, 16.)

4. " That giving to the poor is not mentioned in
St. Paul's description of charity, in the thirteenth
chapter of his First Epistle to the Corinthians." This
is not a description of charity, but of good nature; and
it is not neccessary that every duty be mentioned in
every place.

5. " That they pay the poor rates." They might
as well allege that they pay their debts: for the poor
have the same right to that portion of a man's property
which the laws assign to them, that the man himself
has to the remainder.

6. " That they employ many poor persons !" — for
their own sake, not the poor's; — otherwise it is a good
plea.

PECUNIARY BOUNTY. 163

7. " That the poor do not suffer so much as we
imagine; that education and habit have reconciled
them to the evils of their condition, and make them
easy under it." Habit can never reconcile human
nature to the extremities of cold, hunger, and thirst,
any more than it can reconcile the hand to the touch
of a red hot iron: besides, the question is not, how
unhappy any one is, but how much more happy we
can make him.

8. " That these people, give them what you will,
will never thank you or think of you for it." In the
first place, that is not true: in the second place, it
was not for the sake of their thanks that you relieved
them.

9. " That we are liable to be imposed upon." If a
due inquiry be made, our merit is the same: beside
that the distress is generally real, although the cause
be untruly stated.

10. " That they should apply to their parishes."
This is not always practicable: to which we may
add, that there are many requisites to a comfortable
subsistence, which parish relief does not supply; and
that there are some who would suffer almost as much
from receiving parish relief as by the want of it; and
lastly, that there are many modes of charity to which
this answer does not relate at all.

11. "That giving money encourages idleness and
vagrancy." This is true only of injudicious and indis-
criminate generosity.

12. " That we have too many objects of charity at
home to bestow any thing upon strangers; or, that
there are other charities, which are more useful, or
stand in greater need." The value of this excuse
depends entirely upon the fact, whether we actually
relieve those neighbouring objects, and contribute to
those other charities.

Beside all these excuses, pride or prudery or deli-
cacy or love of ease keep one half of the world out of
the way of observing what the other half suffer.

164 RESENTMENT.

CHAPTER VI.

RESENTMENT.

RESENTMENT may be distinguished into anger
and revenge.

By anger, I mean the pain we suffer upon the re-
ceipt of an injury or affront, with the usual effects of
that pain upon ourselves.

By revenge, the inflicting of pain upon the person
who has injured or offended us, further than the just
ends of punishment or reparation require.

Anger prompts to revenge; but it is possible to
suspend the effect, when we cannot altogether quelj
the principle. We are bound also to endeavour ttt
qualify and correct the principle itself. So that out
duty requires two different applications of the mind;
and, for that reason, anger and revenge may be con
sidered separately.

CHAPTER VII.

" BE ye angry, and sin not;" therefore all anger ie
not sinful: I suppose, because some degree of it, and
upon some occasions, is inevitable.

It becomes sinful, or contradicts, however, the rule
of Scripture, when it is conceived upon slight and in-
adequate provocations, and when it continues long.

1. When it is conceived upon slight provocations: for,
" charity suffereth long, is not easily provoked." —
" Let every man be slow to anger." Peace, long-
suffering, gentleness, meekness are enumerated among
the fruits of the spirit, Gal. v. 22. and compose the
true Christian temper, as to this article of duty.

2. When it continues long: for, " let not the sun
go down upon your wrath."

These precepts, and all reasoning indeed on the
subject, suppose the passion of anger to be within our

ANGER. 165

power: and thig power consists not so much in any
faculty we possess of appeasing our wrath at the time
(for we are passive under the smart which an injury
or affront occasions, and all we can then do is to pre-
vent its breaking out into action,) as in so mollifying
our minds by habits of just reflection, as to be less
irritated by impressions of injury, and to be sooner
pacified.

Reflections proper for this purpose, and which may
be called the sedatives of anger, are the following:
The possibility of mistaking the motives from which
the conduct that offends us proceeded; how often our
offences have been the effect of inadvertency, when
they were construed into indications of malice; the
inducement which prompted our adversary to act as
he did, and how powerfully the same inducement
has, at one time or other, operated upon ourselves;
that he is suffering perhaps under a contrition, which
he is ashamed, or wants an opportunity, to confess;
and how ungenerous it is to triumph by coldness or
insult over a spirit already humbled in secret; that
the returns of kindness are sweet, and that there is
neither honour nor virtue nor use in resisting them;
— for some persons think themselves bound to cherish
and keep alive their indignation, when they find it
dying away of itself. We may remember that others
have their passions, their prejudices, their favourite
aims, their fears, their cautions, their interests, their
sudden impulses, their varieties of apprehension, as
well as we: we may recollect what hath sometimes
passed in our minds, when we have gotten on the
wrong side of a quarrel, and imagine the same to be
passing in our adversary's mind now; when we be-
came sensible of our misbehaviour, what palliations
we perceived in it, and expected others to perceive;
how we were affected by the kindness, and felt the
superiority of a generous reception and ready forgive-
ness; how persecution revived our spirits with our
enmity, and seemed to justify the conduct in our-
selves which we before blamed. Add to this, the
indecency of extravagant anger; how it renders us,
whilst it lasts the scorn and sport of all about us, of

166 REVENGE.

which it leaves us, when it ceases, sensible and
ashamed; the inconveniences and irretrievable mis-
conduct into which our irascibility has sometimes
betrayed us; the friendships it has lost us; the dis-
tresses and embarrassments in which we have been
involved by it; and the sore repentance which, on
one account or other, it always costs us.

But the reflection calculated above all others to
allay the haughtiness of temper which is ever rinding
out provocations, and which renders anger so impe-
tuous, is that which the gospel proposes; namely,
that we ourselves are, or shortly shall be, suppliants
for mercy and pardon at the judgment-seat of God.
Imagine our secret sins disclosed and brought to
light; imagine us thus humbled and exposed; trem-
bling under the hand of God; casting ourselves on
his compassion; crying out for mercy: — imagine such
a creature to talk of satisfaction and revenge; refus-
ing to be entreated, disdaining to forgive; extreme to
mark and to resent what is done amiss: — imagine, 1
say, this, and you can hardly frame to yourself an in-
stance of more impious and unnatural arrogance.

The point is, to habituate ourselves to these reflec-
tions, till they rise up of their own accord when they
are wanted, that is, instantly upon the receipt of an
injury or affront, and with such force and colouring,
as both to mitigate the paroxysms of our anger at the
time, and at length to produce an alteration in the
temper and disposition itself.

CHAPTER VIII.

REVENGE.

ALL pain occasioned to another in consequence o.
an offence or injury received from him, further than
what is calculated to procure reparation or promote
the just ends of punishment, is so much revenge.

There can be no- difficulty in knowing when we oc-
casion pain to another; nor much in distinguishing,

REVENGE. 167

whether we do so with a view only to the ends of
punishment, or from revenge: for, in the one case we
proceed with reluctance, in the other with pleasure.

It is highly probable from the light of nature, that
a passion, which seeks its gratification immediately
and expressly in giving pain, is disagreeable to the
benevolent will and counsels of the Creator. Other
passions and pleasures may, and often do, produce
pain to some one; but then pain is not, as it is here,
the object of the passion, and the direct cause of the
pleasure. This probability is converted into certainty,
if we give credit to the Authority which dictated the
several passages of the Christian Scriptures that con-
demn revenge, or, what is the same thing, which en-
join forgiveness.

We will set down the principal of these passages:
and endeavour to collect from them, what conduct
upon the whole is allowed towards an enemy, and
what is forbidden.

" If ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly
Father will also forgive you: but if ye forgive not
men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive
your trespasses." — " And his lord was wroth, and
delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all
that was due unto him; so likewise shall my hea-
venly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts
forgive not every one his brother their trespasses." —
" Put on bowels of mercy, kindness, humbleness of
mind, meekness, long-suffering; forbearing one ano-
ther, forgiving one another, if any man have a quar-
rel against any: even as Chrkt forgave you, so also
do ye." — " Be patient towards all men; see that none
render evil for evil to any man." — " Avenge not your-
selves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is
written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the
Lord. Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him;
if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou
shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not over-
come of evil, but overcome evil with good."*

* Matt. vi. 14, 15; xviii. 34, 35. Col. iii, 12, 13. 1
Ihess. v. 14, 15 Rom. xii. 19, 20, 21.

168 REVENGE.

I think it evident, from some of these passages
taken separately, and still more so from all of them
together, that revenge, as described in the beginning
of this chapter, is forbidden in every degree, under
all forms, and upon every occasion. We are likewise
forbidden to refuse to an enemy even the most imper-
fect right; " if he hunger, feed him; if he thirst,
give him drink;"* which are examples of imperfect
rights. If one who has offended us solicit from us
a vote to which his qualifications entitle him, we may
not refuse it from motives of resentment, or the re-
membrance of what we have suffered at his hands.
His right, and our obligation which follows the right,
are not altered by his enmity to us, or by ours to him.

On the other hand, I do not conceive that these
prohibitions were intended to interfere with the pun-
ishment or prosecution of public offenders. In the
eighteenth chapter of St. Matthew, our Saviour tells
his disciples; " If thy brother who has trespassed
against thee neglect to hear the church, let him be
unto thee as a heathen man, and a publican." Im-
mediately after this, when St. Peter asked him, " How
oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him ?
till seven times?" Christ replied, "I say not unto
thee until seven times, but until seventy times seven;"
that is, as often as he repeats the offence. From
these two adjoining passages, compared together,
we are authorized to conclude, that the forgiveness of
an enemy is not inconsistent with the proceeding
against him as a public offender; and that the dis-
cipline established in religious or civil societies for
the restraint or punishment of criminals ought to be
upholden.

If the magistrate be not tied down with these pro-
hibitions from the execution of his office, neither is the
prosecutor; for the office of the prosecutor is as neces-
sary as that of the magistrate.

* See also Exodus, xxiii. 4. " If thou meet thine enemy's
ox, or his ass, going astray, thou shall surely bring it back to
him again : if thou see the ass of him that hateth thee, ly-
ing under his burden, and wouldest forbear to help him, thou
shall surely help with him."

REVENGE. 169

Nor, by parity of reason, are private persons with-
holden from the correction of vice, when it is in their
power to exercise it; provided they be assured that it
is the guilt which provokes them, and not the injury;
and that their motives are pure from all mixture and
every particle of that spirit which delights and tri-
umphs in the humiliation of an adversary.

Thus, it is no breach of Christian charity to with-
draw our company or civility when the same tends to
discountenance any vicious practice. This is one
branch of that extrajudicial discipline, which supplies
the defects and the remissness of law; and is ex-
pressly authorized by St. Paul (1 Cor. v. 11:) " But
now I have written unto you not to keep company, if
any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or
covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or
an extortioner; with such an one, no not to eat."
The use of this association against vice continues to
be experienced in one remarkable instance, and might
be extended with good effect to others. The con-
federacy amongst women of character, to exclude from
their society kept-mistresses and prostitutes, contri-
butes more perhaps to discourage that condition of
life, and prevents greater numbers from entering into
it, than all the considerations of prudence and religion
put together.

We are likewise allowed to practise so much cau-
tion, as not to put ourselves in the way of injury, or
invite the repetition of it. If a servant or tradesman
has cheated us, we are not bound to trust him again:
for this is to encourage him in his dishonest practices,
which is doing him much harm.

Where a benefit can be conferred only upon one or
few, and the choice of the person upon whom it is con-
ferred is a proper object of favour, we are at liberty
to prefer those who have not offended us to those who
have; the contrary being no where required.

Christ, who, as hath been well demonstrated,*

* See a View of the Internal Evidence of the Christian
Religion.

VOL. I. 15

170 DUELLING.

estimated virtues by their solid utility, and not by
their fashion or popularity, prefers this of the forgive-
ness of injuries to every other. He enjoins it oftener;
with more earnestness; under a greater variety of
forms; and witn this weighty and peculiar circum-
stance, that the forgiveness of others is the condition
upon which alone we are to expect, or even ask, from
God, forgiveness for ourselves. And this preference
is justified by the superior importance of the virtue
itself. The feuds and animosities in families, and be-
tween neighbours, which disturb the intercourse of
human life, and collectively compose half the misery
of it, have their foundation in the want of a forgiving
temper; and can never cease, but by the exercise of
this virtue, on one side, or on both.

CHAPTER IX.

DUELLING.

DUELLING as a punishment is absurd; because it is
an equal chance, whether the punishment fall upon
the offender, or the person offended. Nor is it much
better as a reparation; it being difficult to explain in
what the satisfaction consists, or how it tends to
undo the injury, or to afford a compensation for the
damage already sustained.

The truth is, it is not considered as either. A law
of honour having annexed the imputation of cowardice
to patience under an affront, challenges are given and
accepted with no other design than to prevent or wipe
off this suspicion; without malice against the adver-
sary, generally without a wish to destroy him, or any
other concern than to preserve the duellist's own re-
putation and reception in the world.

The unreasonableness of this rule of manners is one
consideration; the duty and conduct of individuals,
while such a rule exists, is another.

As to which, the proper and single question ia

DUELLING. 171

this: whether a regard for our own reputation is, or
is not, sufficient to justify the taking away the life of
another ?

Murder is forbidden; and wherever human life is
deliberately taken away, otherwise than by public
authority, there is murder. The value and security
of human life make this rule necessary; for I do not
see what other idea or definition of murder can be
admitted, which will not let in so much private vio-
lence, as to render society a scene of peril and blood-
shed.

If unauthorized laws of honour be allowed to create
exceptions to Divine prohibitions, there is an end of
all morality, as founded in the will of the Deity; and
the obligation of every duty may, at one time or oth-
er, be discharged by the caprice and fluctuations of
fashion.

" But a sense of shame is so much torture; and no
relief presents itself otherwise than by an attempt
upon the life of our adversary." What then ? The
distress which men suffer by the want of money is
oftentimes extreme, and no resource can be discover-
ed but that of removing a life which stands between
the distressed person and his inheritance. The mo-
tive in this case is as urgent, and the means much the
same as in the former: yet this case finds no advocate.

Take away the circumstance of the duellist's ex-
posing his own life, and it becomes assassination;
add this circumstance, and what difference does it
make ? None but this, that fewer perhaps will imitate
the example, and human life will be somewhat more
safe, when it cannot be attacked without equal danger
to the aggressor's own. Experience, however, proves
that there is fortitude enough in most men to under-
take this hazard; and were it otherwise, the defence,
at best, would be only that which a highwayman or
housebreaker might plead, whose attempt had been so
daring and desperate, that few were likely to repeat
the same.

In expostulating with the duellist, I all along sup-
pose his adversary to fall. Which supposition I am

172 DUELLING.

at liberty to make, because, if he have no right to kill
his adversary, he has none to attempt it.

In return, I forbear from applying to the case of
duelling the Christian principle of the forgiveness of
injuries; because it is possible to suppose the injury
to be forgiven, and the duellist to act entirely from a
concern for his own reputation: where this is not the
case, the guilt of duelling is manifest, and is greater.

In this view it seems unnecessary to distinguish be-
tween him who gives, and him who accepts, a chal-
lenge: for, on the one hand, they incur an equal
hazard of destroying life; and on the other, both act
upon the same persuasion, that what they do is neces-
sary, in order to recover or preserve the good opinion
of the world.

Public opinion is not easily controlled by civil insti-
tutions: for which reason I question whether any reg-
ulations can be contrived, of sufficient force to sup-
press or change the rule of honour, which stigma-
tizes all scruples about duelling with the reproach of
cowardice.

The insufficiency of the redress which the law of
the land affords, for those injuries which chiefly affect
a man in his sensibility and reputation, tempts many
to redress themselves. Prosecutions for such otfences,
by the trifling damages that are recovered, serve only
to make the sufferer more ridiculous. — This ought to
be remedied.

For the army, where the point of honour is culti-
vated with exquisite attention and refinement, I would
establish a Court of Honour, with a power of award-
ing those submissions and acknowledgments, which
it is generally the purpose of a challenge to obtain;
arid it might grow into a fashion, with persons of rank
of all professions, to refer their quarrels to this tribunal.

Duelling, as the law now stands, can seldom be
overtaken by legal punishment. The challenge, ap
pointment, and other previous circumstances which
indicate the intention with which the combatants met,
being suppressed, nothing appears to a court of justice
but the actual rencounter; and if a person be slain
when actually fighting with his adversary, the law
deems his death nothing more than manslaughter.

LITIGATION. 173

CHAPTER X.

LITIGATION.

'* IF it be possible, live peaceably with all men;"
which precept contains an indirect confession that this
is not always possible.

The instances* in the fifth chapter of St. Matthew
are rather to be understood as proverbial methods of
describing the general duties of forgiveness and bene-
volence, and the temper which we ought to aim at
acquiring, than as directions to be specifically ob-
served, or of themselves of any great importance to be
observed. The first of these is, " If thine enemy smite
thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also;"
yet, when one of the officers struck Jesus with the
palm of his hand, we find Jesus rebuking him for the
outrage with becoming indignation: " If I have
spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why
smitest thou me ?" (John, xviii. 23.) It may be ob-
served, likewise, that the several examples are drawn
from instances of small and tolerable injuries. A rule
which forbade all opposition to injury, or defence
against it, could have no other effect than to put the
good in subjection to the bad, and deliver one half of
mankind to the depredation of the other half; which
must be the case, so long as some considered them-
selves as bound by such a rule, whilst others despised
it. St. Paul, though no one inculcated forgiveness
and forbearance with a deeper sense of the value and
obligation of these virtues, did not interpret either of
them to require an unresisting submission to every
contumely, or a neglect of the means of safety and
self-defence. He took refuge in the laws of his coun-
try, and in the privileges of a Roman citizen, from the
conspiracy of the Jews (Acts, xxv. 11;) and from the

* " Whoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to

him the other also ; and if any man will sue thee at the law,

and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also ; and

whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain."

VOL- i. 15 *

174 LITIGATION.

clandestine violence of the chief captain (Acts, xxii.
25.) And yet this is the same apostle who reproved
the litigiousness of his Corinthian converts with so
much severity. " Now, therefore, there is utterly a
fault among you, because ye go to law one with ano-
ther. Why do ye not rather take wrong ? why do ye
not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded ?"

On the other hand, therefore, Christianity excludes
all vindictive motives, and all frivolous causes of pro-
secution; so that where the injury is small, where no
good purpose of public example is answered, where
forbearance is not likely to invite a repetition of the
injury, or where the expense of an action becomes a
punishment too severe for the offence; there the
Christian is withholden by the authority of his reli-
gion from going to law.

On the other hand, a lawsuit is inconsistent with
no rule of the gospel, when it is instituted, —

1. For the establishing of some important right.

2. For the procuring a compensation for some con-
siderable damage.

3. For the preventing of future injury.

But, since it is supposed to be undertaken simply
with a view to the ends of justice and safety, the pro-
secutor of the action is bound to confine himself to
the cheapest process which will accomplish these ends,
as well as to consent to any peaceable expedient for
the same purpose; as to a reference, in which the
arbitrators can do what the law cannot, divide the
damage when the fault is mutual; or to a compound-
ing of the dipute, by accepting a compensation in the
gross, without entering into articles and items, which
it is often very difficult to adjust separately.

As to the rest, the duty of the contending parties
may be expressed in the following directions:

Not by appeals to prolong a suit against your own
conviction.

Not to undertake or defend a suit against a poor
adversary, or render it more dilatory or expensive than
necessary, with the hope of intimidating or wearying
him out by the erpense.

LITIGATION. 175

Not to influence evidence by authority or expecta-
tion;

Nor to stifle any in your possession, although it
make against you.

Hitherto we have treated of civil actions. In crimi-
nal prosecutions, the private injury should be forgot-
ten, and the prosecutor proceed with the same temper,
and upon the same motives as the magistrate: the one
being a necessary minister of justice as well as the
other, and both bound to direct their conduct by a
dispassionate care of the public welfare.

In whatever degree the punishment of an offender
is conducive, or his escape dangerous, to the interest
of the community, in the same degree is the party
against whom the crime was committed bound to
prosecute, because such prosecutions must in their
nature originate irom the sufferer.

Therefore great public crimes, as robberies, forge-
ries, and the like, ought not to be spared, from an ap-
prehension of trouble or expense in carrying on the
prosecution, from false shame, or misplaced compas-
sion.

There are many offences, such as nuisances, neglect
of public roads, forestalling, engrossing, smuggling,
sabbath-breaking, profaneness, drunkenness, prostitu-
tion, the keeping of lewd or disorderly houses, the writ-
ing, publishing, or exposing to sale lascivious books
or pictures, with some others, the prosecution of which,
being of equal concern to the whole neighbourhood,
cannot be charged as a peculiar obligation upon any.

Nevertheless, there is great merit in the person who
undertakes such prosecutions upon proper motives;
which amounts to the same thing.

The character of an informer is in this country un-
deservedly odious. But where any public advantage
is likely to be attained by information, or other acti-
vity in promoting the execution of the laws, a good
man will despise a prejudice founded in no just reason,
or will acquit himself of the imputation of interested
designs by giving away his share of the penalty.

On the other hand, prosecutions for the sake of the
reward, or for the gratification of private enmity,

176 GRATITUDE.

where the offence produces no public mischief, or
where it arises from ignorance or inadvertency, are
reprobated under the general description of applying
a rule of law to a purpose for which it was not in-
tended. Under which description may be ranked an
officious revival of the laws against popish priests and
dissenting teachers

CHAPTER XI.

GRATITUDE.

EXAMPLES of ingratitude check and discourage
voluntary beneficence: and in this the mischief of in-
gratitude consists. Nor is the mischief small; for af-
ter all is done that can be done, towards providing for
the public happiness, by prescribing rules of justice,
and enforcing the observation of them by penalties or
compulsion, much must be left to those offices of kind-
ness which men remain at liberty to exert or withhold.
Now not only the choice of the objects, but the quan-
tity, and even the existence of this sort of kindness in
the world, depends, in a great measure, upon the re-
turn which it receives: and this is a consideration of
general importance.

A second reason for cultivating a grateful temper
in ourselves is the following: The same principle
which is touched with the kindness of a human bene-
factor is capable of being affected by the Divine good-
ness, and of becoming, under the influence of that
affection, a source of the purest and most exalted vir-
tue. The love of God is the sublimest gratitude. It
is a mistake, therefore, to imagine, that this virtue is
omitted in the Christian Scriptures; for every precept
which commands us " to love God, because he first
loved us," presupposes the principle of gratitude, and
directs it to its proper object.

It is impossible to particularize the several expres-
sions of gratitude, inasmuch as they vary with the
character and situation of the benefactor, and with the

SLANDER, 177

opportunities of the person obliged; which variety
admits of no bounds.

It may be observed, however, that gratitude can
never oblige a man to do what is wrong, and what by
consequence he is previously obliged not to do. It ia
no ingratitude to refuse to do what we cannot recon-
cile to any apprehensions of our duty; but it is ingra-
titude and hypocrisy together, to pretend this reason,
when it is not the real one: and the frequency of such
pretences has brought this apology for non-compliance
with the will of a benefactor into unmerited disgrace.

It has long been accounted a violation of delicacy
and generosity to upbraid men with the favours they
have received: but it argues a total destitution of both
these qualities, as well as of moral probity, to take
advantage of that ascendency which the conferring of
benefits justly creates, to draw or drive those whom
we have obliged into mean or dishonest compliances

CHAPTER XII.

SLANDER.

SPEAKING is acting, both in philosophical strict-
ness, and as to all moral purposes: for if the mischief
and motive of our conduct be the same, the means
which we use make no difference.

And this is in effect what our Saviour declares,
Matt. xii. 37: — " By thy words thou shalt be justified,
and by thy words thou shalt be condemned:" by thy
words, as well, that is, as by thy actions; the one
shall be taken into the account as well as the other,
for they both possess the same property of voluntarily
producing good or evil.

Slander may be distinguished into two kinds: ma-
licious slander, and inconsiderate slander.

Malicious slander is the relating of either truth or
ialsehood, for the purpose of creating misery.

I acknowledge that the truth or falsehood of what

178 SLANDER.

is related varies the degree of guilt considerably; and
that slander, in the ordinary acceptation of the term,
signifies the circulation of mischievous falsehoods: but
truth may be made instrumental to the success of
malicious designs as well as falsehood; and if the
end be bad, the means cannot be innocent.

I think the idea of slander ought to be confined to
the production of gratuitous mischief. When we have
an end or interest of our own to serve, if we attempt
to compass it by falsehood, it is fraud ; if by a pub-
lication of the truth, it is not, without some additional
circumstance of breach of promise, betraying of con-
fidence, or the like, to be deemed criminal.

Sometimes the pain is intended for the person to
whom we are speaking: at other times, an enmity is
to be gratified by the prejudice or disquiet of a third
person. To infuse suspicions, to kindle or continue
disputes, to avert the favour and esteem of benefactors
from their dependants, to render some one whom we
dislike contemptable or obnoxious in the public opi-
nion, are all offices of slander; of which the guilt must
be measured by the intensity and extent of the misery
produced.

The disguises under which slander is conveyed,
whether in a whisper, with injunctions of secrecy, by
way of caution, or with affected reluctance, are all so
many aggravations of the offence, as they indicate
more deliberation and design.

Inconsiderate slander is a different offence, although
the same mischief actually follow, and although the
mischief might have been foreseen. The not being
conscious of that design which we have hitherto at-
tributed to the slanderer, makes the difference.

The guilt here consists in the want of that regard
to the consequences of our conduct, which a just affec-
tion for human happiness, and concern for our duty,
would not have failed to have produced in us. And
it is no answer to this crimination to say, that we en-
tertained no evil design. A servant may be a very
bad servant, and yet seldom or never design to act in
opposition to his master's interest or will: and his
master may justly punish such servant for a thought-

RELATIVE DUTIES. 179

lessness and neglect nearly as prejudicial as deliberate
disobedience. I accuse you not, he may say, of any
express intention to hurt me; but had not the fear of
my displeasure, the care of my interest, and indeed all
the qualities which constitute the merit of a good
servant, been wanting in you, they would not only
have excluded every direct purpose of giving me un-
easiness, but have been so far present to your thoughts
as to have checked that unguarded licentiousness by
which I have suffered so much, and inspired you in
its place with an habitual solicitude about the effects
and tendency of what you did or said. — This very
much resembles the case of all sins of inconsideration;
and, amongst the foremost of these, that of inconsi-
derate slander.

Information communicated for the real purpose of
warning, or cautioning, is not slander.

Indiscriminate praise is the opposite of slander, but
it is the opposite extreme; and, however it may effect
to be thought excess of candour, is commonly the
effusion of a frivolous understanding, or proceeds from
a settled contempt of all moral distinctions

BOOK III.

PART III.

OF RELATIVE DUTIES WHICH RESULT FROM THE
CONSTITUTION OF THE SEXES

THE constitution of the sexes is the foundation of
marriage.

Collateral to the subject of marriage are fornica-
tion, seduction, adultery, incest, polygamy, divorce.

180 MARRIAGE INSTITUTION.

Consequential to marriage is the relation and reci-
procal duty of parent and child.

We will treat of these subjects in the following
order: first, of the public use of marriage institutions;
secondly, of the subjects collateral to marriage, in the
order in which we have here proposed them; thirdly,
of marriage itself; and, lastly, of the relation and
reciprocal duties of parents and children.

CHAPTER I.

OF THE PUBLIC USE OF MARRIAGE
INSTITUTIONS.

THE public use of marriage institutions consists in
their promoting the following beneficial effects

1. The private comfort of individuals, especially of
the female sex. It may be true, that all are not inter-
ested in this reason; nevertheless, it is a reason to all
for abstaining from any conduct which tends in its
general consequence to obstruct marriage; for what-
ever promotes the happiness of the majority is binding
upon the whole.

2. The production of the greatest number of heal -
thy children, their better education, and the making
of due provision for their settlement in life.

3. The peace of human society, in cutting ofl a
principal source of contention, by assigning one or
more women to one man, and protecting his exclusive
right by sanctions of morality and law.

4. The better government of society, by distributing
the community into separate families, and appointing
over each the authority of a master of a family, which
has more actual influence than all civil authority put
together.

5. The same end, in the additional security which
the state receives for the good behaviour of its citizens,
from the solicitude they feel for the welfare of their

FORNICATION. 181

children, and from their being confined to permanent
habitations.

6. The encouragement of industry.

Some ancient nations appear to have been more
sensible of the importance of marriage institutions than
we are. The Spartans obliged their citizens to marry
by penalties, and the Romans encouraged theirs by
the jus trium liberorum. A man who had no child
was entitled, by the Roman law, only to one half of
any legacy that should be left him, that is, at the most,
could only receive one half of the testator's fortune.

CHAPTER II.

FORNICATION.

THE first and great mischief, and by consequence
the guilt, of promiscuous concubinage, consists in its
tendency to diminish marriages, and thereby to defeat
the several beneficial purposes enumerated in the pre-
ceding chapter.

Promiscuous concubinage discourages marriage, by
abating the chief temptation to it. The male part of
the species will not undertake the incumbrance, ex-
pense, and restraint of married life, if they can gratify
their passions at a cheaper price; and they will under-
take any thing, rather than not gratify them.

The reader will learn to comprehend the magnitude
of this mischief, by attending to the importance and
variety of the uses to which marriage is subservient:
and by recollecting withal, that the malignity and
moral quality of each crime is not to be estimated by
the particular effect of one offence, or of one person's
offending, but by the general tendency and conse-
quence of crimes of the same nature. The libertine
may not be conscious that these irregularities hinder
his own marriage, from which he is deterred, he may
allege, by different considerations; much less does he
perceive how his indulgences can hinder other men

VOL i. 16

182 FORNICATION".

from marrying; but what will he say would bo the
consequence, if the same licenciousness were univer-
sal ? or what should hinder it becoming universal, if
it be innocent or allowable in him ?

2. fornication supposes prostitution; and prosti-
tution brings and leaves the victims of it to almost
certain misery. It is no small quantity of misery in
the aggregate, which, between want, disease, and
insult, is suffered by those outcasts of human society
who infest populous cities; the whole of which is a
general consequence of fornication, and to the in-
crease and continuance of which every act and in-
stance of fornication contributes.

3. Fornication* produces habits of ungovernable
lewdness, which introduce the more aggravated crimes
of seduction, adultery, violation, &c. Likewise, how-
ever it be accounted for, the criminal commerce of
the sexes corrupts and depraves the mind and moral
character more than any single species of vice what-
soever. That ready perception of guilt, that prompt
and decisive resolution against it, which constitutes a
virtuous character* is seldom found in persons addicted
to these indulgences. They prepare an easy admis-
sion for every sin that seeks it; are, in low life, usu-
ally the first stage in men's progress to the most des-
perate villanies; and, in high life, to that lamented
dissoluteness of principle which manifests itself in a
profligacy of public conduct, and a contempt of the
obligations of religion arid of moral probity. Add to
this, that habits of libertinism incapacitate and indis-
pose the mind for all intellectual, moral, and reli-
gious pleasures; which is a great loss to any man's
happiness.

4. Fornication perpetuates a disease, which may be
accounted one of the sorest maladies of human na-

* Of this passion it has been truly said, that "irregularity
has no limits ; that one excess draws on another ; that the
most easy, therefore, as well as the most excellent way of
being virtuous, is to be so entirely." Ogden, Sermon xvL

FORNICATION. 183

ture; and the effects of which are said to visit the
constitution of even distant generations. *

The passion being natural, proves that it was in-
tended to be gratified; but under what restrictions,
or whether without any, must be collected from dif-
ferent considerations.

The Christian Scriptures condemn fornication ab-
solutely and peremptorily. " Out of the heart," says
our Saviour, " proceed evil thoughts, murders, adul-
teries, fornication, thefts, false witness, blasphemies;
these are the things which defile a man." These are
Christ's own words: and one word from him upon
the subject is final. It may be observed with what
society fornication is classed; with murders, thefts,
false witness, blasphemies. I do not mean that these
crimes are all equal, because they are all mentioned
together; but it proves that they are all crimes. The
apostles are more full upon this topic. One well
known passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews may
stand in the place of all others; because, admitting
the authority by which the apostles of Christ spake
and wrote, it is decisive: "Marriage, and the bed
undefiled, is honourable amongst all men; but whore-
mongers and adulterers God will judge;" which was
a great deal to say, at a time when it was not agreed,
even amongst philosophers themselves, that fornica-
tion was a crime.

The Scriptures give no sanction to those austerities
which have been since imposed upon the world under
the name of Christ's religion; as the celibacy of the
clergy, the praise of perpetual virginity, the prohibitio
concubitus cum gravida uxore ; but, with a just
knowledge of and regard to the condition and interest
of the human species, have provided, in the marriage
of one man with one woman, an adequate gratifica-
tion for the propensities of their nature, and have
restricted them to that gratification.

The avowed toleration, and in some countries the
licencing, taxing, and regulating of public brothels has
appeared to the people an authorizing of fornication;
and has contributed, with other causes, so far to vitiate
the public opinion, that there is no practice of which

184 FORNICATION.

the immorality is so little thought of or acknowledged,
although tthere are few in which it can more plainly
be made out. The legislators who have patronized
receptacles of prostitution ought to have foreseen this
effect, as well as considered, that whatever facilitates
fornication, diminishes marriages. And, as to the
usual apology for this relaxed discipline, the danger
of greater enormities, if access to prostitutes were too
strictly watched and prohibited, it will be time enough
to look to that, when the laws and the magistrates
have done their utmost. The greatest vigilance of
both will do no more than oppose some bounds and
some difficulties to this intercourse. And, after all,
these pretended fears are without foundation in expe-
rience. The men are in all respects the most virtuous,
In countries where the women are most chaste.

There is a species of cohabitation, distinguishable,
no doubt, from vagrant concubinage, and which, by
reason of its resemblance to marriage, may be thought
to participate of the sanctity and innocence of that
estate; I mean the case of kept-mistresses, under the
favourable circumstance of mutual fidelity. This
case I have heard defended by some such apology as
the following: —

" That the marriage-rite being different in different
countries, and in the same country amongst different
sects, and with some scarce any thing; and, more-
over, not being prescribed, or even mentioned in
Scripture, can be accounted for only as of a form and
ceremony of human invention: that, consequently, if
a man and woman betroth and confine themselves to
each other, their intercourse must be the same, as to
all moral purposes, as if they were legally married;
for the addition or omission of that which is a mere
form and ceremony can make no difference in the
sight of God, or in the actual nature of right and
wrong."

To all which it may be replied,

1. If the situation of the parties be the same thing
as marriage, why do they not marry ?

2. Tf the man choose to have it in his power to dis-
miss the woman at his pleasure, or to retain her in a

FORNICATION. 185

state of humiliation and dependence, inconsistent with
the rights which marriage would confer upon her, it
is not the same thing.

It is not, at any rate, the &ame thing to the chil-
dren.

Again, as to the marriage-rite being a mere form,
and that also variable, the same may be said of sign-
ing and sealing of bonds, wills, deeds of conveyance,
and the like, which yet make a great difference in the
rights and obligations of the parties concerned in them.

And with respect to the rite not being appointed in
Scripture — the Scriptures forbid fornication, that is,
cohabitation without marriage, leaving it to the law
of each country to pronounce what is, or what makes
a marriage ;" in like manner as they forbid thefts, that
is, the taking away of another's property, leaving it
to the municipal law to fix what makes the thing pro-
perty, or whose it is; which also, as well as marriage,
depend upon arbitrary and mutable forms.

Laying aside the injunctions of Scripture, the plain
account of the question seems to be this: It is immo-
ral, because it is pernicious, that men and women
should cohabit, without undertaking certain irrevoca-
ble obligations, and mutually conferring certain civil
rights; if, therefore, the law has annexed these rights
and obligations to certain forms, so that they cannot
be secured or undertaken by any other means, which
i;s the case here (for whatever the parties may promise
to each other, nothing but the marriage ceremony can
make their promise irrevocable,) it becomes in the
same degree immoral, that men and women should
cohabit without the interposition of these forms.

IF fornication be criminal, all those incentives which
lead to it are accessaries to the crime; as lasciviouo
conversation, whether expressed in obscene or dis-
guised under modest phrases; also wanton songs,
pictures, books; the writing, publishing, and circu-
lating of which, whether out of frolic, or for some pi-
tiful profit, is productive of so extensive a mischief,
from so mean a temotation, that few crimes, within

VOL,, i. 16 *

186 SEDUCTION.

the reach of private wickedness, have more to answer
for, or less to plead in their excuse.

Indecent conversation and, by parity of reason, all
the rest are forbidden by St. Paul, Eph. iv. 29. " Let
no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth;"
and again, CoJ. iii. 8. " Put off- — filthy communica-
tion out of your mouth."

The invitation, or voluntary admission, of impure
thoughts, or the suffering them to get possession of
the imagination, falls within the same description,
and is condemned by Christ, Matt. v. 28. " Whoso-
ever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath com-
mitted adultery with her already in his heart." —
Christ, ly thus enjoining a regulation of the thoughts,
strikes at the root of the evil.

CHAPTER III.

SEDUCTION.

THE seducer practises the same stratagems to draw
a woman's person into his power, that a swindler does
to get possession of your goods or money; yet the law
of honour, which abhors deceit, applauds the address
of a successful intrigue: so much is this capricious
rule guided by names, and with such facility does it
accommodate itself to the pleasures and conveniency
of higher life!

Seduction is seldom accomplished without fraud;
and the fraud is by so much more criminal than other
frauds, as the injury effected by it is greater, continues
longer, and less admits reparation.

This injury is threefold: to the woman, to her fa-
mily, and to the public.

1. The injury to the woman is made up of the pain
she suffers from shame, or the loss she sustains in her
reputation and prospects of marriage, and of the de-
pravation of her moral principle.

1. This pain must be extreme, if we may judge of
it from those barbarous endeavours to conceal their

SEDUCTION. 187

disgrace, to which women, under such circumstances,
sometimes have recourse; comparing also this barba-
rity with their passionate fondness for their offspring
in other cases. Nothing but an agony of mind the
most insupportable can induce a woman to forget her
nature, and the pity which even a stranger would
show to a helpless and imploring infant. It is true,
that all are not urged to this extremity; but if any
are, it affords an indication of how much all suffer
from the same cause. What shall we say to the au-
thors of such mischief?

2. The loss which a woman sustains by the ruin of
her reputation almost exceeds computation. Every
person's happiness depends in part upon the respect
and reception which they meet with in the world;
and it is no inconsiderable mortification even to the
firmest tempers, to be rejected from the society of their
equals, or received there with neglect and disdain.
But this is not all, nor the worst. By a rule of life,
which it is not easy to blame, and which it is impos-
sible to alter, a woman loses with her chastity the
chance of marrying at all, or in any manner equal to
the hopes she had been accustomed to entertain. Now
marriage, whatever it be to a man, is that from which
every woman expects her chief happiness. And this is
still Ynore true in low life, of which condition the wo-
men are who are most exposed to solicitations of this
sort. Add to this, that where a woman's mainte-
nance depends upon her character (as it does, in a
great measure, with those who are to support them-
selves by service,) little sometimes is left to the for-
saken sufferer, but to starve for want of employment,
or to have recourse to prostitution for food and rai-
ment.

3. As a woman collects her virtue into this point,
the loss of her chastity is generally the destruction of
her moral principle ; and this consequence is to be
apprehended, whether the criminal intercourse be dis-
covered or not.

2. The injury to the family may be understood by
the application of that infallible rule, "of doing to
others what we would that others should do untous.'r

188 ADULTERY.

Let a father or a brother say, for what consideration
they would suffer this injury to a daughter or a sister:
and whether any, or even a total loss of fortune, could
create equal affliction and distress. And when they
reflect upon this, let them distinguish, if they can, be-
tween a roSbery committed upon their property by
fraud or forgery, and the ruin of their happiness by the
treachery of a seducer.

3. The public at large lose the benefit of the wo-
man's service in her proper place and destination,
as a wife and parent. This, to the whole community,
may be little; but it is often more than all the good
which the seducer does to the community can recom-
pense. Moreover, prostitution is supplied by seduc-
tion; and in proportion to the danger there is of the
woman's betaking herself, after her first sacrifice, to a
life of public lewdness, the seducer is answerable for
the multiplied evils to which his crime gives birth.

Upon the whole if we pursue the effects of seduc-
tion through the complicated misery which it occa-
sions, and if it be right to estimate crimes by the mis-
chief they knowingly produce, it will appear some-
thing more than mere invective to assert, that not
one half of the crimes for which men suffer death by
the laws of England are so flagitious as this.*

CHAPTER IV.

ADULTERY.

A NEW sufferer is introduced, — the injured husband,
who receives a wound in his sensibility and affections,
the most painful and incurable that human nature

* Yet the law has provided no punishment for this offence
fceyond a pecuniary satisfaction to the injured family ; and
this can only be come at by one of the quaintest fictions in
the world — by the father's bringing his action against the
eeducer, for the loss of his daughter's service, during her
pregnancy and nurturing.

ADULTERY. 189

knows. In all other respects, adultery, on the part of
the man who solicits the chastity of a married woman,
includes the crime of seduction, and is attended with
the same mischief.

The infidelity of the woman is aggravated by cruelty
to her children, who are generally involved in their
parents' shame, and always made unhappy by their
quarrel.

If it be said that these consequences are charge-
able not so much upon the crime as the discovery;
we answer, first, that the crime could not be disco-
vered unless it were committed, and that the commis-
sion is never secure from discovery; and secondly,
that if we excuse adulterous connexions, whenever
they can hope to escape detection, which is the con-
clusion to which this argument conducts us, we leave
the husband no other security for hrs wife's chastity
than in her want of opportunity or temptation; which
would probably either deter men from marrying, 01
render marriage a state of such jealousy and alarm to
the husbana, as must end in the slavery and confine
ment of the wife

The vow, by which married persons mutually en-
gage their fidelity, " is witnessed before God," and
accompanied with circumstances of solemnity and re-
ligion, which approach the nature of an oath. The
married offender therefore incurs a crime little short
of perjury, and the seduction of a married woman is
little less than subornation of perjury; — and this
guilt is independent of the discovery.

All behaviour which is designed, or which know-
ingly tends to captivate the affection of a married wo-
man, is a barbarous intrusion upon the peace and vir-
tue of a family, though it fall short of adultery.

The usual and only apology for adultery is the prior
transgression of the other party. There are degrees,
no doubt, in this, as in other crimes; and so far as
the bad effects of adultery are anticipated by the
conduct of the husband or wife who offends first, the
guilt of the second offender is less. But this falls
very far short of a justification; unless it could be
shown that the obligation of tho marriage vow de-

J90 ADUL.TERT

pends upon the condition of reciprocal fidelity; for
which construction there appears no foundation either
in expediency, or in the terms of the promise, or in
the design of the legislature which prescribed the
marriage rite. Moreover, the rule contended for by
this plea has a manifest tendency to multiply the of-
fence, but none to reclaim the offender.

The way of considering the offence of one party as
provocation to the other, and the other as only rg-
tafiating the injury by repeating the crime, is a child-
ish triHing with words.

" Thou shalt not commit adultery," was an inter-
dict delivered by God himself. By the Jewish law,
adultery was capital to both parties in the crime:
" Even he that committeth adultery with his neigh-
bour's wife, the adulterer arid adulteress shall surely
be put to death." Levit. xx. 10. Which passages
prove that the Divine Legislator placed a great dif-
ference between adultery and fornication. And with
this agree the Christian Scriptures; for, in almost all
the catalogues they have left us of crimes and crimi-
nals, they enumerate " fornication, adultery, whore-
mongers, adulterers" (Matthew, xv. 19. 1 Cor. vi. 9.
Gal. v. 9. Heb. xiii. 4;) by which mention of both,
they show that they did not consider them as the
same; but that the crime of adultery was, in their ap-
prehension, distinct from and accumulated upon that
of fornication.

The history of the woman taken in adultery, re-
corded in the eighth chapter of St. John's Gospel,
has been thought by some to give countenance to
that crime. As Christ told the woman, " Neither do
I condemn thee," we must believe, it is said, that he
deemed her conduct either not criminal, or not a
crime, however, of the heinous nature which we re
present it to be. A more attentive examination of
the case will, I think, convince us, that from it no-
thing can be concluded as to Christ's opinion concern-
ing adultery, either one way or other. This transac-
tion is thus related: "Early in the morning Jesus
came again into the temple, and all the people came
unto him: and he sat down and taught them. And

ADULTERY. 191

the Scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman
taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the
midst, they say unto him, Master, this woman was
taken in adultery, in the very act: now Moses, in
the law, commanded that such should be stoned; but
what sayest thou ? This they said tempting him, that
they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped
down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as
though he heard them not. So when they continued
asking him, he lift up himself, and said unto them,
He that is without sin amongst you, let him first cast
a stone at her; and again he stooped down, and wrote
on the ground: and they which heard it, being con-
victed by their own conscience, went out one by one,
beginning at the eldest, even unto the last; and Jesus
was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.
When Jesus had lift up himself, and saw none but the
woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those
thine accusers ? hath no man condemned thee ? She
said unto him, No man, Lord. And he said unto her,
Neither do I condemn thee ; go, and sin no more."

" This they said tempting him, that they might have
to accuse him;" to draw him, that is, into an exercise
of judicial authority, that they might have to accuse
him before the Roman governor, of usurping or inter-
meddling with the civil government. This was their
design; and Christ's behaviour throughout the whole
affair proceeded from a knowledge of this design, and
a determination to defeat it. He gives them at first a
cold and sullen reception, well suited to the insidious
intention with which they came: " He stooped down,
and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he
heard them not." "When they continued asking
him," when they teased him to speak, he dismissed
them with a rebuke, which the impertinent malice of
their errand, as well as the sacred character of many of
them, deserved: " He that is without sin (that is,
this sin) among you, let him first cast a stone at her."
This had its effect. Stung with the reproof, and disap-
pointed of their aim, they stole away one by one, and
left Jesus and the woman alone. And then follows the
conversation which is the part of the narrative most

192 INCEST.

material to our present subject. " Jesus said unto her,
Woman, where are those thine accusers ? hath no
man condemned thee ? She said, No man, Lord. And
Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee ; go,
and sin no more." Now when Christ asked the wo-
man, " Hath no man condemned thee ?" he certain-
ly spoke, and was understood by the woman to speak
of a legal and judicial condemnation; otherwise, her
answer, " No man, Lord," was not true. In every
other sense of condemnation, as blame, censure, re-
prqpf, private judgment, and the like, many had con-
demned her; all those indeed who brought her to
Jesus. If then a judicial sentence was what Christ
meant by condemning in the question, the common
use of language requires us to suppose that he meant
the same in his reply; *' Neither do I condemn thee,"
i. e. I pretend to no judicial character or authority
over thee; it is no office or business of mine to pro-
nounce or execute the sentence of the law.

When Christ adds, " Go, and sin no more," he in
effect tells her, that she had sinned already: but as
to the degree or quality of the sin, or Christ's opinion
concerning it, nothing is declared, or can be inferred,
either way.

Adultery, which was punished with death during
the Usurpation, is now regarded by the law of Eng-
land only as a civil injury; for which the imperfect
satisfaction that money can afford may be recovered
by the husband.

CHAPTER V.

INCEST.

IN order to preserve chastity in families, and be-
tween persons of different sexes, brought up and living
together in a state of unreserved intimacy, it is neces-
sary by every method possible to inculcate an abhor-
rence of incestuous conjunctions > which abhorrence

INCEST. 198

can only be upholdcnby the absolute reprobation of all
commerce of the sexes between near relations. Upon
this principle, the marriage as well as other cohabi-
tations of brothers and sisters, of lineal kindred, and
of all who usually live in the same family, may be
said to be forbidden by the law of nature.

Restrictions which extend to remoter degrees of
kindred than what this reason makes it necessary to
prohibit from intermarriage, are founded in the autho-
rity of the positive law which ordains them, and can
only be justified by their tendency to diffuse wealth,
to connect families, or to promote some political ad-
vantage.

The Levitical law, which is received in this coun-
try, and from which the rule of the Roman law dif-
fers very little, prohibits* marriage between relations,
within three degrees of kindred; computing the ge-
nerations, not from, but through the common ances-
tor, and accounting affinity the same as consangui-
nity. The issue, however, of such marriages are not
bastardized, unless the parents be divorced during
their lifetime.

The Egyptians are said to have allowed of the mar-
riage of brothers and sisters. Amongst the Athe-
nians a very singular regulation prevailed; brothers
and sisters of the half-blood, if related by the father's
side, might marry; if by the mother's side, they were
prohibited from marrying. The same custom also
probably obtained in Chaldea so early as the age in
which Abraham left it; for he and Sarah his wife
stood in this relation to each other: " And yet, in-
deed, she is my sister; she is the daughter of my fa-
ther, but not of my mother; and she became my wife."
Gen. xx. 12.

* The Roman law continued the prohibition io the descen-
dants of brothers and sisters without limits. In the Leviti-
cal and English law there is nothing to hinder a man from
marrying his great-neice.

VOL. I. 17

194 POLYGAMY.

CHAPTER VI.

POLYGAMY.

THE equality* in the number f males and females
born into the world, intimates e intention of God,
that one woman should be assigned to one man; for,
if to one man be allowed exclusive right to five or
more women, four or more men must be deprived of
the exclusive possession of any; which could never be
the order intended.

It seems also a significant indication of the Divin
will, that he at first created only one woman to one
man. Had God intended polygamy for the species,
it is probable he would have begun with it; especial-
ly as, by giving to Adam more wives than one, the
multiplication of the human race would have proceed-
ed with a quicker progress.

Polygamy not only violates the constitution of na-
ture, and the apparent design of the Deity, but pro-
duces to the parties themselves, and to the public, the
following bad effects: contests and jealousies amongst
the wives of the same husband; distracted affections,
or the loss of all affection, in the husband himself: a
voluptuousness in the rich which dissolves the vigour
of their intellectual as well as active faculties, pro-
ducing that indolence and imbecility both of mind
and body, which have long characterized the nations
of the East; the abasement of one half of the human
species, who, in countries where polygamy obtains^
are degraded into mere instruments of physical plea-
sure to the other half, neglect of children; and the
manifold and sometimes unnatural mischiefs which
arise from a scarcity of women. To compensate for
these evils, polygamy does not offer a single advan-

* This equality is not exact. The number of male infants
exceeds that ot females in the proportion of nineteen to eigh-
teen, or thereabouts; which excess provides for the greater
consumption of males by war, seafaring, and oilier dangerous
or unhealthy occupations.

POLYGAMY. 195

tage. In the article of population, which it has been
thought to promote, the community gain nothing:*
for the question is not, whether one man will have
more children by five or more wives than by one;
but whether these ^ive wives would not bear the
same or a greater n . labor of children to five separate
husbands. And as m> the care of the children when
produced, and the sending of them into the world in
situations in which they may be likely to form and
bring up families of their own, upon which the in-
crease and succession of the human species in a great
degree depend; this is less provided for, and less
practicable, where twenty or thirty children are to be
supported by the attention and fortunes of one father,
than if they were divided into five or six families, to
each of which were assigned the industry and inherit-
ance of two parents.

Whether simultaneous polygamy was permitted by
the law of Moses, seerns doubtfuhf but whether per-
mitted or not, it was certainly practised by the Jewish
patriarchs, both before that law, and under it. The
permission, if there was any, might be like that of

* Nothing, I mean, compared with a state in which mar-
riage is nearly universal. Where marriages are less general,
and many women unfruitful from the want of husbands, poly-
gamy might at first add a little to population ; and but a lit-
tle : for, as a variety of wives would be sought chiefly from
temptations of voluptuousness, it would rather increase the
demand for female beauty, than for the sex at large. And
this little would soon be made less by many deductions. For,
first, as none but the opulent can maintian a plurality of
wives, where polygamy obtains, the rich indulge in it, while
the rest take up with a vague and barren incontinency.
And, secondly, women would grow less jealous of their vir-
tue, when they had nothing for which to reserve it but a
chamber in the haram ; when their chastity was no longer
to be rewarded with the rights and happiness of a wife, as
enjoyed under the marriage of one woman to one man.
These considerations may be added to what is mentioned in
the text, concerning the easy and early settlement of chil-
dren in the world.

t See Deut. xvii. 17 ; xxi. 15.

196 POLYGAMY.

divorce, " for the hardness of their heart;" in conde-
scension to their established indulgences, rather than
from the general rectitude or propriety of the thing
itself. The state of manners in Judea had probably
undergone a reformation in this respect before the
time of Christ, for in the New Testament we meet
with no trace or mention of any such practice being
tolerated.

For which reason, and because it was likewise forbid-
den amongst the Greeks and Romans, we cannot ex-
pect to find any express law upon the subject in the
Christian code. The words of Christ* (Matt. xix. 9)
may be construed by an easy implication to prohibit
polygamy; for, if " whoever putteth away his wife
and marrieth another, committeth adultery," he who
marrieth another without putting away the first, is no
less guilty of adultery: because the adultery does
not consist in the repudiation of the first wife (for,
however unjust or cruel that may be, it is not adul-
tery,) but in entering into a second marriage during
the legal existence and obligation of the first. The
several passages in St. Paul's writings, which speak
of marriage, always suppose it to signify the union of
one man with one woman. Upon this supposition he
argues, Rom. vii. 1, 2, 3: " Know ye not, brethren
(for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the
law hath dominion over a man, as long as he liveth ?
For the woman which hath a husband, is bound by
the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if
the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of
her husband: so then, if while her husband liveth
she be married to another man, she shall be called an
adulteress." When the same apostle permits mar-
riage to his Corinthian converts (which, " for the pre-
sent distress," he judges to be inconvenient,) he
restrains the permission to the marriage of one hus-
band with one wife: — "It is good for a man not to
touch a woman: nevertheless, to avoid fornication,

* " I say unto you, Whosoever shall put
except it be for fornication, and shall marr
naitteth adultery."

. away his wife-
ry another, coro-

POLYGAMY. 197

let every man have his own wife, and let every woman
have her own husband."

The manners of different countries have varied in
nothing more than in their domestic constitutions.
Less polished and more luxurious nations have either
not perceived the bad effects of polygamy, or, if they
did perceive them, they who, in such countries, pos-
sessed the power of reforming the laws have been
unwilling to resign their own gratifications. Poly-
gamy is retained at this day among the Turks, and
throughout every part of Asia in which Christianity
is not professed. In Christian countries it is univer-
sally prohibited. In Sweden it is punished with death.
In England, besides the nullity of the second mar-
riage, it subjects the offender to transportation or im-
prisonment and branding, for the first offence, and
to capital punishment for the second. And whatever
may be said in behalf of polygamy when it is autho-
rized by the law of the land, the marriage of a second
wife during the lifetime of the first, in countries where
such a second marriage is void, must be ranked with
the most dangerous and cruel of those frauds, by
which a woman is cheated out of her fortune, her
person, and her happiness.

The ancient Medes compelled their citizens, in one
canton, to take seven wives; in another, each woman
to receive five husbands: according as war had made,
in one quarter of their country, an extraordinary
havock among the men, or the women had been car-
ried away by an enemy from another. This regula-
tion, so far as it was adapted to the proportion which
subsisted between the number of males and females,
was founded in the reason upon which the most im-
proved nations of Europe proceed at present.

Caesar found amongst the inhabitants of this island
a species of polygamy, if it may be so called, which
was perfectly singular. Uxores, says he, habent deni
duodenique inter se communes ; et maxime fratres
cum fratribus parentesque cum liber is : sed si qtn
sint ex his nati, eorum habentur liberi, quff primum
virgo qu&que deducta est.

VOL. i. 17*

CHAPTER VII.

BY divorce, I mean the dissolution of the marriage
contract, by the act, and at the will, of the husband.

This power was allowed to the husband, among the
Jews, the Greeks, and latter Romans; and is at this
day exercised by the Turks and Persians.

The congruity of such a right with the law of na-
ture is the question before us.

And, in the first place, it is manifestly inconsistent
with the duty which the parents owe to their children;
which duty can never be so well fulfilled as by their
cohabitation and united care. It is also incompatible
with the right which the mother possesses, as well as
the father, to the gratitude of her children and the
comfort of their society; of both which she is almost
necessarily deprived, by her dismission from her hus-
band's family.

Where this objection does not interfere, I know of
no principle of the law of nature applicable to the
question, beside that of general expediency.

For, if we say that arbitrary divorces are excluded
by the terms of the marriage contract, it may be an-
swered, that the contract might be so framed as to
admit of this condition.

If we argue, with some moralists, that the obliga-
tion of a contract naturally continues, so long as the
purpose which the contracting parties had in view re-
quires its continuance; it will be difficult to show
what purpose of the contract (the care of children
excepted) should confine a man to a woman, from
whom he seeks to be loose.

If we contend, with others, that a contract cannot,
by the law of nature, be dissolved, unless the parties
be replaced in the situation which each possessed
before the contract was entered into; we shall be
called upon to prove this to be a universal or indis-
pensable property of contracts.

I confess myself unable to assign any circumstance

DIVORCE. 199

in the marriage contract, which essentially distin-
guishes it from other contracts, or which proves that
it contains, what many have ascribed to it, a natural
incapacity of being dissolved by the consent of the
parties, at the option of one of them, or either of them.
But if we trace the effects of such a rule upon the
general happiness of married life, we shall perceive
reasons of expediency, that abundantly justify the
policy of those laws which refuse to the husband the
power of divorce, or restrain it to a few extreme and
specific provocations: and our principles teach us to
pronounce that to be contrary to the ]aw of nature,
which can be proved to be detrimental to the common
happiness of the human species.

A lawgiver, whose counsels are directed by views
of general utility, and obstructed by no local impedi-
ment, would make the marriage contract indissoluble
during the joint lives of the parties, for the sake of
the following advantages: —

i. Because this tends to preserve peace and con-
cord between married persons, by perpetuating their
common interest, and by inducing a necessity of mu-
tual compliance.

There is great weight and substance in both these
considerations. An earlier termination- of the union
would produce a separate interest. The wife would
naturally look forward to the dissolution of the part-
nership, and endeavour to draw to herself a fund
against the time when she was no longer to have
access to the same resources. This would beget pe-
culation on one side, and mistrust on the other; evils
which at present very little disturb the confidence of
a married life. The second effect of making the
union determinable only by death, is not less bene-
ficial. It necessarily happens that adverse tempers,
habits, and tastes oftentimes meet in marriage. In
\vhich case, each party must take pains to give up
what offends, and practise what may gratify the other.
A man and woman in love with each other do this
insensibly: but love is neither general nor durable;
and where that is wanting, no lessons of duty, no
delicacy of sentiment will go half so far with the

200 DIVORCE.

generality of mankind and womankind, as this one
intelligible reflection, that they must each make the
best of their bargain; and that seeing they must
either both be miserable, or both share in the same
happiness, neither can find their own comfort, but in
promoting the pleasure of the other. These compli-
ances, though at first extorted by necessity, become
m time easy and mutual; and, though less endearing
than assiduities which take their rise from affection,
generally procure to the married pair a repose and
satisfaction sufficient for their happiness.

2. Becase new objects of desire would be conti-
nually sought after, if men could, at will, be released
from their subsisting engagements. Suppose the hus-
band to have once preferred his wife to all other wo-
men, the duration of this preference cannot be trusted
to. Possession makes a great difference: and there
is no other security against the invitations of novelty,
than the known impossibility of obtaining the object.
Did the cause which brings the sexes together, hold
them together by the same force with which it first
attracted them to each other; or could the woman be
restored to her personal integrity, and to all the ad
vantages of her virgin estate; the power of divorce
might be deposited in the hands of the husband, with
less danger of abuse or inconveniency. But consti
luted as mankind are, and injured as the repudiated
wife generally must be, it is necessary to add a sta-
bility to the condition of married women, more secure
than the continuance of their husbands' affection; and
to supply to both sides, by a sense of duty and of ob-
ligation, what satioty has impaired of passion and of
personal attachment. Upon the whole, the power of
divorce is evidently and greatly to the disadvantage
of the woman: and the only question appears to be,
whether the real and permanent happiness of one half
of the species should be surrendered to the caprice
and voluptuousness of the other ?

We have considered divorces as depending upon
the will of the husband, because that is the way in
which they have actually obtained in many parts of
the world; but the same objections apply, in a great

DIVORCE. 201

degree, to divorces by mutual consent; especially
when we consider the indelicate situation and small
prospect of happiness, which remains to the party
who opposed his or her dissent to the liberty and de-
sire of the other.

The law of nature admits of an exception in favour
of the injured party, in cases of adultery, of obstinate
desertion, of attempts upon life, of outrageous cruelty,
of incurable madness, and perhaps of personal imbe-
cility; but by no means indulges the same privilege
to mere dislike, to opposition of humours and inclina-
tions, to contrariety of taste and temper, to complaints
of coldness, neglect, severity, peevishness, jealousy:
not that these reasons are trivial, but because such ob-
jections may always be alleged, and are impossible by
testimony to be ascertained; so that to allow implicit
credit to them, and to dissolve marriages, whenever
either party thought fit to pretend them, would lead
in its effect to all the licentiousness of arbitrary di-
vorces.

Milton's story is well known. Upon a quarrel with
his wife, he paid his addresses to another woman, and
set forth a public vindication of his conduct, by at-
tempting to prove, that confirmed dislike was as just
a foundation for dissolving the marriage contract, as
adultery; to which position, and to all the arguments
by which it can be supported, the above consideration
affords a sufficient answer. And if a married pair,
in actual and irreconcileable discord, complain that
their happiness would be better consulted, by per-
mitting them to determine a connexion which is be-
come odious to both, it may be told them, that the
same permission, as a general rule, would produce
libertinism, dissension, and misery amongst thousands
who are now virtuous, and quiet, and happy, in their
condition: and it ought to satisfy them to reflect,
that when their happiness is sacrificed to the operation
of an unrelenting rule, it is sacrificed to the happiness
of the community.

The scriptures seem to have drawn the obligation
tighter than the law of nature left it. " Whosoever,"
saith Christ, " shall put away his wife, except it bQ

202 DIVORCE.

for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth
adultery; and whoso marrieth her which is put away,
doth commit adultery." Matt. xix. 9. The law of
Moses, for reasons of local 'expediency, permitted the
Jewish husband to put away his wife; but whether
for every cause, or for what causes, appears to have
been controverted amongst the interpreters of those
times. Christ, the precepts of whose religion were
calculated for more general use and observation, re-
vpkes the permission (as given to the Jews " for the
hardness of their hearts,") and promulges a law which
was thenceforward to confine divorces to the single
case of adultery in the wife. And I see no sufficient
reason to depart from the plain and strict meaning of
Christ's words. The rule was new. It both sur-
prised and offended his disciples; yet Christ added
nothing to relax or explain it.

Inferior causes may justify the separation of hus-
band and wife, although they will not authorize such
a dissolution of the marriage contract, as would leave
either party at liberty to marry again: for it is that
liberty, in which the danger and mischief of divorces
principally consist. If the care of children does not
require that they should live together, and it is be-
come, in the serious judgment of both, necessary for
their mutual happiness that they should separate, let.
them separate by consent. Nevertheless, this neces-
sity can hardly exist, without guilt and misconduct on
one side or on both. Moreover, cruelty, ill usage,
extreme violence or moroseness of temper, or other
great and continued provocations, make it lawful for
the party aggrieved to withdraw from the society of
the offender without his or her consent. The law
which imposes the marriage vow, whereby the parties
promise to " keep to each other," or in other words,
to live together, must be understood to impose it with
a silent reservation of these cases; because the same
law has constituted a judicial relief from the tyranny
of the husband, by the divorce a mensa et toro, and
by the provision which it makes for the separate main-
tenance of the injured wife. St. Paul likewise distin
guishes between a wife's merely separating herself

DIVORCE. 203

irom the family of her husband, and her marrying
again: — " Let not the wife depart from her husband;
but and if she do depart, let her remain unmarried.'1
The law of this country, in conformity to our Sa-
viour's injunction, confines the dissolution of the mar
riage contract to the single case of adultery in the
wife; and a divorce even in that case can only be
brought about by the operation of an act of parlia-
ment, founded upon a previous sentence in the eccle-
siastical court, and a verdict against the adulterer at
common law: which proceedings taken together com-
pose as complete an investigation of the complaint as
a cause can receive. It has late*y been proposed to
the legislature to annex a clause to these acts, re-
straining the offending party from marrying with the
companion of her crime, who, by the course of pro-
ceeding, is always known and convicted: for there is
reason to fear, that adulterous connexions are often
formed with the prospect of bringing them to this
conclusion; at least, when the seducer has once cap-
tivated the affection of a married woman, he may avail
himself of this tempting argument to subdue her
scruples, and complete his victory; and the legisla-
ture, as the business is managed at present, assists by
its interposition the criminal design of the offenders,
and confers a privilege where it ought to inflict a
punishment. The proposal deserved an experiment:
but something more penal will, I apprehend, be found
necessary to check the progress of this alarming de-
pravity. Whether a law might not be framed, direct-
ing the fortune of the adulteress to descend as in case
of her natural death , reserving, however, a certain
proportion of the produce of it, by way of annuity,
for her subsistance (such annuity, in no case, to ex-
ceed a fixed sum,) and also so far suspending the es-
tate in the hands of the heir as to preserve the in-
heritance to any children she might bear to a second
marriage, in case there vas none to succeed in the
place of their mother by the first; whether, I say, such
a law would not render female virtue in higher life less
vincible, as well as the seducers of that virtue less
urgent in their suit, we recommend to the deliberation

204 DIVORCE.

of those who are willing to attempt the reforma-
tion of this important, but most incorrigible class
of the community. A passion for splendour, for ex-
pensive amusements and distinctions, is commonly
found in that description of women who would become
the objects of such a law, not less inordinate than
their other appetites. A severity of the kind \ve pro-
pose, applies immediately to that passion. And there
is no room for any complaint of injustice, since the
provisions above stated, with others which might be
contrived, confine the punishment, so far as it is pos-
sible, to the person of the offender; suffering the es-
tate to remain to the heir, or within the family, of the
ancestor from whom it came, or to attend the appoint-
ments of his will.

Sentences of the ecclesiastical courts, which release
the parties a vinculo matrimonii by reason of irnpu-
berty, frigidity, consanguinity within the prohibited
degrees, prior marriage, or want of the requisite con-
sent of parents and guardians, are not dissolutions of
the marriage contract, but judicial declarations that
there never was any marriage; such impediment sub-
sisting at the time, as rendered the celebration of the
marriage rite a mere nullity. And the rite itself con-
tains an exception of these impediments. The man
and woman to be married are charged, " if they know
any impediment why they may not be lawfully joined
together, to confess it;" and assured, " that so many
as are coupled together, otherwise than God's word
doth allow, are not joined together by God, neither is
their matrimony lawful;" all which is intended by
way of solemn notice to the parties, that the vow they
are about to make will bind their consciences and au-
thorize their cohabitation, only upon the suppositioi
that no legal impediment exists.

MARRIAGE. 205

CHAPTER VIII.

MARRIAGE.

WHETHER it hath grown out of some tradition of
the Divine appointment of marriage in the persons of
our first parents, or merely from a design to impress
the obligation of the marriage contract with a solem -
nity suited to its importance, the marriage rite, in al-
most all countries of the world, has been made a reli-
gious ceremony;* although marriage, in its own na-
ture, and abstracted from the rules and declarations
which the Jewish and Christian Scriptures deliver
concerning it, be properly a civil contract, and noth-
ing more.

With respect to one main article in matrimonial
alliances, a total alteration has taken place in the
fashion of the world: the wife now brings money to
her husband, whereas anciently the husband paid
money to the family of the wife; as was the case
among the Jewish patriarchs, the Greeks, and the
old inhabitants of Germany.^ This alteration has
proved of no small advantage to the female sex: for
their importance in point of fortune procures to them,
in modern times, that assiduity and respect, which
are always wanted to compensate for the inferiority of
their strength but which their personal attractions
would not aways secure.

Our business is with marriage as it is established in

* It was not, however, in Christian countries, required that
marriages should be celebrated in churches, till the thir-
teenth century of the Christian era. Marriages in England,
during the Usurpation, were solemnized before justices of
the peace : but for what purpose this novelty was introduced,
except to degrade the clergy, does not appear.

t The ancient Assyrians sold their beauties by an annual
auction. The prices were applied by way of portions to the
more homely. By this contrivance, all of both sorts were
disposed of in marriage.

206

MARRIAGE.

this country. And in treating thereof, it will be ne-
cessary to state the terms of the marriage vow, in
order to discover, —

1. What duties this vow creates.

2. What situation of mind, at the time, is incon-
sistent with it.

3. By what subsequent behaviour it is violated.

The husband promises, on his part, " to love, com-
fort, honour, and keep his wife;" the wife on hers,
•' to obey, serve, love, honour, and keep her hus-
band;" in every variety of health, fortune, and con-
dition: and both stipulate " to forsake all others, and
to keep only unto one another, so long as they both
shall live." This promise is called the marriage vow;
is witnessed before God and the congregation; ac-
companied with prayers to Almighty God for his
blessing upon it; and attended with such circum-
stances of devotion and solemnity as place the obliga-
tion of it, and the guilt of violating it, nearly upon the
same foundation with that of oaths.

The parties by this vow engage their personal fide-
lity expressly and specifically; they engage likewise
to consult and promote each other's happiness: the
wife, moreover, promises obedience to her husband.
Nature may have ma,de and left the sexes of the hu-
man species nearly equal in their faculties, and per-
fectly so in their rights; but to guard against those
competitions which equality, or a contested superi-
ority, is almost sure to produce, the Christian Scrip-
tures enjoin upon the wife that obedience which she
here promises, and in terms so peremptory and abso-
lute, that it seems to extend to every thing not crimi-
nal, or not entirely inconsistent with th^ woman's
happiness. "Let the wife," says St. Paul, "be
subject to her own husband in every thing." — " The
ornament of a meek and quiet spirit," says the same
apostle, speaking of the duty of wives, "is, in the
bight of God, of great price." No words ever ex-
pressed the true merit o^the female character so well
as these.

The condition of human life will not permit us to
say, that no one can conscientiously marry who does

MARRIAGE. 207

not prefer the person at the altar to all other men or
women in the world; but we can have no difficulty in
pronouncing (whether we respect the end of the insti-
tution, or the plain terms in which the contract is
conceived,) that whoever is conscious, at the time of
his marriage, of such a dislike to the woman he is
about to marry, or of such a subsisting attachment to
some other woman, that he cannot reasonably, nor
does in fact, expect ever to entertain an affection for
his future wife, is guilty, when he pronounces the
marriage vow, of a direct and deliberate prevarica-
tion; and that, too, aggravated by the presence of
those ideas of religion, and of the Supreme Being,
which the place, the ritual, and the solemnity of the
occasion, cannot fail of bringing to his thoughts. The
same likewise of the woman. This charge must be
imputed to all who, from mercenary motives, marry
the objects of their aversion and disgust; and like-
wise to those who desert, from any motive whatever,
the object of their affection, and, whithout being able
to subdue that affection, marry another.

The crime of falsehood is also incurred by the mar
who intends, at the time of his marriage, to com
mence, renew, or continue, a personal commerce witi
any other woman. And the parity of reason, if a wife
be capable of so much guilt, extends to her.

The marriage vow is violated,

1. By adultery.

2. By any behaviour which knowingly, renders the
life of the other miserable; as desertion, neglect, pro-
digality, drunkenness, peevishness, penuriousness, jea-
lousy, or any levity of conduct which administers
occasion of jealousy.

A late regulation in the law of marriages, in fhis
country, has made the consent of the father, if he be
living, of the mother, if she survive the father, and
remain unmarried, or of guardians, if both parents
be dead, necessary to the marriage of a person under
twenty-one years of age. By the Roman law, the
consent et am et patris was required so long as they
lived. In France, the consent of parents is necessary
to the marriage of sons, until they attain to thirty

208 DUTY OF PAREICTS.

years of age; of daughters, until twenty-five. In
Holland, for sons till twenty-five; for daughters, till
twenty. And this distinction between the sexes ap-
pears to be well founded; for a woman is usually as
properly qualified for the domestic and inferior duties
of a wife or mother at eighteen, as a man is for the
business of the world, and the more arduous care of
providing for a family, at twenty-one.

The constitution also of the human species indicates
the same distinction.*

CHAPTER IX.

OF THE DUTY OF PARENTS.

THAT virtue which confines its beneficence within
the walls of a man's own house, we have been accus-
tomed to consider as little better than a more refined
selfishness; and yet it will be confessed, that the sub-
ject and matter of this class of duties are inferior to
none in utility and importance: and where, it may be
asked, is virtue the most valuable, but where it does
the most good ? What duty is the most obligatory, but
that on which the most depends? And where have
we happiness and misery so much in our power, or
liable to be so affected by our conduct, as in our own
families? It will also be acknowledged, that the
good order and happiness of the world are better up-
holden whilst each man applies himself to his own
concerns, and the care of his own family, to which he
is present, than if every man, from an excess of mis-
taken generosity, should leave his own business to
undertake his neighbour's, which he must always
manage with less knowledge, conveniency, and suc-

* Cum vis prolem procreandi diutius heereat in mare quam
m foemina, populi numerus nequaquam minuctur, si serius
venerem coiere inceperint viri.

DUTY OF PARENTS. 209

cess. If therefore, the low estimation of these vir-
tues be well founded, it must be owing, not to their
inferior importance, but to some defect or impurity in
the motive. And indeed it cannot be denied, that it
is in the power of associations^ to unite our children's
interest with our own, as that we shall often pursue
both from the same motive, place both in the same
object, and with as little sense of duty in one pursuit
as in the other. Where this is the case, the judg-
ment above stated is not far from the truth. And so
often as we find a solicitous care of a man's own
family, in a total absence or extreme penury of every
other virtue, or interfering with other duties, or direct-
ing its operation solely to the temporal happiness of
the children, placing that happiness in amusement
and indulgence whilst they are young, or in advance
ment of fortune when they grow up, there is reason tc
believe that this is the case. In this way, the com
mon opinion concerning these duties may be account-
ed for and defended. If we look to the subject of
them, we perceive them to be indispensable: If w
regard the motive, we find tnem often not very merito-
rious. Wherefore, although a man seldom rises high
in our esteem who has nothing to recommend him be-
side the care of his own family, yet we always con-
demn the neglect of this duty with the utmost seve-
rity; both by reason of the manifest and immediate
mischief which we see arising from this neglect, and
because it argues a want not only of parental aflec-
tion, but of those moral principles which ought to
come in aid of that affection where it is wanting.
And if, on the other hand, our praise and esteem of
these duties be not proportioned to the good they
produce, or to the indignation with which we resent
the absence of them, it is for this reason, that virtue
is the most valuable, not where it produces the most
good, but where it is the most wanted: which is not
the case here; because its place is often supplied by
instincts, or involuntary associations. Nevertheless,
the offices of a parent may be discharged from a con-
sciousness of their obligation, as well as other duties;
and a sense of this obligation is sometimes necessary
VOL. i. 18*

210 DUTY OF PARENTS.

to assist the stimulus of parental affection; especially
in stations of life in \vhich the wants of a family can-
not be supplied without the continual hard labour of
the father, and without his refraining from many indul-
gences and recreations which unmarried men of like
condition are able to purchase. Where the parental
affection is sufficiently strong, or has fewer difficulties
to surmount, a principle of duty may still be wanted to
direct and regulate its exertions: for otherwise it is apt
to spend and waste itself in a womanish fondness
for the person of the child; an improvident attention
to his present ease and gratification; a pernicious fa-
cility and compliance with his humours; an excessive
and superfluous care to provide the externals of hap-
piness, with little or no attention to the internal sources
of virtue and satisfaction. Universally, wherever a
parent's conduct is prompted or directed by a sense
of duty, there is so much virtue.

Having premised thus much concerning the place
which parental duties hold in the scale of human vir-
tues, we proceed to state and explain the duties them-
selves.

When moralists tell us, that parents are bound to
do all they can for their children, they tell us more
than is true; for, at that rate, every expense which
might have been spared, and every profit omitted
which might have been made, would be criminal.

The duty of parents has its limits, like other du-
ties; and admits, if not of perfect precision, at least
of rules definite enough for application.

These rules may be explained under the several
heads of maintenance, education, and a reasonable
provision for the child's happiness in respect of out-
ward condition.

1. Maintenance.

The wants of children make it necessary that some
person maintain them; and, as no one has a right to
burden others by his act, it follows, that the parents
are bound to undertake this charge themselves. Be-
side this plain inference, the affection of parents to
their children, if it be instinctive, and the provision
which nature has prepared in the person of the mo-

DtTTY OF PARENTS. 211

ther for the sustentation of the infant, concerning the
existence and design of which there can be no doubt,
are manifest indications of the Divine will.

Hence we learn the guilt of those who run away
from their families, or (what is much the some,) in
consequence of idleness or drunkenness, throw them
upon a parish; or who leave tnem destitute at their
death, when, by diligence and frugality, they might
have laid up a provision for their support: also of
those who refuse or neglect the care of their bastard
offspring, abandoning them to a condition in which
they must either perish or become burdensome to
others: for the duty of maintenance, like the reason
upon which it is founded, extends to bastards as well
as to legitimate children.

The Christian Scriptures, although they concern
themselves little with maxims of prudence or economy,
and much less authorize worldly mindedness or ava-
rice, have yet declared in explicit terms their judg-
ment of the obligation of this duty: — " If any provide
not for his own, especially for those of his own house-
hold, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an
infidel," (1 Tim. v. 8;) he hath disgraced the Chris-
tian profession, and fallen short in a duty which even
infidels acknowledge.

2. Education.

Education, in the most extensive sense of the word,
may comprehend every preparation that is made in
our youth for the sequel of our lives; and in this sense
I use it.

Some such preparation is necessary for children of
all conditions, because without it they must be mise-
rable, and probably will be vicious, when they grow
up, either from want of the means of subsistence, or
from want of rational and inoffensive occupation. In
civilized life every thing is effected by art and skill
Whence a person who is provided with neither (and
neither can be acquired without exercise and instruc-
tion) will be useless; and he that is useless will ge-
nerally be at the same time mischievous to the com-
munity. So that to send an uneducated child into
the world is injurious to the rest of mankind; it is

212 DUTY OF PARENTS.

little better than to turn out a mad dog or a wild beast
into the streets.

In the inferior classes of the community, this prin-
ciple condemns the neglect of parents, who do not
inure their children betimes to labour and restraint,
by providing them with apprenticeships, services, or
other regular employment, but who suffer them to
waste their youth in idleness and vagrancy, or to be-
take themselves to some lazy, trifling, and precarious
calling: for the consequence of having thus tasted
the sweets of natural liberty, at an age when their
passion and relish for it are at the highest, is that they
become incapable, for the remainder of their lives, of
continued industry, or of persevering attention to any
thing: spend their time in a miserable struggle be-
tween the importunity of want and the irksomeness
of regular application; and are prepared to embrace
every expedient which presents a hope of supplying
their necessities without confining them to the plough,
the loom, the shop, or the counting house.

In the middle orders of society those parents are
most reprehensible, who neither qualify their children
for a profession, nor enable them to live without one;*
and those in the highest, who, from indolence, indul-
gence, or avarice, omit to procure their children those
liberal attainments which are necessary to make them
useful in the stations to which they are destined. A
man of fortune, who permits his son to consume the
season of education in hunting, shooting, or in fre-
quenting horse races, assemblies, or other unedifying,
if not vicious diversions, defrauds the community of
a benefactor, and bequeaths them a nuisance.

Some, though not the same preparation for the,
sequel of their lives, is necessary for youth of every
description; and therefore for bastards, as well as for
children of better expectations. Consequently, they
who leave the education of their bastards to chance,

Amongst the Athenians, if the parent did not put his
child into a way of getting a livelihood, the child was not
bound to make provision for the parent when old and neces-
sitous.

DUTY OF PARENTS. 213

contenting themselves with making provision for their
subsistence, desert half their duty.

3. A reasonable provision for the happiness of a
child, in respect of outward condition, requires three
things : a situation suited to his habits and reasona-
ble expectation; a competent provision for the exi-
gencies of that situation; and a probable security for
his virtue.

The first two articles will vary with the condition
of the parent. A situation somewhat approaching in
rank and condition to the parent 'sown; or, where that
is not practicable, similar to what other parents of
like condition provide for their children; bounds the
reasonable, as well as (generally speaking) the actual
expectations of the child, and therefore contains the
extent of the parent's obligation.

Hence, a peasant satisfies his duty who sends out
his children, properly instructed for their occupation,
to husbandry or to any branch of manufacture. Cler-
gymen, lawyers, physicians, off cers in the army or
navy, gentlemen possessing moderate fortunes of in-
heritance, or exercising trade in a large or liberal way,
are required by the same rule to provide their sons
with learned professions, commissions in the army or
navy, places in public offices, or reputable branches
of merchandise. Providing a child with a situation
includes a competent supply for the expenses of that
situation, until the profits of it enable the child to
support himself. Noblemen and gentlemen of high
,rank and fortune may be bound to transmit an inhe-
ritance to the representatives of their family, sufficient
for their support without the aid of a trade or profes-
sion, to which there is little hope that a youth, who
has been flattered with other expectations, will apply
himself with diligence or success. In these parts of
the world, public opinion has assorted the members
of the community into four or five general classes,
each class comprising a great variety of employments
and professions, the choice of which must be commit-
ted to the private discretion of the parent.* All that

* The health and virtue of a child's future life are consid-
erations so superior to all others, that whatever is likely lo

214 DUTY OF PARENTS.

can be expected from parents as a duty, and therefore
the only rule which a moralist can deliver upon the
subject is, that they endeavour to preserve their chil-
dren in the class in which they are born, that is to
say, in which others of similar expectations are ac-
customed to be placed; and that they be careful to
confine their hopes and habits of indulgence to objects
which will continue to be attainable.

It is an ill judged thrift, in some rich parents, to
bring up their sons to mean employments, for the
sake of saving the charge of a more expensive edu-
cation: for these sons, when they become masters of
their liberty and fortune, will hardly continue in oc-

have the smallest influence upon these, deserves the parent's
attention. In respect of health, agriculture, and all the ac-
tive, rural, and out of door employments are to be preferred
to manufactures and sedentary occupations. In respect of
virtue, a course of dealings in which the advantage is mutu-
al, in which the profit on one side is connected with the
benefit of the other (which is the case in trade, and all ser-
viceable art or labour,) is more favourable to the moral cha-
racter than callings in which one man's gain is another man's
loss ; in which what you acquire is acquired without equi-
valent, and parted with in distress : as in gaming, and what-
ever partakes of gaming, and in the predatory profits of war.
The following distinctions also deserve notice : — A business,
like a retail trade, in which the profits are small and frequent,
and accruing from the employment, furnishes a moderate and
constant engagement to the mind, and, so far, suits better -
with the general disposition of mankind than professions
which are supported by fixed salaries, as stations in the
church, army, navy, revenue, public offices, &c. or wherein
the profits are made in large sums, by a few great concerns,
or fortunate adventures ; as in many branches of wholesale
and foreign merchandise, in which the occupation is neither
so constant, nor the activity so kept alive by immediate en-
couragement. For security, manual arts exceed merchan-
dise, and such as supply the wants of mankind are better
than those which minister to their pleasure. Situations
which promise an early settlement in marriage are ou
many accounts to be chosen before those which require a lon-
ger waiting for a larger establishment.

DUTY OF PARENTS. 215

cupations by which they think themselves degraded,
and are seldom qualified for any thing better.

An attention, in the first place, to the exigencies of
the children's respective conditions in the world; and
a regard, in the second place, to their reasonable ex
pectations, always postponing the expectations to the
exigencies, when both cannot be satisfied; ought to
guide parents in the disposal of their fortunes after
their death. And these exigencies and expectations
must be measured by the standard which custom has
established: for there is a certain appearance, attend-
ance, establishment, and mode of living, which custom
has annexed to the several ranks and orders of civil
life (and which compose what is called decency,} to-
gether with a certain society, and particular pleasures,
belonging to each class: and a young person who is
withheld from sharing in these for want of fortune,
can scarcely be said to have a fair chance for happi-
ness j the indignity and mortification of such a seclu-
sion being what few tempers can bear, or bear with
contentment. And as to the second consideration, of
what a child may reasonably expect from his parent,
he will expect what he sees all or most others in simi-
lar circumstances receive; and we can hardly call
expectations unreasonable, which it is impossible to
suppress.

By virtue of this rule, a parent is justified in mak-
ing a difference between his children, according as
they stand in greater or less need of the assistance of
his fortune, in consequence of the difference of their
age or sex, or of the situations in which they are
placed, or the various success which they have met
with.

On account of the few lucrative employments which
are left to the female sex, and by consequence the
little opportunity they have of adding to their income,
daughters ought to be the particular objects of a pa-
rent's care and foresight; and as an option of mar-
riage, from which they can reasonably expect happi-
ness, is not presented to every woman who deserves
it, especially in times in which a licentious celibacy
is in fashion with the men, a father should endeavour

216 DUTY OF PARENTS.

to enable his daughters to lead a single life with in-
dependence and decorum, even though he subtract
more for tnat purpose from the portions of his sons
than is agreeable to modern usage, or than they expect.

But when the exigencies of their several situations
are provided for, and not before, a parent ought to
admit the second consideration, the satisfaction of his
children's expectations; and upon that principle, to
prefer the eldest son to the rest and sons to daugh-
ters; which constitutes the right, and the whole right,
of primogeniture, as well as r,he only reason for the
preference of one sex to the otner. The preference,
indeed, of the first-born has one public good effect,
that if the estate were divided equally amongst the
sons, it would probably make them all idle; whereas,
by the present rule of descent, it makes only one so;
which is the Hss evil of the two. And it must further
be observed on the part of the sons, that if the rest of
the community make it a rule to prefer sons to daugh-
ters, an individual of that community ought to guide
himself by the same rule, upon principles of mere
equality. For, as the son suffers by the rule, in the
fortune he may expect in marriage, it is but reasona-
ble that he should receive the advantage of it in his
own inheritance. Indeed, whatever the rule be, as to
the preference of one sex to the other, marriage re-
stores the equality. And as money is generally more
convertible to profit, and more likely to promote in-
dustry, in the hands of men than of women, the cus-
tom of this country may properly be complied with
when it does not interfere with the weightier reason
explained in the last paragraph.

The point of the children's actual expectations, to-
gether with the expediency of subjecting the illicit
commerce of the sexes to every discouragement which
it can receive, makes the difference between the claims
of legitimate children arid of bastards. But neither
reason will in any case justify the leaving of bastards
to the world without provision, education, or profes-
sion; or, what is more cruel, without the means of
continuing in the situation to which the parent has

DUTY OF PARENTS. 217

introduced them; which last is, to leave them to in-
evitable misery.

After the first requisite, namely, a provision for the
exigencies of his situation, is satisfied, a parent may
diminish a child's portion, in order to punish any fla-
grant crime, or to punish contumacy and want of
filial duty in instances not otherwise criminal: for a
child who is conscious of bad behaviour, or of con-
tempt of his parent's will and happiness, cannot rea-
sonably expect ihe same instances of his munificence.

A child's vices may be of that sort, and his vicious
habits so incorrigible, as to afford much the same
reason for believing that he will waste or misemploy
the fortune put into his power, as if he were mad or
idiotish; in which case a parent may treat him as a
madman or an idiot; that is, may deem it sufficient
to provide for his support, by an annuit^ equal to his
wants and innocent enjoyments, and which he may
be restrained from alienating. This seems to be the
only case in which a disinherison, nearly absoluto, is
justifiable.

Let not a father hope to excuse an inofficious dis-
position of his fortune, -by alleging, that " every man
may do what he will with his own." All the truth
which this expression contains is, that his discretion
is under no control of law; and that his will, however
capricious, will be valid. This by no means absolves
his conscience from the obligations of a parent, or im-
ports that he may neglect, without injustice, the seve-
ral wants and expectations of his family, in order to
gratify a whim or pique, or indulge a preference
founded in no reasonable distinction of merit or situa-
tion. Although in his intercourse with his family,
and in the lesser endearments of domestic life, a pa-
rent may not always resist his partiality to a favourite
child (which, however, should be both avoided and
concealed, as oftentimes productive of lasting jea-
lousies and discontents,) yet, when he sits down to
make his will, these tendernesses must give place to
more manly deliberations.

A father of a family is bound to adjust his economy
with a view to these demands upon his fortune; and

VOL. J, 19

218 DUTY OF PARENTS.

until a sufficiency for these ends is required, or in
due time probably will be acquired (for, in human af-
fairs, probability ought to content us,) frugality and
exertions of industry are duties. He is also justified
in the declining expensive liberality; for, to take from
those who want, in order to give to those who want,
adds nothing to the stock of public happines. Thus
far, therefore, and no farther, the plea of" children,"
of " large families," " charity begins at home," &c.
is an excuse for parsimony, and an answer to those
\vho solicit our bounty. Beyond this point, as the
use of riches becomes less, the desire of laying tip
should abate proportionally. The truth is, our cliil -
dren gain not so much as we imagine, in the chance
of this world's happiness, or even of its external pros-
perity, by setting out in it with large capitals. Of
those vho have died rich, a great part began with
little. And, in respect of enjoyment, there is no com-
parison between a fortune which a man acquires by
well applied industry, or by a series of successes in
his business, and one found in his possession, or re-
ceived from another.

A principal part of a parents dutv is st'il behind,
viz. the using of proper precautions and expedients,
in order to form and preserve his children's virtue.

To us, who believe that, in one stage or other of
our existence, virtue will conduct to happiness, and
vice terminate in misery; and who observe withal,
that men's virtr.es and vices are, to a certain degree,
produced or affected by the management of their
youth, and the situations in which they are placed; to
all who attend to these reasons, the obligation to con-
sult a child's virtue will appear to differ in nothing
from that by which the parent is bound to provide for
his maintenance or fortune. The child's interest is
concerned in the one means of happiness as well as in
the other; and both means are equally, and almost
exclusively, in the parent's power.

For this purpose, the first poinMo be endeavoured
after, is to impress upon children the idea of account-
ableness, that is, to accustom them to look forward to
the consequences of their actions in another world;

DUTY OF PARENTS. 219

which can only be brought about by the parents visibly
acting with a view to these consequences themselves.
Parents, to do them justice, are seldom sparing of
lessons of virtue and religion; in admonitions which
cost little, and which profit less; whilst their example
exhibits a continual contradiction of what they teach.
A father, for instance, will, with much solemnity and
apparent earnestness, warn his son against idleness,
excess in drinking, debauchery, and extravagance,
who himself loiters about all day without employmenl ;
comes home every night drunk ; is made infamous in
his neighbourhood by some profligate connexion; and
wastes the fortune which should support, or remain a
provision for his family, in riot, or luxury, or ostenta-
tion. Or he will discourse gravely before his chil-
dren of the obligation and importance of revealed
religion, whilst they see the most frivolous and often-
times feigned excuses detain him from its reasonable
and solemn ordinances. Or he will set before them,
perhaps, the supreme and tremendous authority of
Almighty God; that such a Being ought not to be
named, 01 even thought upon, without sentiments of
profound awe and veneration. This may be the lec-
ture he delivers to his family one hour; when the
next, if an occasion arise to excite his anger, his mirth,
or his surprise, they will hear him treat the name of
the Deity with the most irreverent profanation, and
sport with the terms and denunciations of the Christian
religion, as if they were the language of some ridicu-
lous and long exploded superstition. Now, even a
child is not to be imposed upon by such mockery. He
sees through the grimace of this counterfeited concern
for virtue. He discovers that his parent is acting a
part; and receives his admonitions as he would hear
the same maxims from the mouth of a player. And
when once this opinion has taken possession of the
child's mind, it has a fatal effect upon the parent's
influence in all subjects; even those, in which he
himself may be sincere and convinced. Whereas a
silent, but observable regard to the duties of religion,
in the parent's own behaviour, will take a sure and
gradual hold of the child's disposition, much beyond

220 DUTY OF PARENTS.

formal reproofs and chidings, which, being generally
prompted by some present provocation, discover more
of anger than of principle, and are always received
with a temporary alienation and disgust.

A good parent's first care is to be virtuous himself;
his second, to make his virtues as easy and engaging
to those about him as their nature will admit. Virtue
itself offends, when coupled with forbidding manners.
And some virtues may be urged to such excess, or
brought forward so unseasonably, as to discourage and
repel those who observe and who are acted upon by
them, instead of exciting an inclination to imitate and
adopt them. Young minds are particularly liable to
these unfortunate impressions. For instance, if a
father's economy degenerate into a minute and teasing
parsimony, it is odds but that the son, who has suffered
under it, sets out a sworn enemy to all rules of order
and frugality. If a father's piety be morose, rigorous,
and tinged with melancholy, perpetually break inn- in
upon the recreation of his family, and surfeiting them
with the language of religion on all occasions, there
is danger lest the son carry from home with him a
settled prejudice against seriousness and religion, as
inconsistent with every plan of a pleasurable lifej
and turn out, when he mixes with the world, a cha-
racter of levity or dissoluteness.

Something likewise may be done towards the cor-
recting or improving of those early inclinations which
children discover, by disposing them into situations
the least dangerous to their particular characters
Thus, I would make choice of a retired life for young
persons addicted to licentious pleasures; of private
stations for the proud and passionate; of liberal pro-
fessions, and a town-life, for the mercenary and sottish;
and not, according to the general practice of parents,
send dissolute youths into the army; penurious tem-
pers to trade; or make a crafty lad an attorney, or
flatter a vain and haughty temper with elevated names,
or situations, or callings, to which the fashion of the
world has annexed precedency and distinction, but
in which his disposition, without at all promoting hia
success, will serve both to multiply > and exasocrate his

RIGHTS OF PARENTS. 221

disappointments. In the same way, that is, with a
view to the particular frame and tendency of the pupil's
character, I would make choice of a public or private
education. The reserved, timid, and indolent will
have their faculties called forth, and their nerves in-
vigorated by a public education. Youths of strong
spirits and passions will be safer in a private educa-
tion. At our public schools, as far as I have ob-
served, more literature is acquired, and more vice;
quick parts are cultivated, slow ones are neglected.
Under private tuition, a moderate proficiency in juve-
nile learning is seldom exceeded, but with more cer
tamty attained.

CHAPTER X.

THE RIGHTS OF PARENTS

THE rights of parents result from their duties. If
it be the duty of a parent to educate his children, to
form them for a life of usefulness and virtue, to pro-
vide for them situations needful for their subsistence
and suited to their circumstances, and to prepare them
for those situations* he has a right to such authority,
and in support of that authority to exercise such dis-
cipline as may be necessary for these purposes. The
law of nature acknowledges no other foundation of a
parent's right over his children, besides his duty to-
wards them (I speak now of such rights as may be
enforced by coercion.) This relation confers no pro-
perty in their persons, cr natural dominion over them,
as is commonly supposed.

Since it is, in general, necessary to determine the
destination of children, before they are capable of
judging of their own happiness, parents have a right
to elect professions for them.

As the mother nerself owes obedience to the father,
her authority must submit to his. In a competition,
therefore, of commands, the father is to be obeyed.
VOL.I 19*

222 RIGHTS OF PARENTS

In case of the death of cither, the authority, as well as
duty, of both parents, devolves upon the survivor.

These rights, always following the duty, belong
likewise to guardians; and so much of them as is
delegated by the parents or guardians belongs to
tutors, schoolmasters, &c

From this principle, " that the rights of parent?
result from their duty," it follows that parents have
no natural right over the lives of their children, as was
absurdly allowed to Roman fathers; nor any to exer-
cise unprofitable severities; nor to command the com-
mission of crimes: for these rights can never be
wanted for the purpose of a parent's duty.

Nor, for the same reason, have parents any right to
sell their children into slavery. Upon which, by the
way, we may observe, that the children of slaves are
not, by the law of nature, born slaves; for, as the
master's right is derived to him through the parent,
it can never be greater than the parent's own.

Hence also it appears, that parents not only pervert,
but exceed, their just authority, when they cousult
their own ambition, interest, or prejudice, at the mani-
fest expense of their children's happiness. Of which
abuse of parental power, the following are instance?.
The shutting up of daughters and younger sons in nun-
neries and monasteries, in order to preserve entire tnc
estate and dignity of the family; or the usinjgr of any
arts, either of kindness or unkindness, to induce them
to make choice of this way of life themselves; or, in
countries where the clergy are prohibited from mar-
riage, putting sons into the church for the same end,
who are never likely either to do or receive any good
in it, sufficient to compensate for this sacrifice; the
urging of children to marriages from which they are
averse, with the view of exalting or enriching tnc
family, or for the sake of connecting estates, parties,
or interests; or the opposing of a marriage, in which
the child would probably find his happiness, from a
motive of pride, or avarice or family hostility, or per-
social pique.

DUTY OF CHILDREN. 223

CHAPTER XI.

THE DUTY OF CHILDREN.

THE Duty of Children may be considered,

1. During childhood.

2. After they have attained to manhood, but con-
tinue in their father's family.

3. After they have attained to manhood, and have
left their father's family.

1. During childhood.

Children must be supposed to have attained to some
degree of discretion before they are capable of any
duty. There is an interval of eight or nine years
between the dawning and the maturity of reason, in
which it is necessary to subject the inclination of chil-
dren to many restraints, and direct their application
to many employments, of the tendency and use of
which they cannot judge; for which cause, the sub-
mission of children during this period must be ready
and implicit, with an exception, however, of any ma-
nifest crime which may be commanded them.

2. After they have attained to manhood, but con-
tinue in their father's family.

If children, when they are grown up, voluntarily
continue members of their father's family, they are
bound, beside the general duty of gratitude to their
parents, to observe such regulations of the family as
the father shall appoint; contribute their labour to
its support, if required; and confine themselves to
such expenses as he shall allow. The obligation
would be the same, if they were admitted into any
other family, or received support from any other hand.

3. After they have attained to manhood, and hav >,
left their fathers family.

In this state of the relation, the duty to parents is
simply the duty of gratitude; not different in kind,
from that which we owe to any other benefator; in
degree, just so much exceeding other obligations, by
how much a parent has b?en a greater benefactor than
any other friend. The services and attentions, by

224 DUTY OF CHILDREN.

which filial gratitude may be testified, can be compris-
ed within no enumeration. It will show itstlf in com-
pliances with the will of the parents, however contra-
ry to the child's own taste or judgment, provided it be
neither criminal, nor totally inconsistent, with his hap-
piness: in a constant endeavour to promote their en-
joyments, prevent their wishes, and soften their anxie-
ties, in small matters as well as in great; in assisting
them in their business; in contributing to their sup-
port, ease, or better accommodation, when their cir-
cumstances require it; in affording them our company,
in preference to more amusing engagements; in wait-
ing upon their sickness or decrepitude; in bearing with
the infirmities of their health or temper, with the
peevishness and complaints, the unfashionable, negli-
gent, austere manners, and offensive habits, which
often attend upon advanced years: for where must
old age find indulgence, if it do not meet with it in the
piety and partiality of children ?

The most serious contentions between parents and
their children, are those commonly which relate to
marriage, or to the choice of a profession.

A parent has, in no case, a right to destroy his
child's happiness. If it be true, therefore., that there
exist such personal and exclusive attachments between
indviduals of different sexes, that the possession of a
particular man or woman in marriage be really neces-
sary for the child's happiness; or if it be true, that an
aversion to a particular profession may be involuntary
and unconquerable; then it will follow, that parents,
where this is tne case, ought not to urge their autho-
rity, and that the child is not bound to obey it.

The point is, to discover how far, in -my particular
instance, this is the case. Whether the fondness of
lovers ever continues with such intensity, and so loner,
that the success of their desires constitutes, or the dis-
appointment affects, any considerable portion of their
happiness, compared with that of their whole life, it
is difficult to determine: but there can be no difficulty
in pronouncing, that not one half of those attachments,
which young people conceive with so much haste and
passion, are of this sort. I believe it also to be true,

DUTY OF CHILDREN. 225

that there are few aversions to a profession, which
resolution, perseverance, activity in going about the
duty of it, and, above all, despair of changing, will
not subdue; yet there are some such. Wherefore, a
child who respects his parent's judgment, and is, as he
ought to be, tender of their happiness, owes, at least,
so much deference to their will, as to try fairly and
faithfully, in one case, whether time and absence will
not cool an affection which they disapprove; and in
the other, whether a longer continuance in the pro
fession which they have chosen for him may not
reconcile him to it. The whole depends upon the
experiment being made on the child's part with sin-
cerity, and not merely with a design of compassing
his purpose at last, by means of a simulated and tem-
porary compliance. It is the nature of love and
hatred, and of all violent affections, to delude the mind
with a persuasion that we shall always continue to
feel them as we feel them at present ; we cannot con
ceive that they will either change or cease. Expe-
rience of similar or greater changes in ourselves, or a
habit of giving credit to what our parents, or tutors,
or books, teach us, may control this persuasion, other-
wise it renders youth very untractable: for they see
clearly and truly, that it is impossible they should be
happy under the circumstances proposed to them, in
their present state of mind. After a sincere but in-
effectual endeavour, by the child, to accommodate his
inclination to his parent's pleasure, he ought not to
suffer in his parent's affection, or in his fortunes. The
parent, when he has reasonable proof of this, should
acquiesce: at all events, the child is then at liberty to
provide for his own happiness.

Parents have no right to urge their children upon
marriages to which they are averse; nor ought, in
any shape, to resent the children's disobedience to
such commands. This is a different case from oppos-
ing a match of inclination, because the child's misery
is a much more probable consequence; it being easier
to live without a person that we love, than with one
whom we hate. Add to this, that compulsion in
marriage necessarily leads to prevarication ; as the

226 DUTY OF CHILDREN.

Teluctant party promises an affection, which neither
exists, nor is expected to take place; and parental,
like ah human authority, ceases at the point where
obedience becomes criminal

In the abovementioned. and in all contests between
parents and children, it is the parent's duty to repre-
sent to the child the consequences of his conduct;
and it will be found his best policy to represent thorn
with fidelity. Jt is usual for parents to exaggerate
these descriptions beyond probability, and by exag-
geration to lose all credit with their children; thus, in
a great measure, defeating their own end.

Parents are forbidden to interfere, where a trust is
reposed personally in the son; and where, conse«
quently, the son was expected, and by virtue of that
expectation is obliged, to pursue his own judgment,
and not tha* of any other: as is the case with judi-
cial magistrates in the execution of their office; witn
members of The legislature in their votes; with elec-
tors, where pieference is to be given to certain pre-
scribed qualifications. The son Kiay assist his own
judgment by the advice of his father, or of any one
whom he chooses to consult; but his own judgment,
whether it proceed upon knowledge or authority,
ought finally to determine his conduct.

The duty of children to their parents was thought
worthy to be made the subject of one of the Ten Com
mandments; and, as such, is recognized by Christ,
together with the rest of the moral precepts of the
Decalogue, in various places of the Gospel.

The same Divine Teacher's sentiments concerning
the relief of indigent parents appear sufficiently from
that manly and deserved indignation with which he
reprehended the wretched casuistry of the Jewish ex-
positors, who, under the name of a tradition, had con-
trived a method of evading this duty, by converting,
or pretending to convert, to the treasury of the temple,
BO much of their property as their distressed parent
(night be entitled by their law to demand.

Agreeably to this law of Nature and Christianity,
children are, by the law of England, bound to sup-
port, as well their immediate parents, as their grand-

DUTY OF CHILDREN. 227

father and grandmother, or remoter ancestors, who
stand in need of support.

Obedience to parents is enjoined by St. Paul to the
Ephesians, " Children, obey your parents in the Lord,
for this is right;" and to the Colossians, "Children,
obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleas
ing unto the Lord.*'*

By the Jewish law, disobedience to parents was in
some extreme cases capital. Deut. xxi. 18

* Upon which two phrases, " this is right, and, " for this
is well pleasing unto the Lord," being used by St. Paul in
a sense perfectly parallel, we may observe, that moral recti-
tude and conformity to the Divine will were, in his appre
hens ion, the same

BOSTON SCHOOL EDITION.

THE

PRINCIPLES

OF

MORAL AND POLITICAL

BY WILLIAM PALEY, D. D.

TOR THE EXAMINATION OF STUDENTS.

BY JOHN FROST,

PRINCIPAL OF THE MAYHEW GRAMMAR SCHOOL, BOSTON

TWO VOLUMES IN ONE.
VOI.. II.

BOSTON :
BENJAMIN B. MUSSEY & CO.,

29 CORNHILL.
1852.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1832, by

NATHANIEL H. WHITAZER,
in the Clerk's Office of the District

CONTENTS.

BOOK IV.

DUTIES TO OURSELVES, AND THE CRIME3 OPFO
SITE TO THESE.

Chap. Pane

1. The Rights of Self-Defence 6

2. Drunkenness -...•• 8
8. Suicide ------- 18

BOOK V.

DUTIES TOWARDS GOD.

'J Division of these Duties - - - - 20
8. Of the Duty and of the Efficacy of Prayer,

so far as the same appear from the Light

of Nature ------ 21

3. Of the Duty and Efficacy of Prayer, as

represented in Scripture - - - - 27
4 Of Private Prayer, Family Prayer, and Public

Worship ------ 80

5. Of Forms of Prayer in Public Worship - 86

6. Of the Use of Sabbatical Institutions - - 41

7. Of the Scripture Accout of Sabbatical In-

stitutions - - 48

CONTENT!.

Chap. Pagt

8. By what Acts and Omissions the Duty of the

Christian Sabbath is violated - 55

9. Of Reverencing the Deity - - 57

BOOK VI.

ELEMENTS OF POLITICAL KNOWLEDGE

1. Of the Origin of Civil Government - - 65

2. How Subjection to Civil Government is main-

tained -------69

3. The Duty of Submission to Civil Government

explained ------ 75

4. Of the duty of Civil Obedience, as stated in

the Christian Scriptures - - 87

5. Of Civil Liberty ----- 94

6. Of different Forms of Government - - 99

7. Of the British Constitution - - - 108

8. Of the Administration of Justice - - 132

9. Of Crimes and Punishments - 153

10. Of Religious Establishments, and Toleration 173

11. Of Population and Provision; and of Agri-

culture and Commerce, as subservient
thereto ----.- 197

12. Of War, and of Military Establishments - 232

BOOK IV.

DUTIES TO OURSELVES.

THIS division of the subject is retained merely for
the sake of method, by which the writer and the
reader are equally assisted. To the subject itself, it
imports nothing; for, the obligation of all duties being
fundamentally the same, it matters little under what
class or title any of them are considered. In strict-
ness, there are few duties or crimes which terminate
in a man's self; and so far as others are affected by
their operation, they have been treated of in some ar-
ticle of the preceding book. We have reserved,
however, to this head the rights of self-defence ; also
the consideration of drunkenness and suicide, as of-
fences against that care of our faculties, and preser-
vation of our persons, which we account duties, and
call duties to ourselves.

voi*% n. 1 *

RIGHTS OF iELF-DEFENCE.

CHAPTER I.

THE RIGHTS OF SELF-DEFENCE.

IT has been asserted, that in a state of nature we
might lawfully defend the most insignificant right,
provided it were a perfect determinate right, by any
extremities which the obstinacy of the aggressor ren-
dered necessary. Of this I doubt; because I doubt
whether the general rule be worth sustaining at such
an expense; and because, apart from the general oon-
sequence of yielding to the attempt, it cannot be w>n-
tended to be for the augmentation of human happi-
ness that one man should lose his life, or a limb,
rather than another a pennyworth of his property.
Nevertheless, perfect rights can only be distinguished
by their value; and it is impossible to ascertain the
value at which the liberty of using extreme violence
begins. The person attacked must balance, as well
as he can, between the general consequence of yield-
ing and the particular effect of resistance.

However, this right, if it exist in a state of nature,
is suspended by the establishment of civil society;
because thereby other remedies are provided against
attacks upon our property, and because it is necessary
to the peace and safety of the community, that the
prevention, punishment, and redress of injuries be ad-
justed by public laws. Moreover, as the individual
is assisted in the recovery of his right, or of a com-
pensation for his right by the public strength, it is no
less equitable than expedient, that he should submit
to public arbitration, the kind, as well as the measure,
of the satisfaction which he is to obtain.

There is one case in which all extremities are jus-
tifiable; namely, when our life is assaulted, and it be-
comes necessary for our preservation to kill the as-
sailant. This is evident in a state of nature; unless
it can be shown, that we are bound to prefer the ag-
gressor's life to our own, that is to say, to love our
enemy better than ourselves, which can ne^er be a
debt of justice, nor any where appears to be a duty

SELF-DEFENCE. 7

of charity. Nor is the case altered by our living in
civil society; because, by the supposition, the laws of
society cannot interpose to protect us, nor, by the na-
ture of the case, compel restitution. This liberty is
restrained to cases in which no other probable means
of preserving our life remain, as flight, calling for
assistance, disarming the adversary, &c. The rule
holds, whether the danger proceed from a voluntary
attack, as by an enemy, robber, or assassin; or from
an involuntary one, as by a madman, or person sink-
ing in the water, and dragging us after him; or where
two persons are reduced to a situation in which one
or both of them must perish; as in a shipwreck, where
two seize upon a plank, which will support only one;
although, to say the truth, these extreme cases, which
happen seldom, and hardly, when they do happen,
admit of moral agency, are scarcely worth mention-
ing, much less discussing at length.

The instance which approaches the nearest to the
preservation of life, and which seems to justify the
same extremities, is the defence of chastity.

In all other cases, it appears to me the safest to con-
sider the taking away of life as authorized by the law
of the land; and the person who takes it away, as in
the situation of a minister or executioner of the law.

In which view, homicide, in England, is justifi-
able,—

1. To prevent the commission of a crime, which,
when committed, would be punishable with death.
Thus, it is lawful to shoot a highwayman, or one at-
tempting to break into a house by night; but not so
if the attempt be made in the daytime: which parti-
cular distinction, by a consent of legislation that is
remarkable, obtained also in the Jewish law, as well
as in the laws both of Greece and Rome.

2. In necessary endeavours to carry the law into
execution: as in suppressing riots, apprehending male-
factors, preventing escapes, &c.

I do not know that the law holds forth its authority
to any cases besides those which fall within one or
other of the above descriptions; or that, after the ex*

DRUNKENNESS.

ception of immediate danger to life or chastity, th«
destruction of a human being can be innocent with-
out that authority.

The rights of war are not here taken into the ac-
count.

CHAPTER II

DRUNKENNESS.

DRUNKENNESS is either actual or habitual; just as
it is one thing to be drunk, and another to be a drun-
kard. What we shall deliver upon the subject must
principally be understood of a habit of intemperance;
although part of the guilt and danger described may
be applicable to casual excesses; and all of it, in a
certain degree, forasmuch as every habit is only a re-
petition of single instances.

The mischief of drunkenness, from which we are to
compute the guilt of it, consists in the following bad
effects: —

1. It betrays most constitutions either to extrava-
gances of anger or sins of lewdness.

2. It disqualifies men for the duties of their station,
both by the temporary disorder of their faculties, and
at length by a constant incapacity and stupefaction.

3. It is attended with expenses, which can often be
ill spared.

4. It is sure to occasion uneasiness to the family of
the drunkard.

5. It shortens life.

To these consequences of drunkenness must be ad-
ded the peculiar danger and mischief of the example.
Drunkenness is a social festive vice; apt, beyond any
vice than can be mentioned, to draw in others by the ex-
ample. The drinker collects his circle ; the circle natur-
ally spreads; of those who are drawn within it, many
become the corrupters and centres of sets and circles
of their own; every one countenancing, and perhaps

DRUNKENNESS. 9

emulating the rest, till a whole neighbourhood be in-
fected from the contagion of a single example. This
account is confirmed by what we often observe of
drunkenness, that it is a local vice; found to prevail
in certain countries, in certain districts of a country,
or in particular towns, without any reason to be given
for the fashion, but that it had been introduced by some
popular examples. With this observation upon the
spreading quality of drunkenness, let us connect a
remark which belongs to the several evil effects above
recited. The consequences of a vice, like the symp-
toms of a disease, though they be all enumerated in
the description, seldom all meet in the same subject.
In the instance under consideration, the age and tem-
perature of one drunkard may have little to fear from
inflammations of lust or anger; the fortune of a second
may not be injured by the expense; a third may have
no family to be disquieted by his irregularities; and a
fourth may possess a constitution fortified against the
poison of strong liquors. But if, as we always ought
to do, we comprehend within the consequences of our
conduct the mischief and tendency of the example,
the above circumstances, however fortunate for the
individual, will be found to vary the guilt of his intem-
perance less, probably, than he supposes. The mor-
alist may expostulate with him thus: Although the
waste of time and of money be of small importance
to you, it may be of the utmost to some one or other
whom your society corrupts. Repeated or long con-
tinued excesses, which hurt not your health, may be
fatal to your companion. Although you have neither
wife, nor child, nor parent to lament your absence
from home, or expect your return to it with terror;
other families, in which husbands and fathers have
been invited to share in your ebriety, or encouraged to
imitate it, may justly lay their misery or ruin at your
door. This will hold good whether the person sedu-
ced be seduced immediately by you, or the vice be
prop igated from you to him through several interme-
diate examples. All these considerations it is neces-
sary to assemble, to judge truly of a vice which usu-

10 DRUNKENNESS.

ally meets with milder names and more indulgence
than it deserves.

I omit those outrages upon one another, and upon
the peace and safety of the neighbourhood, in which
drunken revels often end; and also those deleterious
and maniacal effects which strong liquors produce
upon particular constitutions; because, in general
propositions concerning drunkenness, no consequences
should be included, but what are constant enough to
be generally expected.

Drunkenness is repeatedly forbidden by St. Paul:
" Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess." " Let
us walk honestly as in the day, not in rioting and
drunkenness." "Be not deceived: neither fornica-
tors, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners
shall inherit the kingdom of God." Eph. v. 18;
Rom. xiii. 13; 1 Cor. vi. 9, 10. The same apostle
likewise condemns drunkenness, as peculiarly incon-
sistent with the Christian profession: — •' They that
be drunken are drunken in the night: but let us,
who are of the day, be sober." 1 Thes. v. 7, 8. We
are not concerned with the argument; the words
amount to a prohibition of drunkenness; and the au-
thority is conclusive.

It is a question of some importance, how far drunk-
enness is an excuse for the crimes which the drunken
person commits.

In the solution of this question, we will first sup-
pose the drunken person to be altogether deprived of
moral agency, that is to say, of all reflection and fore-
sight. In this condition, it is evident that he is no
more capable of guilt than a madman; although, like
him, he may be extremely mischievous. The only
guilt with which he is chargeable was incurred at
the time when he voluntarily brought himself into
this situation. And as every man is responsible for
the consequences which he foresaw, or might have
foreseen, and for no other, this guilt will be in pro-
portion to the probability of such consequences ensu-
ing. From which principle results the following rule,
viz. that the guilt of any action in a drunken man
bears the same proportion to the guilt of the like

DRUNKENNESS. 11

action in a sober man, that the probability of its being
the consequence of drunkenness bears to absolute cer~
tainty. By virtue of this rule, those vices which are
the known effects of drunkenness, either in general,
or upon particular constitutions, are in all, or in men
of such constitutions, nearly as criminal as ;f commit
ted with all their faculties and senses about them.

If the privation of reason be only partial, the guilt
will be of a mixed nature. For so much of his self-
government as the drunkard retains, he is as respon-
sible then as at any other time. He is entitled to no
abatement beyond the strict proportion in which his
moral faculties are impaired. Now I call the guilt
of the crime, if a sober man had committed it, the
whole guilt. A person in the condition we describe
incurs part of this at the instant of perpetration; and
by bringing himself into that condition, he incurred
such a fraction of the remaining part, as the danger
of this consequence was of an integral certainty. For
the sake of illustration we are at liberty to suppose,
that a man loses half his moral faculties by drunken-
ness; this leaving him but half his responsibility, he
incurs, when he commits the action, half of the
whole guilt. "We will also suppose that it was known
beforehand, that it was an even chance, or half a cer-
tainty, that this crime would follow his getting drunk
This makes him chargeable with half of the remain-
der; so that, altogether, he is responsible in three
fourths of the guilt which a sober man would have
incurred in the same action.

I do not mean that any real case can be reduced to
numbers, or the calculation be ever made with arith-
matical precision; but these are the principles, and
this the rule by which our general admeasurement of
the guilt of such offences should be regulated.

The appetite for intoxicating liquors appears to me
to be almost always acquired. One proof of which
is, that it is apt to return only at particular times and
places; as after dinner, in the evening, on the market
day, at the market town, in such a company, at such
a tavern. And this may be the reason that, if a habit
of drunkenness be ever overcome, it is upon some

12 DRUNKENNESS

change of place, situation, company, or profession.
A man sunk deep in a habit of drunkenness will, upon
such occasions as these, when he finds himself loosen-
ed from the associations which held him fast, some-
times make a plunge, and get out. In a matter of so
great importance, it is well worth while, where it is
in any degree practicable, to change our habitation
and society, for the sake of the experiment.

Habits of drunkenness commonly take their rise
either from a fondness for, and connexion with, some
company, or some companion, already addicted to this
practice; which affords an almost irresistable invita-
tion to take a share in the indulgences which those
about us are enjoying with so much apparent relish
and delight; or from want of regular employment,
which is sure to let in many superfluous cravings and
customs, and often this amongst the rest; or, lastly,
from grief or fatigue, both which strongly solicit that
relief which inebriating liquors administer, and also
furnish a specious excuse for complying with the in-
clination. But the habit, when once set in, is con-
tinued by different motives from those to which it
owes its origin. Persons addicted to excessive drink-
ing suffer, in the intervals of sobriety, and near the
return of their accustomed indulgence, a faintness and
oppression circa prcecordia, which it exceeds the or-
dinary patience of human nature to endure. This is
usually relieved for a short time by a repetition of the
same excess; and to this relief, as to the removal of
every long continued pain, they who have once expe-
rienced it, are urged almost beyond the power of re-
sistance. This is not all: as the liquor loses its sti-
mulus, the dose must be increased, to reach the same
pitch of elevation or ease; which increase proportion-
ably accelerates the progress ©f all the maladies that
drunkenness brings on. Whoever reflects upon the
violence of the craving in the advanced stages of the
habit, and the fatal termination to which the gratifica-
tion of it leads, will, the moment he perceives in him-
self the first symptoms of a growing inclination to
intemperance, collect his resolution to this point; or
(what perhaps he will find his best security) arm him-

SUICIDE. 13

self with some peremptory rule, as to the times and
quantity of his indulgences. I own myself a friend
to the laying down of rules to ourselves of this sort,
and rigidly abiding by them. They may be exclaim-
ed against as stiff, but they are often salutary. Inde-
finite resolutions of abstemiousness are apt to yield to
extraordinary occasions; and extraordinary occa-
sions to occur perpetually. Whereas, the stricter the
rule is, the more tenacious we grow of it; and many
a man will abstain rather than break his rule, who
would not easily be brought to excercise the same mor-
tification from higher motives. Not to mention, that
when our rule is once known, we are provided with
an answer to ever importunity.

There is a difference, no doubt, between convivial
intemperance, and that solitary sottishness which
waits neither for company nor invitation. But the
one, I am afraid, commonly ends in the other; and
this last in the basest degradation to which the facul-
ties and dignity of human nature can be reduced.

CHAPTER III.

SUICIDE.

THERE is no subject in morality in which the con-
sideration of general consequences is more necessary
than in this of suicide. Particular and extreme cases
of suicide may be imagined, and may arise, of which
it would be difficult to assign the particular mischief,
or from that consideration alone to demonstrate the
guilt; and these cases have been the chief occasion
of confusion and doubtfulness in the question; albeit
this is no more than what is sometimes true of the
most acknowledged vices. I could propose many
possible cases even of murder, which, if they were
detached from the general rule, and governed by their
own particular consequences alone, it would be no
easy undertaking to prove criminal.

VOL.. II. 2

14 SUICIDE.

The true question in this argument is no other than
this: May every man who chooses to destroy his life,
innocently do so ? Limit and distinguish the subject
as you can, it will come at last to this question.

For shall we say, that we are then at liberty to
commit suicide when we find our continuance in life
become useless to mankind ? Any one who pleases
may make himself useless; and melancholy minds
are prone to think themselves useless, when they
really are not so. Suppose a law were promulgated,
allowing each private person to destroy every man he
met, whose longer continuance in the world he judged
to be useless; who would not condemn the latitude
of such a rule ? who does not perceive that it amounts
to a permission to commit murder at pleasure ? A
similar rule, regulating the right over our own lives,
•would be capable of the same extension. Beside
which, no one is useless for the purpose of this plea,
but he who has lost every capacity and opportunity
of being useful, together with the possibility of re-
covering any degree of either; which is a state of
such complete destitution and despair as cannot, I
believe, be predicated of any man living.

Or rather, shall we say, that to depart voluntarily
out of life is lawful for tiiose alone who leave none to
lament their death ? If this consideration is to be
taken into the account at all, the subject of debate
will be, not whether there are any to sorrow for us,
but whether their sorrow for our death will exceed that
which we should suffer by continuing to live. Now
this is a comparison of things so indeterminate in their
nature, capable of so different a judgment, and con-
cerning which the judgment will differ so much ac-
cording to the state of the spirits, or the pressure of
any present anxiety, that it would vary little, in hypo-
chondriacal constitutions, from an unqualified licence
to commit suicide, whenever Hie distresses which men
felt, or fancied, rose high enough to overcome the
pain and dread of death. Men are never tempted to
destroy themselves but when under the oppression of
*mne grievous uneasiness: the restrictions of the rule
therefore ought to apply to these cases. But what

SUICIDE. 15

effect can we look for from a rule which proposes to
weigh our pain against that of another; the misery
that is felt, against that which is only conceived; and
in so corrupt a balance as the party's own distemper-
ed imagination.

In like manner, whatever other rule you assign, it
will ultimately bring us to an indiscriminate toleration
of suicide, in all cases in which there is danger of its
being committed. It remains, therefore, to inquire
what would be the effect of such a toleration? evi-
dently the loss of many lives to the community, of
which some might be useful or important; the afflic-
tion of many families, and the consternation of all.
for mankind must live in continual alarm for the fate
of their friends and dearest relations, when the re-
straints of religion and morality are withdrawn; when
every disgust which is powerful enough to tempt
men to suicide, shall be deemed sufficient to justify it;
and when the follies and vices, as well as the inevita-
ble calamities of human life, so often make existence
a burden.

A second consideration, and perfectly distinct from
the former, is this: By continuing in the world, and
in the exercise of those virtues which remain within
our power, we retain the opportunity of meliorating
our condition in a future state. This argument, it is
true, does not in strictness prove suicide to be a
crime; but if it supply a motive to dissuade us from
committing it, it amounts to much the same thing.
Now there is no condition in human life which is not
capable of some virtue, active or passive. Even piety
and resignation under the sufferings to which we are
called, testify a trust and acquiescence in the Divine
counsels, more acceptable, perhaps, than the most
prostrate devotion ; afford an edifying example to all
who observe them; and may hope for a recompence
among the most arduous of human virtues. These
qualities are always in the power of the miserable;
indeed of none but the miserable.

The two considerations above stated belong to all
cases of suicide whatever* Besides which general
reasons, each case will be aggravated by its own pro-*

16 SUICIDE.

per and particular consequences; by the duties that
are deserted; by the claims that are defrauded; by
the loss, affliction, or disgrace, which our death, or the
manner of it, causes our family, kindred, or friends;
by the occasion we give to many to suspect the sin-
cerity of our moral and religious professions, and, to-
gether with ours, those of all others; by the reproach
we draw upon our order, calling, or sect; in a word,
by a great variety of evil consequences at tending upon
peculiar situations, with some or ether of which every
actual case of suicide is chargeable.

I refrain from the common topics of *' deserting our
post/' " throwing up our trust," "rushing uncalled
into the presence of our Maker,'* with some others of
the same sort, not because they are common (for that
rather affords a presumption in their favour,) but be-
cause I do not perceive in them much argument to
which an answer may not easily be given.

Hitherto we have pursued upon the subject the
light of nature alone; taking, however, into the ac-
count the expectation of a future existence, without
which our reasoning upon this, as indeed all reasoning
upon moral questions, is vain; we proceed to inquire,
whether any thing is to be met with in Scripture,
which may add to the probability of the conclusions
we have been endeavouring to support. And here I
acknowledge, that there is to be found neither any ex-
press determination of the question, nor sufficient evi-
dence to prove that the case of suicide was in the
contemplation of the law which prohibited murder.
Any inference, therefore, which we deduce from
Scripture can be sustained only by construction and
implication: that is to say, although they who were
authorized to instruct mankind have not decided a ques-
tion which never, so far as appears to us, came before
them; yet, I think, they have left enough to consti-
tute a presumption how they would have decided it,
had it been proposed or thought of.

"What occurs to this purpose is contained in the fol-
lowing observations.

1. Human life is spoken of as a term assigned or
prescribed to us: Let us run with patience the race

SUICIDE. 17

that is set before us." — " I have finished my course."
— " That I may finish my course with joy." — " Ye
have need of patience, that, after ye have done the
will of God, ye might receive the promise." — These
expressions appear to me inconsistent with the opi-
nion, that we are at liberty to determine the duration
of our lives for ourselves. If this were the case, with
what propriety could life be called a race that is set
before us ; or, which is the same thing, ** our course ;"
that is, the course Let out or appointed to us ? The
remaining quotation is equally strong; — " That, after
ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the
promise." The most natural meaning that can be
given to the words, " after ye have done the will of
God," is, after ye have discharged the duties of life so
long as God is pleased to continue you in it. Accord-
ing to which interpretation, the text militates strongly
against suicide: and they who reject this paraphrase,
will please to propose a better.

2. There is not one quality which Christ and his
apostles inculcate upon their followers so often, or so
earnestly, as that of patience under affliction. Now
this virtue would have been in a great measure super-
seded, and the exhortations to it might have been
spared, if the disciples of his religion had been at
liberty to quit the world as soon they grew weary
of the ill usage which they received in it. When the
evils of life pressed sore, they were to look forward to
a " far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory:"
they were to receive them as ** chastenings of the
Lord," as intimations of his care and love: by these
and the like reflections they were to support and im-
prove themselves under their sufferings: but not a
hint has any where escaped of seeking relief in a
voluntary death. The following text in particular,
strongly combats all impatience of distress, of which
the greatest is that which prompts to acts of suicide:
— " Consider him that endured such contradiction of
sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in
your mfnds." I would offer my comment upon this
passage, in these two queries: first, whether a Chris-
tian convert, who had been impelled by the continu-

VOLu II. 2 *

18 SUICIDE.

ance and urgency or his sufferings to destroy his own
life, would not have been thought by the author of
this text " to have been weary," to have " fainted in
his mind," to have fallen off from that example which
is here proposed to the meditation of Christians in
distress ? And yet, secondly, Whether such an act
would not have been attended with all the circum-
stances of mitigation which can excuse or extenuate
suicide at this day ?

3. The conduct of the apostles, and of the Chris-
tians of the apostolic age, affords no obscure indica-
tion of their sentiments upon this point. They lived,
we are sure, in a confirmed persuasion of the exist-
ence, as well as of the happiness, of a future state.
They experienced in this world every extremity of ex-
ternal injury and distress. To die was gain. The
change which death brought with it was, in their ex-
pectation, infinitely beneficial. Yet it never, that we
can find, entered into the intention of one of them to
hasten this change by an act of suicide; from which
it is difficult to say what motive could have so univer-
sally withheld them, except an apprehension of some
unlawfulness in the expedient.

Having stated what we have been able to collect in
opposition to the lawfulness of suicide, by way of
direct proof, it seems unnecessary to open a separate
controversy with all the arguments which are made
use of to defend it; which would only lead us into a
repetition of what has bctn offered already. The fol-
lowing argument, however, being somewhat more ar-
tificial and imposing than the rest, as well as distinct
from the general consideration of the subject, cannot
so properly be passed over. If we deny to the indi-
vidual a right over his own life, it seems impossible,
it is said, to reconcile with the law of nature that right
which the state claims and exercises over the lives of
its subjects, when it ordains or inflicts capital punish-
ments. For this right, like all other just authority in
the state, can only be derived from the compact and
virtual consent of the citizens which compose the
state; and it seems self evident, if any principle in
morality be so, that no one, by his consent, can trans-

SUICIDE. 19

fer to another a right which he does not possess him-
self. It will be equally difficult to account for the
power of the state to commit its subjects to the dan-
gers of war, and to expose their lives without scruple
in the field of battle; especially inoffensive hostilities,
in which the privileges of self defence cannot be
pleaded with any appearance of truth; and still more
difficult to explain how in such, or in any circum-
stances, prodigality of life can be a virtue, if the pre-
servation of it be a duty of our nature.

This whole reasoning sets out from one error,
namely, that the state acquires its right over the life
of the subject from the subject's own consent, as a
part of what originally and personally belonged to
himself, and which he has made over to his governors.
The truth is, the state derives this right neither from
the consent of the subject, nor through the medium
of that consent; but, as I may say, immediately from
the donation of the Deity. Finding that such a
power in the sovereign of the community is expedient,
if not necessary, for the community itself, it is justly
presumed to be the will of God, that the sovereign
should possess and exercise Jt. It is this presumption
which constitutes the right; it is the same indeed
which constitutes every other: and if there were the
like reasons to authorize the presumption in the case
of private persons, suicide would be as justifiable as
war or capital executions. But until it can be shown
that the power over human life may be converted to
the same advantage in the hands of individuals over
their own, as in those of the state over the lives of its
subjects, and that it may be intrusted with equal safety
to both, there is no room for arguing, from the exist-
ence of such a right in the latter, to the toleration of
it in the former.

BOOK V

DUTIES TOWARDS GOD.

CHAPTER I.

DIVISION OF THESE DUTIES

IN one sense, every duty is a duty towards God,
since it is his will which makes it a duty: but there
are some duties of which God is the object as well as
the author; and these are peculiarly, and in a more
appropriated sense, called duties towards God.

That silent piety, which consists in a habit of
tracing out the Creator's wisdom and goodness in the
objects around us, or in the history of his dispensa-
tions; of referring the blessings we enjoy to his
bounty, and of resorting in our distresses to his suc-
cour; may possibly be more acceptable to the Deity
than any visible expressions of devotion whatever.
Yet these latter (which although they may be ex-
celled, are not superseded, by the former) compose the
only part of the subject which admits of direction or
disquisition from a moralist.

Our duty towards God, so far as it is external, is
divided into worship and reverence. God is the im-
mediate object of both; and the difference between
them is, that the one consists in action, the other in
forbearance. When we go to church on the Lord's
day, led thither by a sense of duty towards God, we
perform an act of worship; when, from the same mo-
tive, we rest in a journey upon that day, we discharge
a duty )f reverence.

DUTY AND EFFICACY OF PRAYER. 21

Divine worship is made up of adoration, thanks-
giving, and prayer. — But, as what we have to offer
concerning the two former may be observed of prayer,
we shall make that the title of the following chapters,
and the direct subject of our consideration.

CHAPTER II.

OF THE DUTY AND OF THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER,
SO FAR AS THE SAME APPEAR FROM THE LIGHT
OF NATURE.

WHEN one man desires to obtain any thing of ano-
ther, he betakes himself to entreaty; and this may be
observed of mankind in all ages and countries of the
world. Now what is universal may be called natu-
ral; and it seems probable that God, as our supreme
governor, should expect that towards himself which,
by a natural impulse, or by the irresistable order of our
constitution, he has prompted us to pay to every other
being on whom we depend.

The same may be said of thanksgiving.

Prayer likewise is necessary to keep up in the minds
of mankind a sense of God's agency in the universe,
and of their own dependency upon him.

Yet, after all, the duty of prayer depends upon its
efficacy: for I confess myself unable to conceive, how
any man can pray, or be obliged to pray, who expects
nothing from his prayer; but who is persuaded, at
the time he utters his request, that it cannot possibly
produce the smallest impression upon the Being to
whom it is addressed, or advantage to himself. Now
the efficacy of prayer imports that we obtain some-
thing in consequence of praying, which we should not
have received without prayer; against all expectation
of which, the following objection has been often and
seriously alleged: — " If it be most agieeable to per-
fect wisdom and justice that we should receive what
we desire, God, as perfectly wise and just, will give it
to us without asking; if it be not agreeable to these

22 DUTY AND EFFICACY OF PRAYER

attributes of his nature, our entreaties cannot move
him to give it us, and it were impious to expect that
they should." In fewer words, thus: " If what we
request be fit for us, we shall have it without praying;
if it be not fit for us, we cannot obtain it by praying."
This objection admits but of one answer, namely, that
it may be agreeable to perfect wisdom to grant that to
our prayers which it would not have been agreeable
to the same wisdom to have given us without praying
for. But what virtue, you will ask, is there iu
prayer, which should make a favour consistent with
wisdom, which would not have been so without it ?
To this question, which contains the whole difficulty
attending the subject, the following possibilities are
offered in reply.

1. A favour granted to prayer may be more apt, on
that very account, to produce good effects upon the
person obliged. It may hold in the Divine bounty,
what experience has raised into a proverb in the colla-
tion of human benefits, that what is obtained without
asking, is oftentimes received without gratitude.

2. It may be consistent with the wisdom of the
Deity to withhold his favours till they be asked for, as
an expedient to encourage devotion in his rational cre-
ation, in order thereby to keep up and circulate a
knowledge and sense of their dependency upon him.

3. Prayer has a natural tendency to amend the
petitioner himself; and thus to bring him within the
rules which the wisdom of the Deity has prescribed to
the dispensation of his favours.

If these, or any other assignable suppositions, serve
to remove the apparent repugnancy between the suc-
cess of prayer and the character of the Deity, it u
enough; for the question with the petitioner is not,
from which, out of many motives, God may grant his
petition, or in what particular manner he is moved by
the supplications of his creatures; but whether it be
consistent with his nature to be moved at all, and whe-
ther there be any conceivable motives which may dis-
pose the Divine will to grant the petitioner what ho
wants, in consequence of his praying for it? It is suf-
ficient for the petitioner, that he gain his end. It is

DUTY AND EFFICACY OF PRAYED. 23

not necessary to devotion, perhaps not very consistent
with it, that the circuit of causes, by which his prayers
prevail, should be known to the petitioner, much less
that they should be present to his imagination at the
time. All that is necessary is, that there be no im
possibility apprehended in the matter.

Thus much must be conceded to the objoction that
prayer cannot reasonably be offered to God with all
the same views with which we oftentimes address our
entreaties to men (views which are not commonly or
easily separated from it,) viz. to inform them of our
wants and desires; to tease them out by importunity;
to work upon their indolence or compassion, in order
to persuade them to do what they ought to have done
before, or ought not to do at all.

But suppose there existed a prince, who was known
by his subjects to act, of his own accord, always and
invariably for the best; the situation of a petitioner,
who solicited a favour or pardon from such a prince,
would sufficiently resemble ours; and the question
with him, as with us, would be, whether the charac-
ter of the prince being considered, there remained any
chance that he should obtain from him by prayer
what he would not have received without it ? I do
not conceive that the character of such a prince would
necessarily exclude the effect of his subject's prayers,
for when that prince reflected, that the earnestness
and humility of the supplication had generated in the
suppliant a frame of mind, upon which the pardon or
favour asked would produce a permanent and active
sense of gratitude: that the granting of it to prayer
would put others upon praying to him, and by that
means preserve the love and submission of his sub-
jects, upon which love and submission their own hap
piness, as well as his glory, depended; that, beside
that the memory of the particular kindness would be
heightened and prolonged by the anxiety with which
it had been sued for, prayer had in other respects so
disposed and prepared the mind of the petitioner, as
to render capable of future services him who before
was unqualified for any: might not that prince, I
say, although he proceeded upon no other considers

24 DUTY AND EFFICACY OF PRAYBA.

tions than the strict rectitude and expediency of the
measure, grant a favour or pardon to this man, which
he did not grant to another, who was too proud, too
lazy, or busy, too indifferent whether he received it
or not, or too insensible of the sovereign's absolute
power to give or to withhold it, ever to ask for it ? or
even to th<* philosopher, who, from an opinion of the
fruitlessness of all addresses to a prince of the charac-
ter which he had formed to himself, refused in his
own example, and discouraged in others, all outward
returns of gratitude, acknowledgments of duty, or
application to the sovereign's mercy or bounty; the
disuse of which (seeing affections do not long subsist
which are never expressed) was followed by a decay
of loyalty and zeal amongst his subjects, and threat
ened to end in a forgetfulness of his rights, and a
contempt of his authority ? These, together with other
assignable considerations, and some perhaps inscru-
table, and even inconceivable, by the persons upon
whom his will was- to be exercised, might pass in the
mind of the prince, and move his counsels; whilst
nothing, in the mean time, dwelt in the petitioner's
thoughts, but a sense of his own grief and wants; of
the power and goodness from which alone he was to
look for relief; and of his obligation to endeavour, by
future obedience, to render that person propitious to
his happiness, in whose hands and at the disposal of
whose mercy he found himself to be.

The objection to prayer supposes, that a perfectly
wise being must necessarily be inexorable: but where
is the proof, that inexorability is any part of perfect
wisdom; especially of that wisdom which is explained
to consist in bringing about the most beneficial ends
by the wisest means ?

The objection likewise assumes another principle,
which is attended with considerable difficulty and ob
scurity* namely, that upon every occasion there is one,
and only one, mode of acting for the best ; and that
the Divine Will is necessarily determined and con-
fined to that mode: both which positions presume a
knowledge of universal nature, much beyond what
we are capable of attaining. Indeed, when we apply

DUTY AND EFFICACY OF PRAYER. 25

to the Divine Nature such expressions as these, " God
must always do what is right," " God cannot, from
the moral perfection and necessity of his nature, act
otherwise than for the best," we ought to apply them
with much indeterminateness and reserve; or rather,
we ought to confess, that there is something in the
subject out of the reach of our apprehension; for, in
our apprehension, to be under a necessity of acting
according to any rule, is inconsistent with free agency;
and it makes no difference which we can understand,
whether the necessity be internal or external, or that
the rule is the rule of perfect rectitude.

But efficacy is ascribed to prayer without the proof,
we are told, which can alone in such a subject pro-
duce conviction, — the confirmation of experience.
Concerning the appeal to experience, I shall content
myself with this remark, that if prayer were suffered
to disturb the order of second causes appointed in the
universe too much, or to produce its effects with the
same regularity that they do, it would introduce a
change into human affairs, which in some important
respects would be evidently for the worse. Who, for
example, would labour, if his necessities could be sup-
plied with equal certainty by prayer ? How few would
contain within any bounds of moderation those pas-
sions and pleasures, which at present are checked
only by disease, or the dread of it, if prayer would
infallibly restore health ? In short, if the efficacy of
prayer were so constant and observable as to be relied
upon beforehand, it is easy to foresee that the conduct
of mankind would, in proportion to that reliance, be-
come careless and disorderly. It is possible, in the
nature of things, that our prayers may, in many in-
stances, be efficacious, and yet our experience of their
efficacy be dubious and obscure. Therefore, if the
light of nature instruct us by any other arguments to
hope for effect from prayer; still more, if the Scrip-
tures authorize these hopes by promises of accept-
ance; it seems not a sufficient reason for calling in
question the reality of such effects, that our observa-
tions of them are ambiguous; especially since it ap-

VOL,. II. 3

26 DUTY AND EFFICACY OF PRAYER.

pears probable, that this very ambiguity is necessary
to the happiness and safety of human life.

But some, whose objections do not exclude all
prayer, are offended with the mode of prayer in use
amongst us, and with many of the subjects which are
almost universally introduced into public worship,
and recommended to private devotion. To pray for
particular favours by name, is to dictate, it has been
said, to Divine wisdom and goodness: to intercede for
others, especially for whole nations and empires, is
still worse; it is to presume that we possess such an
interest with the Deity, as to be able, by our applica-
tions, to bend the most important of his counsels; and
that the happiness of others, and even the prosperity
of communities, is to depend upon this interest, and
upon our choice. Now, how unequal soever our
knowledge of the Divine economy may be to the so-
lution of this difficulty, which requires perhaps a com-
prehension of the entire plan, and of all the ends of
God's moral government, to explain satisfactorily, we
can understand one thing concerning it, — that it is,
after all, nothing more than the making of one man
the instrument of happiness and misery to another;
which is perfectly of a piece with the course and order
that obtain, and which we must believe were intended
to obtain in human affairs. Why may we not be
assisted by the prayers of other men, who are beholden
for our support to their labour ? Why may not our
happiness be made in some cases to depend upon the
intercession, as it certainly does in many upon the
good offices, of our neighbours ? The happiness and
misery of great numbers we see oftentimes at the dis-
posal of one man's choice, or liable to be much affected
by his conduct; what greater difficulty is there in
supposing that the prayers of an individual may avert
a calamity from multitudes, or be accepted to the
benefit of whole communities?

DUTY AND EFFICACY OF PRAYER. 27

CHAPTER III.

OF THE DUTY AND EFFICACY OF PRAYER AS RE-
PRESENTED IN SCRIPTURE.

THE reader will have observed, that the reflections
stated in the preceding chapter, whatever truth and
weight they may be allowed to contain, rise many
of them no higher than to negative arguments in fa-
vour of the propriety of addressing prayer to God.
To prove that the efficacy of prayers is not inconsis-
tent with the attributes of the Deity does not prove
that prayers are actually efficacious: and in the want
of that unequivocal testimony which experience alone
could afford to this point (but which we do not pos-
sess, and have seen good reason why we are not to
expect,) the light of nature leaves us to controverted
probabilities, drawn from the impulse by which man-
kind have been almost universally prompted to devo-
tion, and from some beneficial purposes, which, it is
conceived, may be better answered by the audience
of prayer than any other mode of communicating
the same blessings. The Revelations which we deem
authentic completely supply this defect of natural
religion. They require prayer to God as a duty;
and they contain positive assurance of its efficacy and
acceptance. We could have no reasonable motive
for the exercise of prayer, without believing that it
may avail to the relief of our wants. This belief can
only be founded, either in a sensible experience of the
effect of prayer, or in promises of acceptance signified
by divine authority. Our knowledge would have
come to us in the former way, less capable indeed of
doubt, but subjected to the abuses and inconveniences
briefly described above; in the latter way, that is, by
authorized significations of God's general disposition
to hear an.d answer the devout supplications of his
creatures, we are encouraged to pray, but not to place
such a dependence upon prayer as might relax other
obligations, or confound the order of events and of
human expectations.

28 DUTY AND EFFICACY OF PRAYER.

The Scriptures not only affirm the propriety of
pra.yer in general, but furnish precepts or examples
which justify some topics and some modes of prayer
that have been thought exceptionable. And as the
whole subject rests so much upon the foundation of
Scripture, I shall put down at length texts applicable
to the five following heads: to the duty and efficacy
of prayer in general; of prayer for particular favours
byname; for public national blessings; of intercession
for others; of the repetition of unsuccessful prayers.

1. Texts enjoining prayer in general: " Ask, and
it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find. — If ye,
being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your
children, how much more shall your Father, which is
in heaven, give good things to them that ask him ?"--
" Watch ye, therefore and pray always., that ye may
be accounted worthy to escape all those things that
shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of
man." — " Serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, patient
in tribulation, continuing instant in prayer." — " Be
careful for nothing, but in every thing by prayer and
supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be
made known unto God." — '* I will, therefore, that
men pray every ivhere, lifting up holy hands without
wrath and doubting." — " Pray without ceasing."
Matt. vii. 7. 11; Luke, xxi. 36; Rom. xii. 12; Phi-
lip, iv. 6; 1 Thess. v. 17; 1 Tim. ii. 8. Add to
these, that Christ's reproof of the ostentation and pro-
lixity of pharisaical prayers, and his recommendation
to his disciples, of retirement and simplicity in theirs,
together with his dictating a particular form of prayer,
all presuppose prayer to be an acceptable and availing
service.

2. Examples of prayer for particular favours by
name: " For this thing" (to wit, some bodily infir-
mity, which he calls ' a thorn given him in the flesh')
" I besought the Lord thrice that it might depart
from me." — " Night and day praying exceedingly,
that we might sec your face, and perfect that which
is lacking in your faith." 2 Cor. xii. 8 ; 1 Thess.
iii. 10.

3. Directions to pray Jor national or public bless-

DUTY AND EFFICACY OF PRAYER. 29

ings: " Pray for the peace of Jerusalem :" — "Ask
ye of the Lord rain in the time of the latter rain; so
the Lord shall make bright clouds, and give them
showers of rain, to every one grass in the field/' — •
" I exhort, therefore, that first of all, supplications,
prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made
for all men; for kings, and for all that are in autho-
rity, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, in
all godliness and honesty: for this is good arid accept-
able in the sight of God our Saviour." Psalm cxxii.
6; Zech.x. 1; 1 Tim. ii. 1, 2, 3.

4. Examples of intercession, and exhortations to
intercede for others: — '* And Moses besought the
Lord his God, and said, Lord, why doth thy wrath
wax hot against thy people ? Remember Abraham,
Isaac, and Israel, thy servants. And the Lord repented
of the evil which he thought to do unto his people."
— " Peter, therefore, was kept in prison; but prayer
was made without ceasing of the church unto God
for him." — "For God is my witness, that without
ceasing I make mention of you always in my pray-
ers."— " Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord
Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that
ye strive together with me, \nyQ\\\- prayers for me."
— " Confess your faults one to another, and prati one
for another, that ye may be healed: the effectual fer-
vent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." Exod.
xxxii. 11; Acts, xii. 5; Rom. i. 9, xv. 30; James,
v. 16.

5. Declarations and examples authorizing the repe-
tition of unsuccessful prayer: " And he spake a para-
ble unto them, to this end, that men ought always to
pray and not to faint." — " And he left them, and went
away again, and prayed the third time, saying the
same words." — " For this thing I besought the Lord
thrice, that it might depart from me." Luke, xviii. 1 ,
Matt, xxvi 44; 2 Cor. xii. 8.*

* The reformed Churches of Christendom, sticking close
in this article to their guide, have laid aside prayers for the
dead, as authorized by no precept or precedent found in
Scripture. For the same reason they properly reject the in-

VOL,. II. 3 *

80 PRIVATE PRATER, &C.

CHAPTER IV.

OF PRIVATE PRAYER, FAMILY PRAYER, AND PUB
LIC WORSHIP.

CONCERNING these three descriptions of devotion,
it is first of all to be observed, that each has its sepa-
rate and peculiar use; and therefore, that the exercise
of one species of worship, however regular it be, does
not supersede or dispense with the obligation of either
of the other two.

1. Private prayer is recommended for the sake of
the following advantages* —

Private wants cannot always be made the subject
of public prayer; but whatever reason there is for
praying at all, there is the same for making the sore
and grief of each man's own heart the business of his
application to God. This must be the office of pri-
vate exercises of devotion, being imperfectly, if at all,
practicable in any other.

Private prayer is generally more devout and earnest
than the share we are capable of taking in joint acts
of worship; because it affords leisure and opportu-
nity for the circumstantial recollection of those per-
sonal wants, by the remembrance and ideas of which
the warmth and earnestness of prayer are chiefly
excited.

Private prayer, in proportion as it is usually accom-
panied with more actual thought and reflection of the
petitioner's own, has a greater tendency than other
modes of devotion to revive and fasten upon the mind
the general impressions of religion. Solitude power-
fully assists this effect. When a man finds himself
alone in communication with his Creator, his imagi-

vocation of saints ; as also because such invocations suppose,
in the saints whom they address, a knowledge which can per-
ceive what passes in different regions of the earth at the same
time. And they deem it too much to take for granted, with-
out the smallest intimation of such a thing in Scripture, that
any created being possesses a faculty little short of that om-
niscence and omnipresence which they ascribe to the Deity

PRIVATE PRAYER, &C. 31

nation becomes filled with a conflux of awful ideas
concerning the universal agency and invisible pre-
sence of I hat Being; concerning what is likely to be-
come of himself; and of the superlative importance
of providing for the happiness of his future existence,
by endeavours to please him who is the arbiter of his
destiny: reflections which, whenever they gain admk-
tance, for a season overwhelm all others; and leave,
when they depart, a solemnity upon the thoughts that
will seldom fail, in some degree, to affect the conduct
of life.

Private prayer, thus recommended by its own pro-
priety, and by advantages not attainable in any form
of religious communion, receives a superior sanction
from the authority and example of Christ: "When
thou prayest, enter into thy closet; and when thou
hast shut the door, pray to thy Father, which is in
secret; and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall
reward thee openly." — " And when he had sent the
multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart
to pray." Matt. vi. 6: xiv. 23.

2. Family prayer.

The peculiar use of family piety consists in its in-
fluence upon servants, and the young members of a
family, who want sufficient seriousness and reflection
to retire of their own accord to the exercise of private
devotion, and whose attention you cannot easily com-
mand in public worship. The example also and au-
thority of a father and master act in this way with
the greatest force; for his private prayers, to which
his children and servants are not witnesses, act not at
all upon them as examples; and his attendance upon
public worship they will readily impute to fashion, to
a care to preserve appearances, to a concern for de-
cency and character, and to many motives besides a
sense of duty to God. Add to this, that forms of
public worship, in proportion as they are more com-
prehensive, are always less interesting than family
prayers; and that the ardour of devotion is better
supported, and the sympathy more easily propagated,
through a small assembly, connected by the affections

82 PRIVATE PRAYER, &C.

of domestic society, than in the presence of a mixed
congregation.

3. Public worship.

If the worship of God be a duty of religion, public
worship is a necessary institution; forasmuch as, with-
out it, the greater part of mankind would exercise no
religious worship at all.

These assemblies afford also, at the same time, op-
portunities for moral and religious instruction to those
who otherwise would receive none. In all protestant,
and in most Christian countries, the elements of natural
religion and the important parts of the Evangelic his-
tory are familiar to the lowest of the people. This
competent degree and general diffusion of religious
knowledge amongst all orders of Christians, which will
appear a great thing when compared with the intel-
lectual condition of barbarous nations, can fairly, I
think, be ascribed to no other cause than the regular
establishment of assemblies for divine worship; in
which, either portions of Scripture are recited and
explained, or the principles of Christian erudition are
so constantly taught in sermons, incorporated with
liturgies, or expressed in extempore prayer, as to im-
print, by the very repetition, some knowledge and
memory of these subjects upon the most unqualified
and careless hearer.

The two reasons above stated bind all the members
of a community to uphold public worship by their
presence and example, although the helps and oppor-
tunities which it affords may not be necessary to the
devotion or edification of all; and to some may be
useless; for it is easily foreseen, how soon religious
assemblies would fall into contempt and disuse, if
that class of mankind who are above seeking instruc-
tion in them, and want not that their own piety should
be assisted by either forms or society in devotion, were
to withdraw their attendance; especially when it is
considered, that all who please are at liberty to rank
themselves of this class. This argument meets the
only serious apology that can be made for the absent-
ing of ourselves from public worship. " Surely (some
will say) I may be excused from going to church, so

PRIVATE PRATER, &C. S3

long as I pray at home ; and have no reason to doubt
that my prayers are as acceptable and efficacious in
my closet as in a cathedral; still less can I think
myself obliged to sit out a tedious sermon, in order to
hear what is known already, what is better learnt from
books, or suggested by meditation." They, whose
qualifications and habits best supply to themselves all
the effect of public ordinances, will be the last to prefer
this excuse, when they advert to the general conse-
quence of setting up such an exemption, as well as
when they consider the turn which is sure to be given
in the neighbourhood to their absence from public
worship. You stay from church, to employ the Sab-
bath at home in exercises and studies suited to its
proper business: your next neighbour stays from
church to spend the seventh day less religiously than
he passed any of the six, in a sleepy, stupid rest, or
at some rendezvous of drunkenness and debauchery,
and yet thinks that he is only imitating you, because
you both agree in not going to church. The same
consideration should overrule many small scruples con-
cerning the rigorous propriety of some things, which
may be contained in the forms, or admittecf into the
administration of the public worship of our commu-
nion: for it seems impossible that even " two or three
should be gathered together" in any act of social
worship, if each one require from the rest an implicit
submission to his objections, and if no man will attend
upon a religious service which in any point contradicts
his opinion of truth, or falls short of his ideas of per-
fection.

Besides the direct necessity of public worship to the
greater part of every Christian community (supposing
worship at all to be a Christian duty,) there are other
valuable advantages growing out of the use of re-
ligious assemblies, without being designed in the in-
stitution, or thought of by the individuals who com-
pose them.

1. Joining in prayer and praises to their common
Creator and Governor has a sensible tendency to unite
mankind together, and to cherish and enlarge the
generous affections.

84 PRIVATE PRAYER, &C.

So many pathetic reflections are awakened by every
exercise of social devotion, that most men, I believe,
carry away from public worship a better temper towards
the rest of mankind, than they brought with them.
Sprung from the same extraction, preparing together
for the period of all worldly distinctions, reminded of
their mutual infirmities and common dependency, im-
ploring and receiving support and supplies from the
same great source of power and bounty, having all one
interest to secure, one Lord to serve, one judgment, the
supreme object to all of their hopes and fears, to look
towards; it is hardly possible, in this position, to be-
hold mankind as strangers, competitors, or enemies;
or not to regard them as children of the same family,
assembled before their common parent, and with some
portion of the tenderness which belongs to the most
endearing of our domestic relations. It is not to be
expected, that any single effect of this kind should be
considerable or lasting; but the frequent return of
such sentiments as the presence of a devout congre-
gation naturally suggest will gradually melt down
the ruggedness of many unkind passions, and may
generate in time, a permanent and productive bene-
volence.

2. Assemblies for the purpose of divine worship,
placing men under impressions by which they are
taught to consider their relation to the Deity, and to
contemplate those around them with a view to that
relation, force upon their thoughts the natural equality
of the human species, and thereby promote humility
and condescension in the highest orders of the com-
munity, and inspire the lowest with a sense of their
rights. The distinctions of civil life arc almost always
insisted upon too much, and urged too far. What-
ever, therefore, conduces to restore the level, by qua-
lifying the dispositions which grow out of great eleva-
tion or depression of rank, improves the character on
both sides. Now things are made to appear little, by
being placed beside what is great. In which manner,
superiorities that occupy the whole field of imagina-
tion will vanish, or shrink to their proper diminutive-
ness, when compared with the distance by which

PRIVATE PRAYER, &C. 35

even the highest of men are removed from the SIN
preme Being; and this comparison is naturally intro-
duced by ali acts of joint worship. If ever the poor
man holds up his head, it is at church; if ever the
rich man views him with respect, it is there: and both
will be the better, and the public profited, the oftener
they meet in a situation, in which the consciousness of
dignity in the one is tempered and mitigated, and the
spirit of the other erected and conlirmed. We recom-
mend nothing adverse to subordinations which are
established and necessary; but then it should be re-
membered, that subordination itself is an evil, being
an evil to the subordinate, who are the majority, and
therefore ought not to be carried a tittle beyond what
the greater good, the peaceable government of the
community, requires.

The public worship of Cnristians is a duty of Divine
appointment. " Where t\vo or three," says Christ,
" are gathered together in my name, there arn I in
the midst of them."* This invitation will want
nothing of the force of a command with those who
respect the person and authority from which it pro-
ceeds. Again, in the Epistle to the Hebrews: " Not
forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the
manner of some is;"t which reproof seems as applica-
ble to the desertion of our public worship at this day,
as to the forsaking the religious assemblies of Chris-
tians in the age of the Apostle. Independently of
these passages of Scripture, a disciple of Christianity
will hardly think himself at liberty to dispute a prac-
tice set on foot by the inspired preachers of his reli-
gion, coeval with its institution, and retained by every
sect into which it has been since divided.

* Matt, xviii. 20. f Heb. x. 25

FORMS OF PRAYEH.

CHAPTER V.

OF FORMS OF PRAYER IN PUBLIC WORSHIP.

LITURGIES, or preconcerted forms, of public devo-
tion, being neither enjoined in Scripture, nor forbidden,
there can be no good reason for either receiving or
rejecting them, but that of expediency; which expe-
diency is to be gathered from a comparison of the
advantages and disadvantages attending upon this
mode of worship, with those which usually accom-
pany extemporary prayer.

The advantages of a liturgy are these:

1. That it prevents absurd, extravagant, or impious
addresses to God, which, in an order of men so nu-
merous as the sacerdotal, the folly and enthusiasm of
many must always be in danger of producing, where
the conduct of the public worship is intrusted, without
restraint or assistance, to the discretion and abilities
of the officiating minister.

2. That it prevents the confusion of extemporary
prayer, in which the congregation being ignorant of
each petition before they hear it, and having little or
no time to join in it after they have heard it, are con-
founded between their attention to the minister and to
their own devotion. The devotion of the hearer is
necessarily suspended until a petition be concluded;
and before he can assent to it, or properly adopt it,
that is, before he can address the same request to God
for himself and from himself, his attention is called
off to keep pace with what succeeds. Add to this,
that the rnind of the hearer is held in continual expec-
tation, and detained from its proper business, by the
very novelty with which it is gratified. A congrega-
tion may be pleased and affected with the prayers
and devotion of their minister, without joining in them;
in like manner as an audience oftentimes are with
the representation of devotion upon the stage, who,
nevertheless, come away without being conscious of
having exercised any act of devotion themselves. Joint
prayer, which amongst all denominations of Christians

FORMS OF PRAYER.

37

is the declared design of " coming together," is prayer
in which all join ; and not that which one alone in
the congregation conceives and delivers, and of which
the rest are merely hearers. This objection seems
fundamental, and holds even where the minister's
office is discharged with every possible advantage and
accomplishment. The labouring recollection, and
embarrassed or tumultuous delivery, of many extem-
pore speakers, form an additional objection to this
mode of public worship: for these imperfections are
very general, and give great pain to the serious part
of a congregation, as well as afford a profane diversion
to the levity of the other part.

These advantages of a liturgy are connected with
two principal inconveniencies: first, that forms of
prayer composed in one age become unfit for another,
by the unavoidable change of language, circumstances,
and opinions; secondly, that the perpetual repetition
of the same form of words produces weariness and
inattentiveness in the congregation. However, both
these inconveniencies are in their nature vincible
Occasional revisions of a liturgy may obviate the first,
and devotion will supply a remedy for the second: or
they may both subsist in a considerable degree, and
yet be outweighed by the objections which are inse-
parable from extemporary prayer.

The Lord's Prayer is a precedent, as well as a pat-
tern, for forms of prayer. Our Lord appears, if not
to have prescribed, at least to have authorized, the
use of fixed forms, when he complied with the request
of the disciple who said unto him, " Lord, teach us to
pray, as John also taught his disciples." Luke, xi. 1.

The properties required in a public liturgy are, that
it be compendious; that it express just conceptions of
the Divine Attributes; that it recite such wants as a
congregation are linely to feel, and no other; and
that it contain as few controverted propositions as
possible.

1. That it be compendious.

It were no difficult task to contract the liturgies of
most churches into half their present compass, and
yet retain every distinct petition, as well as the sub-

VOL,. n. 4

38 FORMS OF PRAYER.

stance of every sentiment, which can be found in
them. But brevity may be studied too much. The
composer of a liturgy must not sit down to his work
with the hope, that the devotion of the congregation
will be uniformly sustained throughout, or that every
part will be attended to by every hearer. If this could
be depended upon, a very short service would be suf-
ficient for every purpose that can be answered or de-
signed by social worship: but seeing the attention of
most men is apt to wander and return at intervals,
and by starts, he will admit a certain degree of am-
plification and repetition, of diversity of expression
upon the same subject, and variety of phrase and
form with little addition to the sense, to the end that
the attention which has been slumbering or absent
during one part of the service, may be excited and
recalled by another; and the assembly kept togethei
until it may reasonably be presumed, that the most
heedless and inadvertent have performed some act of
devotion, and the most desultory attention been caught
by some part or other of the public service. On the
other hand, the too great length of church services is
more unfavourable to piety, than almost any fault of
composition can be. It begets, in many, an early
and unconquerable dislike to the public worship of
their country or communion. They come to church
seldom; and enter the doors, when they do come,
under the apprehension of a tedious attendance, which
they prepare for at the first, or soon after relieve, by
composing themselves to a drowsy forgetfulness of the
place and duty, or by sending abroad their thoughts
in search of more amusing occupation. Although
there may be some few of a disposition not to be
wearied with religious exercises; yet, where a ritual
is prolix, and the celebration of divine service long,
no effect is in general to be looked for, but that indo-
lence will find in it an excuse, and piety be discon-
certed by impatience.

The lengtli and repetitions complained of in our
liturgy are not so much the fault of the compilers, as
the effect of uniting into one service what v, as origi-
nally, but with very little regard to the convenicncy

FORMS OF PRAYER.

of the people, distributed into three. Notwithstand-
ing that dread of innovations in religion, which seems
to have become the panic of the age, few, I should
suppose, would be displeased with such omissions,
abridgments, or change in the arrangement, as the
combination of separate services must necessarily re-
quire, even supposing each to have been faultless in
itself. If, together with these alterations, the Epis-
tles and Gospels, and Collects which precede them,
were composed and selected with more regard to
unity of subject and design; and the Psalms and
Lessons either left to the choice of the minister, or
better accommodated to the capacity of the audience,
and the edification of modern life; the church of
England would be in possession of a liturgy, in which
those who assent to her doctrines would have little to
blame, and the most dissatisfied must acknowledge
many beauties. The style throughout is excellent;
calm, without coldness; and, though every where se-
date, oftentimes affecting. The pauses in the service
are disposed at proper intervals. The transitions
from one office of devotion to another, from confession
to prayer, from prayer to thanksgiving, from thanks-
giving to *« hearing of the word," are contrived, like
scenes in the drama, to supply the mind with a suc-
cession of diversified engagements. As much variety
is introduced also in the form of praying, as this kind
of composition seems capable of admitting. The
prayer at one time is continued; at another, broken
by responses, or cast into short alternate ejaculations:
and sometimes the congregation is called upon to take
its share in the service, by being left to complete a
sentence which the minister had begun. The enu-
meration of human wants and sufferings in the Litany
is almost complete. A Christian petitioner can have
few things to ask of God, or to deprecate, which he
will not find there expressed, and for the most part
with inimitable tenderness and simplicity.

2. That it express just conceptions of the Divine
Attributes.

This is an article in which no care can be too great.
The popular notions of God are formed, in a great

40 FORMS OF PRAYER.

measure, from the accounts which the people receive
of his nature and character in their religious assemblies.
An error here becomes the error of multitudes: and
as it is a subject in which almost every opinion leads
the way to some practical consequence, the purity or
depravation of public manners will bo affected, amongst
other causes, by the truth or corruption of the public
forms of worship.

3. That it recite such wants as the congregation are
likely to feel, and no other.

Of forms of prayer which offend not egregiously
against truth and decency, that has the most merit
which is best calculated to keep alive the devotion
of the assembly. It wrere to be wished, therefore,
that every part of a liturgy were personally applicable
to every individual in the congregation; and that no-
thing were introduced to interrupt the passion, or
damp the flame, which it is not easy to rekindle. Upon
this principle, the state prayers in our liturgy should
be fewer and shorter. Whatever may be pretended,
the congregation do not feel that concern in the sub-
ject of these prayers, which must be felt ere ever pray-
ers be made to God with earnestness. The state style
likewise seems unseasonably introduced into these
prayers, as ill according with that annihilation of
human greatness, of which every act that carries the
mind to God presents the idea.

4. That it contain as few controverted propositions
as possible.

We allow to each church the truth of its peculiar
tenets, and all the importance which zeal can ascribe
to them. We dispute not here the right or the expe-
diency of framing creeds, or of imposing subscriptions.
But why should every position which a church main-
tains be woven with so much industry into her forms
of public worship ? Some are offended, and some are
excluded: this is an evil of itself, at least to them ,
and what advantage or satisfaction can be derived to
the rest, from the separation of their brethren, it is
difficult to imagine; unless it were a duty to publish
our system of polemic divinity, under the name of
making confession of our faith, every time we worship

SABBATICAL INSTITUTIONS. 41

God; or a sin to agree in religious exercises with
those from whom we differ in some religious opinions.
Indeed, where one man thinks it his duty constantly
to worship a being, whom another cannot, with the
assent of his conscience, permit himself to worship at
all, there seems to be no place for comprehension, or
any expedient left but a quiet secession. All other
differences may be compromised by silence. If sects
and schemes be an evil, they are as much to be
avoided by one side as the other. If sectaries are blam-
ed for taking unnecessary offence, established churches
are no less culpable for unnecessarily giving it; they
are bound at least to produce a command, or a rea-
son of equivalent utility, for shutting out any from
their communion, by mixing with divine worship doc-
trines which, whether true or false, are unconnected
in their nature with devotion.

CHAPTER VI.

OF THE USE OF SABBATICAL, INSTITUTIONS.

AN assembly cannot be collected, unless the time
of assembling be fixed and known beforehand: and if
the design of the assembly require that it be holden
frequently, it is easiest that it should return at stated
intervals. This produces a necessity of appropriating
set seasons to the social offices of religion. It is also
highly convenient that the same seasons be observed
throughout the country, that all may be employed, or
all at leisure, together; for if the recess from worldly
occupation be not general, one man's business will
perpetually interfere with another man's devotion;
the buyer will be calling at the shop when the seller
is gone to church. This part, therefore, of the reli-
gious distinction of seasons, namely a general intermis-
sion of labour and business during times previously
set apart for the exercise of public worship, is found-
ed in the reasons which make public worship itself a

VOL.. II. 4 *

42 SABBATICAL, INSTITUTIONS.

duty. But the celebration of divine service never oc-
cupies the whole day. What remains, therefore, of
Sunday, beside the part of it employed at church,
must be considered as a mere rest from the ordinary
occupations of civil life: and he who would defend
the institution, as it is required by law to be observed
in Christian countries, unless he can produce a com-
mand for a Christian Sabbath, must point out the
uses of it in that view. (

First, then, that interval of relaxation which Sun-
day affords to the laborious part of mankind, contri-
butes greatly to the comfort and satisfaction of their
lives, both as it refreshes them for the time, and as it
relieves their six days' labour by the prospect of a day
of rest always approaching; which could not be said
of casual indulgences of leisure and rest, even were
they more frequent than there is reason to expect they
would be, if left to the discretion or humanity of inter
ested task-masters. To this difference it may be add-
ed, that holidays, which come seldom and unexpected,
are unprovided, wrhen they do come, with any duty
or employment; and the manner of spending their
being regulated by no public decency or established
usage, they are commonly consumed in rude, if nol
criminal pastimes, in stupid sloth, or brutish intern
perance. Whoever considers how much sabbatical in-
stitutions conduce, in this respect, to the happiness
and civilization of the labouring classes of mankind,
and reflects how great a majority of the human species
these classes compose, will acknowledge the utility,
whatever he may believe of the origin, of this distinc-
tion ; and will consequent! v perceive it to be every man's
duty to uphold the observation of Sunday, when once
established, let the establishment have proceeded from
whom or from what authority it will.

Nor is there any tiling lost to the community by
the intermission of public industry one day in the
week. For, in countries tolerably advanced in popu-
lation, and the arts of civil life, there is always enough
of human labour, and to spare. The difficulty is not
so much to procure as to employ it. The addition
of the seventh dav's labour to that of the other six

SABBATICAL INSTITUTIONS. 43

would have no other effect than to reduce the price.
The labourer himself, who deserved and suffered most
by the change, would gam nothing.

2. Sunday, by suspending many public diversions
and the ordinary rotation of employment, leaves to
men of all ranks and professions sufficient leisure,
and not more than what is sufficient, both for the ex-
ternal offices of Christianity, and the retired, but
equally necessary duties of religious meditation and
inquiry. It is true, that many do not convert their
leisure to this purpose; but it is of moment, and is all
which a public constitution can effect, that every one
be allowed the opportunity.

3. They, whose humanity embraces the whole sen-
sitive creation, will esteem it no inconsiderable recom-
mendation of a weekly return of public rest, that it
affords a respite to the toil of brutes. Nor can we
omit to recount this among the uses which the Divine
Founder of the Jewish Sabbath expressly appointed a
law of the institution.

We admit, that none of these reasons show why
Sunday should be preferred to any other day in the
week, or one day in seven to one day in six, or eight*
but these points, which in their nature are of arbitrary
determination, being established to our hands, our
obligation applies to the subsisting establishment, so
long as we confess that some such institution is neces-
sary, and are neither able, nor attempt to substitute
any other in its place.

CHAPTER VII.

OF THE SCRIPTURE ACCOUNT OF SABBATICAL
INSTITUTIONS.

THE subject, so far as it makes any part of Chris-
tian morality, is contained in two questions: —

1. Whether the command, by which the Jewish
Sabbath was instituted, extends to Christians ?

44 SABBATICAL, INSTITUTIONS.

2. Whether any new command was delivered by
Christ; or any other day substituted in the place of
the Jewish Sabbath by the authority or example of
his apostles ?

In treating of the first question, it will be necessary
to collect the accounts which are preserved of the
institution in the Jewish history: for the seeing these
accounts together, and in one point of view, will be
the best preparation for the discussing or judging of
any arguments on one side or the other.

In the second chapter of Genesis, the historian
having concluded his account of the six days' crea-
tion, proceeds thus: " And on the seventh day God
ended his work which he had made: and God blessed
the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it he
had rested from all his work which God created and
made." After this we hear no more of the sabbath,
or of the seventh day, as in any manner distinguished
from the other six, until the history brings us down
to the sojourning of the Jews in the wilderness, when
the following remarkable passage occurs. Upon the
complaint of the people for want of food, God was
pleased to provide for their relief by a miraculous
supply of manna, which was found every morning
upon the ground about the camp; " and they gathered
it every morning, every man according to his eating:
and when the sun waxed hot, it melted: and it came
to pass, that on the sixth day they gathered twice as
much bread, two omers for one man: and all the
rulers of the congregation came and told Moses: and
he said unto them, This is that which the Lord hath
said, To-morrow is the rest of the holy sabbath unto
the Lord; bake that which ye will bake, to-day, and
seethe that ye will seethe; and that which remaineth
over, lay up for you, to be kept until the morning.
And they laid it up till the morning, as Moses bade;
and it did not stink [as it had done before, when
some of them left it till the morning,] neither was
there any worm therein. And Moses said, Eat that
to-day; for to-day is a sabbath unto the Lord ; to-day
ye shall not find it in the field. Six days ye shall
gather it, but on the seventh day, which is the sab-

SABBATIC A L INSTITUTIONS. 45

bath, in it there shall be none And it came to pass,
that there went out some of the people on the seventh
day for to gather, and they found none. And the
Lord said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep
my commandments and my laws ? See, for that the
Lord hath given you the sabbath, therefore that he
giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days:
abide ye every man in his place; let no man go out
of his place on the seventh day. So the people rested
on the seventh day." Exodus, xvi.

Not long after this, the sabbath, as is well known,
was established with great solemnity, in the fourth
commandment.

Now, in my opinon, the transaction in the wilder-
ness above recited was the first actual institution of
the sabbath. For if the sabbath had been instituted
at the time of the creation, as the words in Genesis
may seem at first sight to import; and if it had been
observed all along from that time to the departure of
the Jews out of Egypt, a period of about two thousand
five hundred years; it appears unaccountable that no
mention of it, no occasion of even the obscurest allu-
sion to it should occur, either in the general history
of the world before the call of Abraham, which con-
tains, we admit, only a few memoirs of its early ages,
and those extremely abridged; or, which is more to
be wondered at, in that of the lives of the first three
Jewish patriarchs, which in many parts of the account
is sufficiently circumstantial and domestic. Nor is
there in the passage above quoted from the sixteenth
chapter of Exodus, any intimation that the sabbath,
when appointed to be observed, was only the revival of
an ancient institution, which had been neglected, for-
gotten, or suspended; nor is any such neglect imputed
either to the inhabitants of the old world, or to any
part of the family of Noah; nor, lastly, is any per-
mission recorded to dispense with the institution
during the captivity of the Jews in Egypt, or on any
other public emergency.

The passage in the second chapter of Genesis,
which creates the whole controversy upon the subject,
is not inconsistent with this opinion: for, as the seventh

46 SABBATICAL INSTITUTIONS.

day was erected into a sabbath, on account of God'9
resting upon that day from the work of the creation,
it was natural enough in the historian, when he had
related the history of the creation, and of God's ceas-
ing from it on the seventh day, to add: " And God
blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it, because
that on it he had rested from all his work which God
created and made;" although the blessing and sanc-
tification, i. e. the religious distinction and appropria-
tion of that day, were not actually made till many
ages afterwards. The words do not assert that God
then " blessed" and " sanctified" the seventh day, but
that he blessed and sanctified it for that reason ; and
if any ask, why the sabbath, or sanctification of the
seventh day, was then mentioned, if it was not then
appointed, the answer is at hand: the order of con-
nexion, and not of time, introduced the mention of the
sabbath, in the history of the subject which it was
ordained to commemorate.

This interpretation is strongly supported by a pas-
sage in the prophet Ezekiel, where the sabbath is
plainly spoken of as given (and what else can that
mean, but as first instituted!) in the wilderness.
" Wherefore I caused them to go forth out of the land
of Egypt, and brought them into the wilderness: and
I gave them my statutes and showed them my judg-
ments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them:
moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign
between me and them, that they might know that I
am the Lord that sanctify them." Ezek. xx. 10,
11, 12.

Nehemiah also recounts the promulgation of the
sabbatic law amongst the transactions in the wilder-
ness: which supplies another considerable argument
in aid of our opinion: — " Moreover, thou leddest them
in the day by a cloudy pillar, and in the night by a
pillar of fire, to give them light in the way wherein
they should go. Thou earnest down also upon Mount
Sinai, and spakcst with them from heaven, and gavest
them right judgments and true laws, good statutes
and commandments; and madest known unto them
thy holy sabbath ; and commandedst them precepts,

SABBATICAL INSTITUTIONS. 47

statutes, and laws by the hand of Moses thy servant;
and gavest them bread from heaven for their hunger,
and broughtest forth water for them out of the rock."*
Nehem. ix. 12.

If it be inquired what duties were appointed for the
Jewish sabbath, and under what penalties and in what
manner it was observed amongst the ancient Jews;
we find that, by the fourth commandment, a strict
cessation from work was enjoined, not only upon Jews
by birth or religious profession, but upon all who re-
sided within the limits of the Jewish state; that the
same was to be permitted to their slaves and their
cattle; that this rest was not to be violated under pain
of death: ** Whosoever doeth any work in the sab-
bath day, he shall surely be put to death." Exod.
xxxi. 15. Beside which, the seventh day was to be
solemnized by double sacrifices in the temple: — " And
on the sabbath day two lambs of the first year without
spot, and two tenth deals of flour for a meatoffering-
mingled with oil, and the drinkoffering thereof; this
is the burntoffering of every sabbath, beside the con-
tinual burntoffering and his drinkoffering." Numb.
Jtxviii. 9, 10. Also, holy convocations, which mean,
we presume, assemblies for the purpose of public wor-
ship or religious instruction, were directed to be hoi-
den on the sabbath day: " the seventh day is a sabbath
of rest, a holy convocation." Levit. xxiii. 3.

And accordingly we read, that the sabbath was in
fact observed amongst the Jews by a scrupulous absti-
nence from every thing which, by any possible con-

* From the mention of the sabbath in so close a connexion
with the descent of God upon Mount Sinai, and the delive-
ry of the law from thence, one would be inclined to believe,
that Nehemiah referred solely to the fourth commandment.
But the fourth commandment certainly did not first make
known the sabbath. And it is apparent that Nehemiah ob-
served not the order of events, for he speaks of what passed
upon Mount Sinai before he mentions the miraculous sup-
plies of bread and water, though the Jews did not arrive at
Mount Sinai till some time after both these miracles were
wrought.

48 8ABBA.TICA.L INSTITUTIONS

struction, could be deemed labour; as from dressing
meat, from travelling beyond a sabbath day's journey,
or about a single mile. In the Maccabean wars, they
suffered a thousand of their number to be slain, rather
than do any thing in their own defence on the sabbath
day. In the final siege of Jerusalem, after they had
so far overcome their scruples as to defend their per-
sons when attacked, they refused any operation on the
sabbath day, by which they might have interrupted
the enemy in filling up. the trench. After the esta-
blishment of synagogues (of the origin of which we
have no account,) it was the custom to assemble in
them on the sabbath day, for the purpose of hearing
the law rehearsed and explained, and for the exercise,
it is probable, of public devotion: " For Moses of old
time hath in every city them that preach him, being
read in the synagogues every sabbath day." The
seventh day is Saturday ; and, agreeably to the Jew-
ish way of computing the day, the sabbath held from
six o'clock on the Friday evening to six o'clock on
Saturday evening. — These observations being pre-
mised, we approach the main question, Whether the
command by which the Jewish sabbath was instituted
extended to us ?

If the Divine command was actually delivered at
the creation, it was addressed, no doubt, to the whole
human species alike, and continues, unless repealed
by some subsequent revelation, binding upon all who
come to the knowledge of it. If the command was
published for the first time in the wilderness, then it
was immediately directed to the Jewish people alone;
and something further, either in the subject or circum-
stances of the command, will be necessary to show,
that it was designed for any other. It is on this ac-
count that the question concerning the date of the
institution wras first to be considered. The former
opinion precludes all debate about the extent of the
obligation; the latter admits, and, prima facie, indu-
ces a belief, that the sabbath ought to be considered
as part of the peculiar law of the Jewish policy.

Which belief receives great confirmation from th*
following arguments —

SABBATICAL INSTITUTIONS. 49

The sabbath is described as a sign between God
and the people of Israel: — " Wherefore the children
of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sab-
bath throughout their generations for a perpetual
covenant; U is a sign between me and the children
of Israel for ever.9' Exodus, xxxi. 16, 17. Again:
" And I gave them my statutes, and showed them my
judgments, which if a man do he shall even live in
them; moreover also I give them my sabbaths, to
be a sign between me and them, that they might
know that I am the Lord that sanctify them." Ezek.
xx. 12. Now it does riot seem easy to understand
how the sabbath could be a sign between God and
the people of Israel, unless the observance of it was
peculiar to that people, and designed to be so.

The distinction of the sabbath is, in its nature, as
much a positive ceremonial institution, as that of
many other seasons which were appointed by the
Levitical law to be kept holy, and to be observed by a
strict rest; as the first and seventh days of unleavened
bread; the feast of Pentecost; the feast of Taberna-
cles: and in the twenty-third chapter of Exodus, the
sabbath and these are recited together.

If the command by which the sabbath was insti-
tuted be binding upon Christians, it must be binding
as to the day, the duties, and the penalty; in none of
which it is received.

The observance of the sabbath was not one of the
articles enjoined by the Apostles, in the fifteenth chap-
ter of Acts, upon them " which from among the Gen-
tiles were turned unto God."

St. Paul evidently appears to have considered the
sabbath as part of the Jewish ritual, and not obliga-
tory upon Christians as such: — " Let no man there-
fore judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of an
holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days,
which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is
of Christ." Col. ii. 16, 17.

I am aware of only two objections which can be
opposed tothe4force of these arguments: one is, that
the reason assigned in the fourth commandment for
hallowing the seventh day, namely, " because God

VOL,. II. 5

50 SABBATICAL, INSTITUTIONS.

rested on the seventh day from the work of the crea-
tion," is a reason which pertains to all mankind; the
other, that the command which enjoins the observance
of the sabbath is inserted in the Decalogue, of which
all the other precepts and prohibitions are of moral
and universal obligation.

Upon the first objection it may be remarked, that
although in Exodus the commandment is founded upon
God's rest from the creation, in Deuteronomy the
commandment is repeated with a reference to a dif-
ferent event: — " Six days shalt thou labour, and do
all thy work; but the seventh day is the sabbath of
the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work;
thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy man ser-
vant, nor thy maid servant, nor thine ox, nor thine
ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor the stranger that is
within thy gates; that thy man servant and thy maid
servant may rest as well as thou: and remember that
thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the
Lord thy God brought thee out thence, through a
mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm; therefore
the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the sab-
bath day." It is further observable, that God's rest
from the creation is proposed as the reason of the in-
stitution, even where the institution itself is spoken of
as peculiar to the Jews: — " Wherefore the children of
Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath
throughout their generations, for a perpetual cove-
nant: it is a sign between me and the children of
Israel for ever: for in six days the Lord made heaven
and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was
refreshed." The truth is, these different reasons were
assigned, to account for different circumstances in the
command. If a Jew inquired, why the seventh day
was sanctified rather than the sixth or eighth ? his
law told him, because God rested on the seventh day
from the creation. If he asked, why was the same
rest indulged to slaves? his law bade him remember
that he also was a slave in the land of Egypt, and
c* that the Lord his God brought him out thence." In
this view, the two reasons are perfectly compatible
with each other, and with a third end of the mstitu-

SABBATICAL INSTITUTIONS. 51

tion, its being a sign between God and the people of
Israel; but in this view they determine nothing con-
cerning the extent of the obligation. If the reason by
its proper energy had constituted a natural obligation,
or if it had been mentioned with a view to the extent
of the obligation, we should submit to the conclusion
that all were comprehended by the command who are
concerned in the reason. But the sabbatic rest being
a duty which results from the ordination and autho-
rity of a positive law, the reason can be alleged no
further than as it explains the design of the legislator:
and if it appear to be recited with an intentional ap-
plication to one part of the law, it explains his design
upon no other: if it be mentioned merely to account
for the choice of the day, it does not explain his de-
sign as to the extent of the obligation.

With respect to the second objection, that inas-
much as the other nine commandments are confess-
edly of moral and universal obligation, it may reason-
ably be presumed that this is of the same; we answer,
that this argument will have less weight when it is
considered, that the distinction between positive and
natural duties, like other distinctions of modern ethics,
was unknown to the simplicity of ancient language-
and that there are various passages in Scripture, in
\\ hich duties of a political or ceremonial or positive
nature, and confessedly of partial obligation, are enu-
merated, and without any mark of discrimination,
along with others which are natural and universal.
Of this the following is an incontestable example.
"But if a man be just, and do that which is lawful
and right; and hath not eaten upon the mountains,
nor hath lifted up his eyes to the idols of the house
of Israel; neither hath defiled his neighbour's wife;
neither hath come near to a menstruous woman ; arid
hath not oppressed any, but hath restored to the debt-
or his pledge; hath spoiled none by violence; hath
given his bread to the hungry, and hath covered the
naked with a garment ; he that hath not given upon
usury, neither hath taken any increase ; that hath
withdrawn his hand from iniquity; hath executed
true judgment between man and man; hath walked

52 SABBATICAL INSTITUTIONS.

in my statutes, and hath kept my judgments, to deal
truly; he is just, he shall surely live, saith fhe Lord
God." Ezekiel, xviii. 5 — 9. The same thing may
be observed of the apostolic decree recorded in the
fifteenth chapter of the Acts: — " It seemed good to
the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater
burden than these necessary things, that ye abstain
from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from
things strangled, and from fornication : from which
if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well."

2. If the law by which the sabbath was instituted
was a law only to the Jews, it becomes an important
question with the Christian inquirer, whether the
founder of his religion delivered any new command
upon the subject; or, if that should not appear to be
the case, whether any day was appropriated to the
service of religion by the authority or example of his
Apostles.

The practice of holding religious assemblies upon
the first day of the week was so early and universal
in the Christian church, that it carries with it consi-
derable proof of having originated from some precept
of Christ, or of his Apostles, though none such be
now extant. It was upon the first day of the week
that the disciples were assembled, when Christ ap-
peared to them for the first time after his resurrection:
" then the same day at evening, being the first day of
the week, when the doors were shut where the disci-
ples, were assembled, for fear of the Jews, came Jesus,
and stood in the midst of them." John, xx. 19.
This, for any thing that appears in the account, might,
as to the day, have been accidental; but in the 26th
verse of the same chapter we read, that " after eight
days,'1 that is, on the first day of the week following
" again the disciples were within;" which second
meeting upon the same day of the week looks like an
appointment and design to meet on that particular
day. In the twentieth chapter of the Acts of the
Apostles, t*e find the same custom in a Christian
church at a great distance from Jerusalem: — " And
we came unto them to Troas in five days, where we
abode seven days; and upon the first day of the iveek,

SABBATICAL INSTITUTIONS. 58

wften the disciples came together to break bread, Paul
preached unto them." Acts, xx. 6, 7. The manner
in which the historian mentions the disciples coming
together to break bread on the first day of the week
shows, I think, that the practice by this time was
familiar and established. St. Paul to the Corinthians
writes thus: " Concerning the collection for the saints,
as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, even
so do ye; upon the first day of the meek let every one
of you lay by him in store as God hath prospered
him, that there be no gathering when I come.'1 1 Cor.
xvi. 1, 2. Which direction affords a probable proof,
that the first day of the week was already, amongst
the Christians both of Corinth and Galatia, distin-
guished from the rest by some religious application or
other. At the time that St. John wrote the book of
his Revelation, the first day of the week had obtained
the name of the Lord's day : — " I was in the spirit, "
says he, " on the Lord's day." Rev. i. 10. Which
name, and St. John^s use of it, sufficiently denote the
appropriation of this day to the service of religion, and
that this appropriation was perfectly known to the
churches of Asia. I make no doubt that by the Lord's
day was meant the^rs^ day of the week; for we find
no footsteps of any distinction of days, which could
entitle any other to that appellation. The subsequent
history of Christianity corresponds with the accounts
delivered on this subject in Scripture.

It will be remembered, that we are contending, by
these proofs, for no other duty upon the first day of
the week, than that of holding and frequenting reli-
gious assemblies. A cessation upon that day from
labour, beyond the time of attendance upon public
worship, is not intimated in any passage of the New
Testament; nor did Christ or his Apostles deliver,
that we know of, any command to their disciples for
a discontinuance, upon that day, of the common
offices of their professions: a reserve which none will
see reason to wonder at, or to blame as a defect in the
institution, who consider that, in the primitive condi-
tion of Christianity, the observance of a ne\v sabbath
would have been useless or inconvenient or impracti-

VOL. II 5 *

54 SABBATICAL INSTITUTIONS.

cable. During Christ's personal ministry, his reli-
gion was preached to the Jews alone. They already
had a sabbath, which, as citizens and subjects of that
economy, they were obliged to keep; and did keep.
It was not therefore probable that Christ would enjoin
another day of rest in conjunction with this. When
the new religion came forth into the Gentile world,
converts to it were, for the most part, made from
those classes of society who have not their time and
labour at their own disposal; and it was scarcely to
be expected, that unbelieving masters and magistrates,
and they who directed the employment of others,
would permit their slaves and labourers to rest from
their work every seventh day; or that civil govern-
ment, indeed, would have submitted to the loss of a
seventh part of the public industry, and that too in
addition to the numerous festivals which the national
religions indulged to the people: at least, this would
have been an encumbrance which might have great-
ly retarded the reception of Christianity in the world.
In reality, the institution of a weekly sabbath is so
connected with the functions of civil life, and requires
so much of the concurrence of civil law in its regula-
tion and support, that it cannot, perhaps, properly be
made the ordinance of any religion, till that religion
be received as the religion of the state.

The opinion, that Christ and his Apostles meant to
retain the duties of the Jewish sabbath, shifting only
the day from the seventh to the first, seems to prevail
without sufficient proof; nor does any evidence re-
main in Scripture (of what, however, is not improba-
ble,) that the first day of ihe week was thus distin-
guished in commemoration of our Lord's resurrection.

The conclusion from the whole inquiry (for it is
our business to follow the arguments, to whatever
probability they conduct us) is this: The assembling
upon the first day of the week for the purpose of
public worship and religious instruction is a law of
Christianity, of Divine appointment; the resting on
that day from our employments longer than we are
detained from them by attendance upon these assem-
blies is to Christians an ordinance of human insti-

VIOLATION OF THE SABBATH. 55

tution; binding nevertheless upon the conscience of
every individual of a country in which a weekly sab-
bath is established, for the sake of the beneficial pur-
poses which the public and regular observance of it
promotes; and recommended perhaps in some de-
gree to the Divine approbation, by the resemblance it
bears to what God was pleased to make a solemn part
of the law which he delivered to the people of Israel,
and by its subserviency to many of the same uses.

CHAPTER VIII.

BY WHAT ACTS AND OMISSIONS THE DUTY OF THE
CHRISTIAN SABBATH IS VIOLATED.

SINCE the obligation upon Christians to comply
with the religious observance of Sunday arises from
the public uses of the institution and the authority of
the apostolic practice, the manner of observing it
ought to be that which best fulfils these uses, and
conforms the nearest to this practice.

The uses proposed by the institution are: —

1. To facilitate attendance upon public worship.

2. To meliorate the condition of the laborious
classes of mankind, by regular and seasonable returns
of rest.

3. By a general supension of business and amuse-
ment, to invite and enable persons of everv descrip-
tion to apply their time and thoughts to subjects ap-
pertaining to their salvation.

With the primitive Christians, the peculiar, and
probably for some time the only, distinction of the
first day of the week, was the holding of religious
assemblies upon that day. We learn, however, from
the testimony of a very early writer amongst them,
that they also reserved the day for religious medita-
tions;— Unusquisque nostrum (saith Irenceus^) sab-
batizat spiritualiter , meditation legis,gaudens, opi-
ficium Dei admirans

56 VIOLATION OF THE SABBATH.

WHEREFORE the duty of the day is violated,

1st, By all such employments or engagements as
(though differing from our ordinary occupation,) hin-
der our attendance upon public worship, or take up so
much of our time as not to leave a sufficient part of
the day at leisure for religious reflection; as the going
of journeys, the paying or receiving of visits which
engage the whole day, or employing the time at home
in writing letters, settling accounts, or in applying
ourselves to studies, or the reading of books, which
bear no relation to the business of religion.

2dly, By unnecessary encroachments on the rest
and liberty which Sunday ought to bring to the infe-
rior orders of the community; as by keeping servants
on that day confined and busied in preparations for
the superfluous elegances of our table or dress.

3dly, By such recreations as are customarily for-
borne out of respect to the day; as hunting, shooting,
fishing, public diversions, frequenting taverns, play-
ing at cards or dice.

If it be asked, as it often has been, wherein consists
the difference between walking out with your staff, or
with your gun ? between spending the evening at
home, or in a tavern ? between passing the Sunday
afternoon at a game of cards, or in conversation not
more edifying, nor always so inoffensive ? — to these,
and to the same question under a variety of forms,
and in a multitude of similar examples, we return the
following answer: — That the religious observance of
Sunday, if it ought to be retained at all, must be up-
holden by some public and visible distinctions: —
that, draw the line of distinction where you will, many
actions which are situated on the confines of the line
will differ very little, and yet lie on the opposite sides
of it: — that every trespass upon that reserve which
public decency has established breaks down the fence
by which the day is separated to the service of reli-
gion : — that it is unsafe to trifle with scruples and
habits that have a beneficial tendency, although found-
ed merely in custom: — that these liberties, however
intended, will certainly be considered by those who
observe them, not only as disrespectful to the day and

REVERENCING THE DEITY. 57

institution, but as proceeding from a secret contempt
of the Christian faith: — that, consequently, they di-
minish a reverence for religion in others, so far as the
authority of our opinion, or the efficacy of our exam-
ple, reaches; or rather, so far as either will serve for
an excuse of negligence to those who are glad of any:
— that as to cards and dice, which put in their claim
to be considered among the harmless occupations of
a vacant hour, it may be observed, that few find any
difficulty in refraining from play on Sunday, except
they who sit down to it with the views and eagerness
of gamesters: — that gaming is seldom innocent:—
that the anxiety and perturbations, however, which it
excites, are inconsistent with the tranquillity and frame
of temper in which the duties and thoughts of religion
should always both find and leave us: — and lastly we
shall remark, that the example of other countries,
where the same or greater licence is allowed^ affords
no apology for irregularities in our own; because a
practice which is tolerated by public usage neither re-
ceives the same construction, nor gives the same of-
fence, as where it is censured and prohibited.

CHAPTER IX.

OF REVERENCING THE DEITt.

IN many persons, a seriousness and sense of awe
overspread the imagination, whenever the idea of the
Supreme Being is presented to their thoughts. This
effect, which forms a considerable security against
vice, is the consequence not so much of reflection as
of habit; which habit being generated by the exter-
nal expressions of reverence which we use ourselves,
or observe in others, may be destroyed by causes op-
posite to these, and especially by that familiar levity
with which some learn to speak of the Deity, of his
attributes, providence, revelations, or worship.

God hath been ^leased (no matter for what reason,

58 REVEREXCIXG THE DEITF

although probably for this,) to forbid the vain mention
of his name: — " Thou shalt not take the name of the
Lord thy God in vain." Now the mention is vain
when it is useless; and it is useless when it is neither
likely nor intended to serve any good purpose; as
when it flows from the lips idle and unmeaning, or is
applied, on occasions inconsistent with any considera-
tion of religion and devotion, to express our anger,
our earnestness, our courage, or our mirth; or indeed
when it is used at all, except in acts of religion, or in
serious and seasonable discourse upon religious sub-
jects.

The prohibition of the third commandment is re-
cogm'sed by Christ, in his sermon upon the mount;
which sermon adverts to none but the moral parts of
the Jewish law: " I say unto you, Swear not at all:
but let your communication be Yea, yea; Nay, nay:
for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil."
The Jews probably interpreted the prohibition as re-
strained to the name JEHOVAH, the name which the
Deity had appointed and appropriated to himself*
Exod. vi. 3. The words of Christ extend the prohi-
bition beyond the name of God, to every thing asso-
ciated with the idea: — " Swear not, neither by hea-
ven, for it is God's throne; nor by the earth, for it ig
his footstool; neither by Jerusalem, for it is the city
of the Great King." Matt. v. 35.

The offence of profane swearing is aggravated by
the consideration, that in it duty and decency are sa-
crificed to the slenderest of temptations. Suppose the
habit, either from affectation, or by negligence and
inadvertency, to be already formed, it must always
remain within the power of the most ordinary resolu-
tion to correct it; and it cannot, one would think, cost
a great deal to relinquish the pleasure and honour
which it confers. A concern for duty is in fact never
strong, when the exertion requisite to vanquish a ha-
bit founded in no antecedent propensity is thought
too much or too painful.

A contempt of positive duties, or rather of those
duties for which the reason is not so plain as the com-
mand, indicates a disposition upon which the autho-

REVERENCING THE DEITY 59

rity of revelation has obtained little influence. — This
remark is applicable to the offence of profane swear-
ing, and describes, perhaps pretty exactly, the general
character of those who are most addicted to it.

Mockery and ridicule, when exercised upon the
Scriptures, or even upon the places, persons, and
forms set apart for the ministration of religion, fall
within the meaning of the law which forbids the pro-
fanation of God's name; especially as that law is
extended by Christ's interpretation. They are more-
over inconsistent with a religious frame of mind: for,
as no one ever either feels himself disposed to plea-
santry, or capable of being diverted with the plea-
santry of others, upon matters in which he is deeply
interested; so a mind intent upon the acquisition of
heaven rejects with indignation every attempt to en-
tertain it with jests, calculated to degrade or deride
subjects which it never recollects but with seriousness
and anxiety. Nothing but stupidity, or the most fri-
volous dissipation of thought, can make even the in-
considerate forget the supreme importance of every
thing which relates to the expectation of a future ex-
istence. Whilst the infidel mocks at the superstitions
of the vulgar, insults over their credulous fears, their
childish errors, or fantastic rites, it does not occur to
him to observe, that the most preposterous device by
which the weakest devotee ever believed he was se-
curing the happiness of a future life, is more rational
than unconcern about it. Upon this subject, nothing
is so absurd as indifference ; no folly so contemptible
as thoughtlessness and levity.

Finally ; The knowledge of what is due to the so-
lemnity of those interests, concerning which Revela-
tion professes to inform and direct us, may teach even
those who are least inclined to respect the prejudices
of mankind, to observe a decorum in the style and
conduct of religious disquisitions, with the neglect of
which many adversaries of Christianity are justly
chargeable. Serious arguments are fair on all sides.
Christianity is but ill defended by refusing audience
or toleration to the objections of unbelievers. But
whilst we would have freedom of inquiry restrained

60 REVERENCING THE DEITY.

by no laws but those of decency, we are entitled to
demand, on behalf of a religion which holds forth to
mankind assurances of immortality, that its credit be
assailed by no other weapons than those of sober dis-
cussion and legitimate reasoning; — that the truth or
falsehood of Christianity be never made a topic of
raillery, a theme for the exercise of wit or eloquence,
or a subject of contention for literary fame and vic-
tory;— that the cause be tried upon its merits; — that
all applications to the fancy, passions, or prejudices of
the reader, all attempts to preoccupy, ensnare, or
perplex his judgment, by any art, influence, or im-
pression whatsoever, extrinsic to the proper grounds
arid evidence upon which his assent ought to proceed,
be rejected from a question which involves in its de-
termination the hopes, the virtue, and the repose of
millions; — that the controversy be managed on both
sides with sincerity; that is, that nothing be produced,
in the writings of either, contrary to or beyond the
writer's own knowledge and persuasion; — that object-
tions and difficulties be proposed, from no other mo-
tive than an honest and serious desire to obtain satis-
faction, or to communicate information which may
promote the discovery and progress of truth; — that,
in conformity with this design, every thing.be stated
with integrity, with method, precision, and simplicity;
and above all, that whatever is published in opposi-
tion to received and confessedly beneficial persua-
sions, be set forth under a form which is likely to in-
vite inquiry and to meet examination. If with these
moderate and equitable conditions be compared the
manner in which hostilities have been waged against
the Christian religion, not only the votaries of the
prevailing faith, but every man who looks forward
with anxiety to the destination of his being, will see
much to blame and to complain of. By one unbe-
liever, all the follies which have adhered, in a long
course of dark and superstitious ages, to the popular
creed, are assumed as so many doctrines of Christ and
his Apostles, for the purpose of subverting the whole
system by the absurdities which it is thus represented
to contain By another, the ignorance and vices of

REVERENCING THE DEITY. 61

the sacerdotal order, their mutual dissensions ana
persecutions, their usurpations and encroachments
upon the intellectual liberty and civil rights of man-
kind, have been displayed with no small triumph and
invective; not so much to guard the Christian laity
against a repetition of the same injuries (which is the
only proper use to be made of the most flagrant exam-
ples of the past,) as to prepare the way for an insi-
nuation, that the religion itself is nothing but a pro-
fitable fable, imposed upon the fears and credulity of
the multitude, and upheld by the frauds and influence
of an interested and crafty priesthood. And yet, how
remotely is the character of the clergy connected with
the truth of Christianity ! What, after all, do the most
disgraceful pages of ecclesiastical history prove, but
that the passions of our common nature are not al-
tered or excluded by distinctions of name, and that
the characters of men are formed much more by the
temptations than the duties of their profession ? A
third finds delight in collecting and repeating ac-
counts of wars and massacres, of tumults and insurrec-
tions, excited in almost every age of the Christian era
by religious zeal; as though the vices of Christians
were parts of Christianity; intolerance and extirpa-
tion precepts of the gospel; or as if its spirit could be
judged of from the counsels of princes, the intrigues
of statesmen, the pretences of malice and ambition, or
the unauthorized cruelties of some gloomy and viru-
lent superstition. By a fourth, the succession and
variety of popular religions; the vicissitudes with
which sects and tenets have flourished and decayed;
the zeal with which they were once supported, the
negligence with which they are now remembered;
the little share which reason and argument appear to
have had in framing the creed, or regulating the reli-
gious conduct of the multitude; the indifference and
submission with which the religion of the state is ge-
nerally received by the common people; the caprice
and vehemence with which it is sometimes opposed;
the frenzy with which men have been brought to con-
tend for opinions and ceremonies, of which they knew
neither the proof, the meaning, nor the original:

VOL. II 6

62 REVERENCING THE DEITT.

lastly, the equal and undoubting confidence with
which we hear the doctrines of Christ or of Confu-
cius, the law of Moses or of Mahomet, the Bible, the
Koran, or the Shaster, maintained or anathematized,
taught or abjured, revered or derided, according as
we live on this or on that side of a river; keep within
or step over the boundaries of a state; or even in the
same country, and by the same people, so often as
the event of a battle, or the issue of a negotiation, de-
livers them to the dominion of a new master; —
points, I say, of this sort are exhibited to the public
attention, as so many arguments against the truth of
the Christian religion; — and with success. For these
topics being brought together, and set off with some
aggravation of circumstances, and with a vivacity of
style and description familiar enough to the writings
and conversation of free-thinkers, insensibly lead the
imagination into a habit of classing Christianity with
the delusions that have taken possession, by turns, of
the public belief; and of regarding it as, what the
scoffers odf our faith represent it to be, the superstition
of the day. But is this to deal honestly by the sub-
ject, or with the world ? May not the same things be
said, may not the same prejudices be excited by these
representations, whether Christianity be true or false,
or by whatever proofs its truth be attested ? May not
truth as well as falsehood be taken upon credit ? May
not a religion be founded upon evidence accessible
and satisfactory to every mind competent to the in-
quiry, which yet, by the greatest part of its professors,
is received upon authority ?

Bift if the matter of these objections be reprehensi-
ble, as calculated to produce an effect upon the
reader beyond what their real weight and place in the
argument deserve, still more shall we discover of ma-
nagement and disingenuousness in the form under
which they are dispersed among the public. Infideli-
ty is served up in every shape that is likely to allure,
surprise, or beguile the imagination; in a fable, a
tale, a novel, a poem; in interspersed and broken
hints, remote and oblique surmises; in books of tra-
vels, of philosophy, of natural histoiy; in a word, in

REVERENCING THE DEITY. 63

any form rather than the right one, that of a professed
and regular disquisition. And because the coarse
buffoonery and broad laugh of the old and rude ad-
versaries of the Christian faith would offend the taste,
perhaps, rather than the virtue, of this cultivated age,
a graver irony, a more skilful and delicate banter is
substituted in their place. An eloquent historian,
beside his more direct, and therefore fairer, attacks
upon the credibility of Evangelic story, has contrived
to weave into his narration one continued sneer upon
the cause of Christianity, and upon the writings and
characters of its ancient patrons. The knowledge
which this author possesses of the frame and conduct
of the human mind must have led him to observe,
that such attacks do their execution without inquiry.
Who can refute a sneer1) Who can compute the num-
ber, much less, one by one, scrutinize the justice of
those disparaging insinuations which crowd the pages
of this elaborate history ? What reader suspends his
curiosity, or calls off his attention from the principal
narrative, to examine references, to search into the
foundation, or to weigh the reason, propriety, and
force of every transient sarcasm and sly allusion, by
which the Christian testimony is -depreciated and tra-
duced; and by which, nevertheless, he may find his
persuasion afterwards unsettled and perplexed ?

But the enemies of Christianity have pursued her
with poisoned arrows. Obscenity itself is made the
vehicle of infidelity. The awful doctrines, if we be
not permitted to call them the sacred truths, of our
religion, together with all the adjuncts and appen-
dages of its worship and external profession, have
been sometimes impudently profaned by an unnatural
conjunction with impure and lascivious images. The
fondness for ridicule is almost universal; and ridicule
to many minds is never so irresistible as when sea-
soned with obscenity, and employed upon religion.
But in proportion as these noxious principles take
hold of the imagination, they infatuate the judgment:
for trains of ludicrous and unchaste associations, ad-
hering to every sentiment and mention of religion,
render the mind indisposed to receive either convic-

64 REVERENCING THE DEITY.

tion from its evidence, or impressions from its autho-
rity. And this effect being exerted upon the sensi-
tive part of our frame, is altogether independent of
argument, proof, or reason; is as formidable to a true
religion as to a false one; to a well grounded faith
as to a chimerical mythology, or fabulous tradition.
Neither, let it be observed, is the crime or danger less,
because impure ideas are exhibited under a veil, in
covert and chastised language.

Seriousness is not constraint of thought; nor levity,
freedom. Every mind which wishes the advance-
ment of truth and knowledge, in the most important
of all human researches, must abhor this licentiousness,
as violating no less the laws of reasoning than the
rights of decency. There is but one description of
men, to whose principles it ought to be tolerable; I
mean that class of reasoners who can see little in
Christianity, even supposing it to be true. To such
adversaries we address this reflection: — Had Jesus
Christ delivered no other declaration than the follow-
ing, "The hour is coming, in the which all that are
in the grave shall hear his voice, and shall come forth;
they that have done good unto the resurrection of life;
'ind they that have done evil unto the resurrection of
damnation;" — he had pronounced a message of ines-
timable importance, and well worthy of that splendid
apparatus of prophecy and miracles with which his
mission was introduced and attested; a message, in
which the wisest of mankind would rejoice to find an
answer to their doubts, and rest to their inquiries.
It is idle to say, that a future state had been discovered
already: — it had been discovered, as the Copernican
system was — it was one guess among many. He
alone discovers who proves ; and no man can prove
this point but the teacher who testifies by miracles
that his doctrine comes from God

BOOK VI.

ELEMENTS OF POLITICAL KNOWLEDGE

CHAPTER I.

OF THE ORIGIN OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT.

GOVERNMENT, at first, was either patriarchal or
military: that of a parent over his family, or of a com-
mander over his fellow warriors.

1. Paternal authority, and the order of domestic
life, supplied the foundation of civil government. Did
mankind spring out of the earth mature and indepen-
dent, it would be found perhaps impossible to intro-
duce subjection and subordination among them: but
the condition of human infancy prepares men for so-
ciety, by combining individuals into small communi-
ties, and by placing them from the beginning under
direction and control. A family contains the rudi-
ments of an empire. The authority of one over many,
and the disposition to govern and to be governed, are
in this way incidental to the very nature, and coeval,
no doubt, with the existence, of the human species.

Moreover, the constitution of families not only as-
sists the formation of civil government, by the dispo-
sitions which it generates, but also furnishes the first
steps of the process by which empires have been ac-
tually reared. A parent would retain a considerable
part of his authority after his children were grown up,
and had formed families of their own. The obedi-
ence of which they remembered not the beginning,
would be considered as natural; and would scarcely

VOL. II. 6 *

66 CIVIL GOVERNMENT.

during the parent's life, be entirely or abruptly with-
drawn. Here then we see the second stage in the
progress of dominion. The first was that of a pa-
rent over his young children; this, that of an ancestor
presiding over his adult descendants.

Although the original progenitor was the centre of
union to his posterity, yet it is not probable that the
association would be immediately or altogether dis-
solved by his death. Connected by habits of inter-
course and affection, and by some common rights, ne-
cessities, and interests, they would consider themselves
as allied to each other in a nearer degree than to the
rest of the species. Almost all would be sensible of
an inclination to continue in the society in which they
had been brought up; and experiencing, as they soon
would do, many inconveniencies from the absence of
that authority which their common ancestor exercised,
especially in deciding their disputes, and directing
their operations in matters in which it was necessary
to act in conjunction, they might be induced to supply
his place by a formal choice of a successor; or rather
might willingly, and almost imperceptibly, transfer
their obedience to some one of the family, who by his
age or services, or by the part he possessed in the
direction of their affairs during the lifetime of the
parent, had already taught them to respect his advice,
or to attend to his commands: or, lastly, the prospect
of these inconveniencies might prompt the first ances-
tor to appoint a successor; and his posterity, from
the same motive, united with an habitual defence to
the ancestor's authority, might receive the appoint-
ment with submission. Here then we have a tribe or
clan incorporated under one. chief. Such communities
might be increased by considerable numbers, and fulfil
the purposes of civil union, without any other or more
regular convention, constitution, or form of govern-
ment, than what we have described. Every branch
which was slipped off from the primitive stock, and
removed to a distance from it, would in like manner
take root, and grow into a separate clan. Two or
three of these clans were frequently, we may suppose,
united into one. Marriage, conquest, mutual defence

CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 07

common distress, or more accidental coalitions, might
produce this effect.

2. A second source of personal authority, and which
might easily extend, or sometimes perhaps supersede,
the patriarchal, is that which results from military
arrangement. In wars, either of aggression or defence,
manifest necessity would prompt those who fought on
the same side to array themselves under one leader.
And although their leader was advanced to this emi-
nence for the purpose only, and during the operations,
of a single expedition, yet his authority would not
always terminate with the reasons for which it was
conferred. A warrior who had led forth his tribe
against their enemies with repeated success would
procure to himself, even in the deliberations of peace,
a powerful and permanent influence. If this advan-
tage were added to the authority of the patriarchal
chief, or favoured by any previous distinction of an-
cestry, it would be no difficult undertaking for the
person who possessed it to obtain the almost absolute
direction of the affairs of the community; especially
if he was careful to associate to himself proper aux-
iliaries, and content to practise the obvious art of
gratifying or removing those who opposed his pre-
tensions.

But, although we may be able to comprehend how,
by his personal abilities or fortune, one man may
obtain the rule over many, yet it seems more difficult
to explain how empire became hereditary, or in what
manner sovereign power, which is never acquired
without great merit or management, learns to descend
in a succession which has no dependence upon any
qualities either of understanding or activity. The
causes which have introduced hereditary dominion
into so general a reception in the world are principally
the following: — the influence of association, which
communicates to the son a portion of the same respect
which was wont to be paid to the virtues or station
of the father; the mutual jealcusy of" other compe-
titors; the greater envy with which all behold the
exaltation of an equal, than the continuance of an
acknowledged superiority — a reigning prince leaving

68 CIVIL GOVERNMENT.

behind him many adherents, who can preserve their
own importance only by supporting the succession of
his children: add to these reasons, that elections to
the supreme power, having, upon trial, produced de-
structive contentions, many states would take refuge
from a return of the same calamities in a rule of suc-
cession; and no rule presents itself so obvious, certain,
and intelligible, as consanguinity of birth.

The ancient state of society in most countries, and
the modern condition of some uncivilized parts of the
world, exhibit that appearance which this account of
the origin of civil government would lead us to expect.
The earliest histories of Palestine, Greece, Italy, Gaul,
Britain inform us, that these countries were occupied
by many small independent nations, not much perhaps
unlike those which are found at present amongst
the savage inhabitants of North America, and upon
the coast of Africa. Those nations I consider as
the amplifications of so many single families j or &s
derived from the junction of two or three families,
whom society in war, or the approach of some com-
mon danger, had united. Suppose a country to have
been first peopled by shipwreck on its coasts, or by
emigrants or exiles from a neighbouring country; the
new settlers, having no enemy to provide against, and
occupied with the care of their personal subsistence,
would think little of digesting a system of laws, of
contriving a form of government, or indeed of any
political union whatever; but each settler would re-
main at the head of his own family, and each family
would include all of every age and generation who
were descended from him. So many of these families
as were holden together after the death of the original
ancestor, by the reasons and in the method above re-
cited, would wax, as the individuals were multiplied,
into tribes, clans, hordes, or nations, similar to those
into which the ancient inhabitants of many countries
are known to have been divided, and which are still
found wherever the state of society and manners is
immature and uncultivated.

Nor need we be surprised at the early existence in
the world of some vast empires, or as the rapidity with

SUBJECTION TO CIVIL. GOVERNMENT 69

which they advanced to their greatness from compa-
ratively small and obscure originals. Whilst the in-
habitants of so many countries were broken into
numerous communities, unconnected, and oftentimes
contending with each other; before experience had
taught these little states to see their own danger in
their neighbour's ruin; or had instructed them in the
necessity of resisting the aggrandizement of an aspir-
ing power, by alliances and timely preparations; in
this condition of civil policy, a particular tribe, which
by any means had gotten the start of the rest in
strength or discipline, and happened to fall under the
conduct of an ambitious chief, by directing their first
attempts to the part where success was most secure,
and by assuming, as they went along, those whom
they conquered into a share of their future enterprises,
might soon gather a force which would infallibly over-
bear any opposition that the scattered power and un-
provided state of such enemies could make to the
progress of their victories.

Lastly, Our theory affords a presumption that the
earliest governments were monarchies, because the
government of families, and of armies, from which,
according to our account, civil government derived
its institution, and probably its form, is universally
monarchical.

CHAPTER II.

HOW SUBJECTION TO CIVIL GOVERNMENT IB
MAINTAINED.

COULD we view our own species from a distance,
or regard mankind with the same sort of observation
with which we read the natural history, or remark the
manners, of any other animal, there is nothing in the
human character which would more surprise us, than
the almost universal subjugation of strength to weak-
ness}— than to see many millions of robust men, in

70 SUBJECTION TO CIVIL GOVERNMENT.

the complete use and exercise of their personal facul-
ties, and without any defect of courage, waiting upon
the will of a child, a woman, a driveller, or a lunatic.
And although, when we suppose a vast empire in
absolute subjection to one person, and that one de-
pressed beneath the level of his species by infirmities
or vice, we suppose perhaps an extreme case; yet in
all cases, even in the most popular forms of civil go-
vernment, the physical strength resides in the govern-
ed. In what manner opinion thus prevails over strength,
or how power, which naturally belongs to superior
force, is maintained in opposition to it; in other words,
by what motives the many are induced to submit to
the few, becomes an inquiry which lies at the root of
almost every political speculation. It removes, indeed,
but does not resolve, the difficulty, to say that civil
governments are nowadays almost universally up-
holden by standing armies; for the question still re-
turns, How are these armies themselves kept in sub-
jection, or made to obey the commands, and carry
on the designs of the prince or state which employs
them ?

Now, although we should look in vain for any single
reason which will account for the general submission
of mankind to civil government, yet it may not be dif-
ficult to assign for every class and character in the
community, considerations powerful enough to dis-
suade each from any attempts to resist established
authority. Every man has his motive, though not the
same. In this, as in other instances, the conduct is
similar, but the principles which produce it, extremely
various.

There are three distinctions of character, into which
the subjects of a state may be divided: into those who
obey from prejudice; those who obey from reason,
and those who obey from self-interest.

1. They who obey from prejudice are determined
by an opinion of right in their governors ; which
opinion is founded upon prescription. In monarchies
and aristocracies which are hereditary, the prescrip-
tion operates in favour of particular families ; in re-
publics and elective offices, in favour of particular

SUBJECTION TO CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 71

forms of government, or constitutions. Nor is it to
be wondered at, that mankind should reverence autho-
rity founded in prescription, when they observe that
it is prescription which confers the title to almost every
thing else. The whole course, and all the habits of
civil life, favour this prejudice. Upon what other
foundation stands any man's right to his estate ? The
right of primogeniture, the succession of kindred, the
descent of property, the inheritance of honours, the
demand of tithes, tolls, rents, or services, from the
estates of others, the right of way, the powers of office
and magistracy, the privileges of nobility, the immu-
nities of the clergy — upon what are they all founded,
in the apprehension at least of the multitude, but upon
prescription ? To what else, when the claims are con-
tested, is the appeal made? It is natural to transfer
the same principle to the affairs of government, and
to regard those exertions of power, which have been
long exercised and acquiesced in, as so many rights
in the sovereign ; and to consider obedience to his
commands, within certain accustomed limits, as en-
joined by that rule of conscience which requires us to
render to every man his due.

In hereditary monarchies, the prescriptive title is
corroborated, and its influence considerably augment-
ed, by an accession of religious sentiments, and by
that sacredness which men are wont to ascribe to the
persons of princes. Princes themselves have not failed
to take advantage of this disposition, by claiming a
superior dignity, as it were, of nature, or a peculiar
delegation from the Supreme Being. For this pur-
pose were introduced the titles of Sacred Majesty, of
God's Anointed, Representative, Vicegerent, together
with the ceremonies of investitures and coronations,
which are calculated not so much to recognise the
authority of sovereigns as to consecrate their persons.
Where a fabulous religion permitted it, the public
veneration has been challenged by bolder pretensions.
The Roman emperors usurped the titles and arrogated
the worship of gods. The mythology of the heroic
ages, and of many barbarous nations, was easily con-
verted to this purpose. Some princes, like the heroes

72 SUBJECTION TO CIVIL GOVERNMENT.

of Homer, and the founder of the Roman name, de-
rived their birth from the gods; others, with Numa,
pretended a secret communication with some divine
being; and others, again, like the incas of Peru, and
the ancient Saxon kings, extracted their descent from
the deities of their country. The Lama of Thibet, at
this day, is held forth to his subjects, not as the off-
spring or successor of a divine race of princes, but as
the immortal God himself, the object at once of civil
obedience and religious adoration. This instance is
singular, and may be accounted the furthest point to
which the abuse of human credulity has ever been
carried. But in all these instances the purpose was
the same, — to engage the reverence of mankind, by
an application to their religious principles.

The reader will be careful to observe, that in this
article, we denominate every opinion, whether true or
false, a prejudice, which is not founded upon argu-
ment, in the mind of the person who entertains it.

2. They who obey from reason, that is to say, from
conscience as instructed by reasonings and conclusions
of their own, are determined by the consideration of
the necessity of some government or other; the certain
mischief of civil commotions; and the danger of re-
settling the government of their country better, or at
all, if once subverted or disturbed.

3. They who obey from self interest are kept in
order by want of leisure; by a succession of private
cares, pleasures, and engagements; by contentment,
or a sense of the ease, plenty, and safety, which they
enjoy; or lastly, and principally, by fear, foreseeing
that they would bring themselves by resistance into a
worse situation than their present, inasmuch as the
strength of government, each discontented subject re-
flects, is greater than his o\vn, and he knows not that
others would join him.

This last consideration has often been called opi-
nion of power.

This account of the principles by which mankind
are retained in their obedience to civil government
may suggest the following cautions: —

1. Let civil governors learn hence to respect their

SUBJECTION TO CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 78

eubjects; let them be admonished, that the physical
strength resides in the governed; that this strength
wants only to be felt and roused, to lay prostrate the
most ancient and confirmed dominion; that civil au-
thority is founded in opinion; that general opinion
therefore ought always to be treated with deference,
and managed with delicacy and circumspection.

2. Opinion of right, always following the custom,
being for the most part founded in nothing else, arid
lending one principal support to government; every
innovation in the constitution, or, in other words, in
the custom of governing, diminishes the stability of
government. Hence some absurdities are to be re-
tained, and many small inconveniences endured in
every country, rather than that the usage should be
violated, or the course of public affairs diverted from
their old and smooth channel. Even names are not
indifferent. When the multitude are to be dealt with,
there is a charm in sounds. It was upon this princi-
ple that several statesmen of those times advised
Cromwell to assume the title of king, together with
the ancient style and insignia of royalty. The minds
of many, they contended, would be brought to ac-
quiesce in the authority of a king, who suspected the
office, and were offended with the administration, of
a protector. Novelty reminded them of usurpation.
The adversaries of this design opposed the measure,
from the same persuasion of the efficacy of names and
forms, jealous lest the veneration paid to these should
add an influence to the new settlement, which might
ensnare the liberty of the commonwealth.

3. Government may be too secure. The greatest
tyrants have been those whose titles were the most
unquestioned. Whenever therefore the opinion of
right becomes too predominant and superstitious, it is
abated by breaking the custom. Thus the Revolution
broke the custom of succession, and thereby mode-
rated, both in the prince and in the people, those lofty
notions of hereditary right, which in the one were be-
come a continual incentive to tyranny, and disposed
the other to invite servitude, by undue compliances
and dangerous concessions.

VOJL. II. 7

74 SUBJECTION TO CIVIL GOVERNMENT.

4. As ignorance of union, and want of communica-
tion, appear amongst the principal preservatives of
civil authority, it behoves every state to keep its sub-
jects in this want and ignorance, not only by vigilance
in guarding against actual confederacies and combi-
nations, but by a timely care to prevent great collec-
tions of men of any separate party of religion, or of
like occupation or profession, or in any way connected
by a participation of interest or passion, from being
assembled in the same vicinity. A protestant esta-
blishment in this country may have little to fear from
its popish subjects, scattered as they are throughout
the kingdom, and intermixed with tbe protestant in-
habitants, which yet might think them a formidable
bodv if they were gathered together into one county
The most frequent and desperate riots are those which
break out amongst men of the same profession, as
weavers, miners, sailors. This circumstance makes a
mutiny of soldiers more to be dreaded than any other
insurrection. Hence also one danger of an overgrown
metropolis, and of those great cities and crowded dis-
tricts, into wiiich the inhabitants of trading countries
are commonly collected. The worst effect of popular
tumults consists in this, that they discover to the in-
surgents the secret of their own strength, teach them
to depend upon it against a future occasion, and both
produce and diffuse sentiments of confidence in one
another, and assurances of mutual support. Leagues
thus formed and strengthened may overawe or over-
set the power of any state; and the danger is greater,
in proportion as, from the propinquity of habitation
and intercourse of employment, the passions and
counsels of a party can be circulated with ease and
rapidity. It is by these means, and in such situations,
that the minds of men are so affected and prepared,
tiiat. the most dreadful uproars often arise from the
slightest provocations. — When the train is laid, a spark
will produce the explosion.

SUBMISSION TO CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 75

CHAPTER III.

THE DUTY OF SUBMISSION TO CIVII, GOVERN-
MENT EXPLAINED.

THE subject of this chapter is sufficiently distinguish-
ed from the subject of the last, as the motives which
actually produce civil obedience, may be, and often
are, very different from the reasons which make that
obedience a duty.

In order to prove civil obedience to be a moral duty,
and an obligation upon the conscience, it hath been
usual with many political writers (at the head of whom *
we find the venerable name of Locke) to state a com-
pact between the citizen and the state, as the ground
and cause of the relation between them; which com-
pact, binding the parties for the same general reason
that private contracts do, resolves the duty of submis-
sion to civil government into the universal obligation
of fidelity in the performance of promises. This com-
pact is twofold: —

First, An express compact by the primitive founders
of the state, who are supposed to have convened for
the declared purpose of settling the terms of their
political union, and a future constitution of govern-
ment. The whole body is supposed, in the first place,
to have unanimously consented to be bound by the
resolutions of the majority; that majority, in the next
place, to have fixed certain fundamental regulations;
and then to have constituted, either in one person, or
in an assembly {the rule of succession, or appoint-
ment, being at the same time determined,) a standing
legislature, to whom, under these preestablished re-
strictions, the government of the state was thencefor-
ward committed, and whose laws the several mem-
bers of the convention were, by their first undertaking,
thus personally engaged to obey. — This transaction is
sometimes called the social compact, and these sup-
posed original regulations compose what are meant by
the constitution, the fundament al laics of the consti-
tution ; and form, on one side, the inherent indefeasi-

76 SUBMISSION TO CIVIL GOVERNMENT.

ble prerogative of the crown ; and, on the other, the
unalienable, imprescriptible birthright of the subject.

Secondly, A tacit or implied compact, by all suc-
ceeding members of the state, who, by accepting its
protection, ^consent to be bound by itsJaws; m like
manncTas, whoever voluntarily enters into a private
society is understood, without any other or more ex-
plicit stipulation, to promise a conformity with the
rules, and obedience to the government of that society,
as the known conditions upon which he is admitted to
a participation of its privileges.

This account of the subject, although specious, and
patronized by names the most respectable, appears to
labour under the following objections; that it is found-
ed upon a supposition false in fact, and leading to dan-
gerous conclusions.

No social compact, similar to what is here de-
scribed, was ever made or entered into in reality; no
such original convention of the people was ever ac-
tually holden, or in any country could be holden, an-
tecedent to the existence of civil government in that
country. It is to suppose it possible to call savages
out of caves and deserts, to deliberate and vote upon
topics, which the experience, and studies, and retine-
ments of civil life alone suggest. Therefore no go-
vernment in the universe began from this original.
Some imitation of a social compact may have taken
place at a revolution. The present age has been wit-
ness to a transaction which bears the nearest resem-
blance to this political idea, of any of which history
has preserved the account or memory: I refer to the
establishment of the United States of North America.
We saw the people assembled to elect deputies, for the
avowed purpose of framing the constitution of a new
empire. We saw this deputation of the people de-
liberating and resolving upon a form of government,
erecting a permanent legislature, distributing the func-
tions of sovereignty, establishing and promulgating a
code offundamental ordinances, which were to be con-
sidered bv succeeding generations, not merely as laws
and acts of the state, but as the very terms and condi-
tions of the confederation; as binding not only upon

SUBMISSION TO CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 77

the subjects and magistrates of the state, but as limi-
tations of power, which were to control and regulate
the future legislature. Yet even here much was pre-
supposed. In settling the constitution, many impor-
tant parts were presumed to be already settled. The
qualifications of the constituents who were admitted to
vote in the election of members of congress, as well as
the mode of electing the representatives, were taken
from the old forms of government. That was want- <
ing, from which every social union should set off, and
which alone makes the resolution of the society the
act of the individual, — the unconstrained consent of
all to be bound by the decision of the majority; and
yet, without this previous consent, the revolt, and the
regulations which followed it, were compulsory upon
dissentients.

But' the original compact, we are told, is not pro-
posed as a fact, but as a fiction, which furnishes a
commodious explication of the mutual rights and du-
ties of sovereigns and subjects. In answer to this
representation of the matter, we observe, that the ori-
ginal compact, if it be not a fact, is nothing; can •
confer no actual authority upon laws of magistrates;
nor afford any foundation to rights which are sup-
posed to be real and existing. But the truth is, that
in the books, and in the apprehension of those who
deduce our civil rights and obligations a pactis, the
original convention is appealed to and treated of as a
reality. Whenever the disciples of this system speak
of the constitution: of the fundamental articles of the
constitution; of laws being constitutional or unconsti-
tutional; or inherent, unalienable, inextinguishable
rights, either in the prince or in the people; or in-
deed of any laws, usages, or civil rights, as transcend-
ing the authority of the subsisting legislature, or pos-
sessing a force and sanction superior to what belong
to the modern acts and edicts of the legislature; they
secretly refer us to what passed at the original con-
vention. They would teach us to believe, that certain
rules and ordinances were established by the people,
at the same time that they settled the charter of go-
vernment, and the powers as well as the form of the

- VOL. II. 7 *

78 SUBMISSION TO CIVIL GOVERNMENT.

future legislature; that this legislature consequently,
deriving its commission and existence from the con-
sent and act of the primitive assembly (of which in-
deed it is only the standing deputation,) continues
subject, in the exercise of its offices, and as to the
extent of its power, to the rules, reservations, and limi
tations which the same assembly then made and pre-
scribed to it.

J. " As the first members of the state were bound by
express stipulation to obey the government which they

. had erected, so the succeeding inhabitants of the
same country are understood to promise allegiance to
the constitution and government they find established,
by accepting its protection, claiming its privileges,
and acquiescing in its laws; more especially by the
purchase or inheritance of lands, to the possession of
which allegiance to the state is annexed, as the very
service and condition of the tenure." Smoothly as
this train of argument proceeds, little of it will endure

"" examination. The native subjects of modern states
are not conscious of any stipulation with the sove-
reigns, of ever exercising an election whether they will
be bound or not by the acts of the legislature, of any
alternative being proposed to their choice, ol a pro-
mise either required or given; nor do they apprehend
L that the validity or authority of the laws depends at
.-ill upon their recognition or consent. In all stipula-
tions, whether they be expressed or implied, private
or public, formal or constructive, the parties stipulat-
ing must both possess the liberty of assent and re-
fusal, and also be conscious of this liberty; which
cannot with truth be affirmed of the subjects of civil
government, as government isnovv, or ever was, actu-
ally administered. This is a defect, which no argu-
ments can excuse or supply: all presumptions of con-
sent, without this consciousness, or in opposition to it,
are vain and erroneous. Still less is it possible to re-
concile with any idea of stipulation the practice, in
which all European nations agree, of founding alle-
giance upon the circumstance of nativity, that is, of
claiming and treating as subjects all those who are
born within the confines of their dominions, although

SUBMISSION TO CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 79

removed to another country in their youth or infancy.
In this instance, certainly, the state does not presume
a compact. Also, if the subject be bound only by his
own consent, and if the voluntary abiding in the coun-
try be the proof and intimation of that consent, by
what arguments should we defend the right, which
sovereigns universally assume, of prohibiting, when
they please, the departure of their subjects out of the
realm ?

Again, when it is contended that the taking and
holding possession of land amounts to an acknowledg-
ment of the sovereign, and a virtual promise of alle-
giance to his laws, it is necessary, to the validity of
the argument, to prove that the inhabitants who first
composed and constituted the state collectively pos-
sessed a right to the soil of the country; — a right to
parcel it out to whom they pleased, and to annex to
the donation what conditions they thought fit. How
came they by this right ? An agreement amongst
themselves would not confer it: that could only ad-
just what already belonged to them. A society of
men vote themselves to be the owners of a region of
the world: — does that vote, unaccompanied especially
with any culture, enclosure, or proper act of occupa-
tion, make it theirs ? does it entitle them to exclude
others from it, or to dictate the conditions upon which t
it shall be enjoyed ? Yet this original collective right •
and ownership is the foundation for all the reasoning
by which the duty of allegiance is inferred from the
possession of land.

The theory of government which affirms the exist-
ence and the obligation of a social compact, would,
after all, merit little discussion, and, however ground-
less and unnecessary, should receive no opposition
from us, did it not appear to lead to conclusions un-
favourable to the improvement, and to the peace, of
hiynan society.

•/IsO Upon the supposition that government was
first- -erected by, and that it derives all its just autho-
rity from, resolutions entered into by a convention of
the people, it is capable of being presumed, that
many points were settled by that convention, anterior

80 SUBMISSION TO CIVIL GOVERNMENT.

to the establishment of the subsisting legislature, and
which the legislature, consequently, has no right to
alter or interfere with. These points are called the
fundamentals of the constitution; and as it is impos-
sible to determine how many, or what they are, the
cuggesting of any such serves extremely to embarrass
the deliberations of the legislature, and affords a dan-
gerous pretence for disputing the authority of the
laws. It was this sort of reasoning (so far as reason-
ing of any kind was employed in the question) that
produced in this nation the doubt which so much
agitated the minds of men in the reign of the second
Charles, whether an act of parliament could of right
aJtfcfkor limit the succession of the crown ?
|2dly) If it be by virtue of a compact that the subject
owes obedience to civil government, it will follow that
he ought to abide by the form of government which
he finds established, be it ever so absurd or inconve-
nient. He is bound by his bargain. It is not per-
mitted to any man to retreat from his engagement,
merely because he finds the performance disadvan-
tageous, or because he has an opportunity of entering
into a better. This law of contracts is universal: and
to call the relation between the sovereign and the
subjects a contract, yet not to apply to it the rules, or
allow of the effects of a contract, is an arbitrary use
of names, and an unsteadiness in reasoning, which can

'teach nothing. Resistance to the encroachments of
the supreme magistrate may be justified upon this
principle; recourse to arms, for the purpose of bring-
ing about an amendment of the constitution, never

vcan. No form of government contains a provision for
rfs own dissolution; and few governors will consent
to the extinction, or even to any abridgment, of theii
own power. It does not therefore appear how des-
potic governments can ever, in consistency with the
obligation of the subject, be changed or mitigated
Despotism is the constitution of many states: and
whilst a despotic prince exacts from his subjects the
most rigorous servitude, according to this account, he
is only holding them to their agreement. A people
may vindicate, by forc*», the rights which the consti*

•UBMISSION TO CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 81

tution has left them ; but every attempt to narrow the
prerogative of the crown, by new limitations, and in
opposition to the will of the reigning prince, what-
ever opportunities may invite, or success follow it,
must be condemned as an infraction of the compact
between the sovereign and the subject.

[sdly^ Every violation of the compact on the part^ofL
the governor releases the subject from his allegiance,
and dissolves the government. I do not perceive liovir
we can avoid this consequelice,. if we found the duty
of allegiance upon compact, and confess any analogy
between the social compact and other contracts. In
private contracts, the violation and nonperformance
of the conditions, by one of the parties, vacates the
obligation of the other. Now the terms and articles
of the social compact being no where extant or ex-
pressed; the rights and offices of the administrator of
an empire being so many and various; the imaginary
and controverted line of his prerogative being so lia-
ble to be overstepped in one part or other of it; the
position, that every such transgression amounts to a
forfeiture of the government, and consequently autho-
rizes the people to withdraw their obedience, and pro
vide for themselves by a new settlement, would en-
danger the stability of every political fabric in the
world, and has in fact always supplied the disaffected
with a topic of seditious declamation. If occasions
have arisen, in which this plea has been resorted to
with justice and success, they have been occasions in
which a revolution was defensible upon other and
plainer principles. The plea itself is at all times cap-
tious and unsafe.

Wherefore, rejecting the intervention of a compact,
as unfounded in its principle, and dangerous in the
application, we assign for the only ground of the sub-
ject's obligation, THE WILL, OF GOD AS COLLECTED f\

FROM EXPEDIENCY.

The steps by which the argument proceeds are few
and direct. — " It is the will of God that the happiness
of human life be promoted:" — this is the first step,

82 SUBMISSION TO CIVIL GOVERNMENT.

and the foundation not only of this, but of every moral
conclusion. " Civil society conduces to that end :" — .
this is the second proposition. u Civil societies can-
not be upholden, unless, in each, the interest of the
whole society be binding upon every part and mem-
Jje.r of it:" — this is the third step, and conducts us to
the conclusion, namely, " that so long as the interest
of the whole society requires it, that is, so long as the
established government cannot be resisted or changed
without public inconveniency, it is the will of God
(which will universally determines our duty) that the

I established government be obeyed," — and no longer.
This principle being admitted, the justice of every
particular case of resistance is reduced to a computa-
tion of the quantity of the danger and grievance on
the one side, and of the probability and expense of
redressing it on the other.

But who shall judge this ? We answer, " Every
man for himself." In contentions between the sove-
reign and the subject, the parties acknowledge no
common arbitrator; and it would be absurd to refer
the decision to those whose conduct has provoked the
question, and whose own interest, authority, and fate
"are immediately concerned in it. The danger of error
and abuse is no objection to the rule of expediency,
because every other rule is liable to the same or great-
er; and every rule that can be propounded upon the
subject (like all rules indeed which appeal to, or bind,
the conscience) must in the application depend upon
private judgment. It may be observed, however, that
it ought equally to be accounted the exercise of a
man's own private judgment, whether he be determin-
ed by reasonings and conclusions of his own, or sub-
mit to be directed by the advice of others, provided
he be free to choose his guide.

We proceed to point out some easy but important
inferences, which result from the substitution of public
expediency into the place of all implied compacts, pro-
mises, or conventions whatsoever.

1 . It may be as much a duty, at one time, to resist
government, as it is at another to obey it; to wit,

SUBMISSION TO CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 83

whenever more advantage will, in our opinion, accrue
to /the community from resistance, than mischief.

fey The lawfulness of resistance, or the lawfulness
of a revolt, does not depend alone upon the grievance
which is sustained or feared, but also upon the pro-
bable expense and event of the contest. They who
concerted the Revolution in England were justifiable
in their counsels, because, from the apparent disposi-
tion of the nation, and the strength and character of
the parties engaged, the measure was likely to bo
brought about with little mischief or bloodshed; where-
as it might have been a question with many friends
of their country, whether the injuries then endured
and threatened would have authorized the renewal of
a doubtful civil war.

3. Irregularity in the first foundation of a state, or.
subsequent violence, fraud, or injustice in getting pos-
session of the supreme power, are not sufficient rea"-
sons for resistance, after the government is once'
peaceably settled. No subject of the British empire
conceives himself engaged to vindicate the justice of
the Norman claim or conquest, or apprehends that
his duty in any manner depends upon that contro-
versy. So, likewise, if the house of Lancaster, or
even the posterity of Cromwell, had been at this day
seated upon the throne of England, we should have
been as little concerned to inquire how the founder of
the family came there. No civil contests are so futile,
although none have been so furious and sanguinary
as those which are excited by a disputed succession.

4. Not every invasion of the subject's rights or
liberty, or of the constitution; not every breach of
promise, or of oath; not every stretch of prerogative,
abuse of power, or neglect of duty by the chief ma-
gistrate, or by the whole or any branch of the legisla-
tive body, justifies resistance, unless these crimes draw
after them public consequences of sufficient magm-'
tude to outweigh the evils of civil disturbance. Nev-
ertheless, every violation of the constitution oughttcf
be watched with jealousy, and resented as such, be-
yond what the quantity of estimable damage \voul3
require or warrant; because a known and settled

84 SUBMISSION TO CIVIL GOVERNMENT.

jusage of governing affords the only security against
the enormities of uncontrolled dominion, and because
fliis security is weakened by every encroachment which
is made without opposition, or opposed without effect.
^_ 5. No usage, law, or authority whatever is so bind-
ing that it need or ought to be continued, when it
may be changed with advantage to the community.
The family of the prince, the order of succession, the
prerogative of the crown, the form and parts of the
legislature, together with the respective powers, office,
duration, and mutual dependency of the several parts,
are all only so many laws, mutable like other laws
whenever expediency requires, either by the ordinary
act of the legislature, or, if the occasion deserve it, by
the interposition of the people. These points are wont
to be approached with a kind of awe; they are repre-
sented to the mind as principles of the constitution
settled by our ancestors, and, being settled, to be no
more committed to innovation or debate; as founda-
tions never to be stirred ; as the terms and conditions
of the ao_cial compact, to which every citizen of the
state has engaged his fidelity, by virtue of a promise
which he cannot now recall. Such reasons have no
place in our system: to us, if there be any good rea-
son for treating these with more deference and respect
than other laws, it is either the advantage of the pre-
sent constitution of government (which reason must
be of different force in different countries,) or because
in all countries it is of importance that the form and
usage of governing be acknowledged and understood,
as well by the governors as by the governed; and be-

^ cause, the seldomer it is changed, the more perfectly

jtTnll be known by both sides.

6. As al]_civil obligation is resolved into exjpedi-
, what, It may be asked, is the difference between
the obligation of an Englishman and a Frenchman?
or why, sinc9 the obligation of both appears to be
founded in the same reason, is a Frenchman bound in
conscience to bear any thing from his king, which an
Englishman would not be bound to bear ? Their con-
ditions may differ, but their rights, according to this
account, should seem to be equal; and yet we are

SUBMISSION TO CIVIL. GOVERNMENT. 85

accustomed to speak of the rights as well as of the
happiness of a free people, compared with what be-
long to the subjects of absolute monarchies: how, you
will say, can this comparison be explained, unless we
refer to a difference in the compacts by which they
are respectively bound ? — This is a fair question, and
the answer to it will afford a further illustration of
our principles. We admit, then, that there are many
things which a Frenchman is bound in conscience, as
well as by coercion, to endure at the hands of his
prince, to which an Englishman would not be obliged
to submit: but we assert, that it is for these two rea-
sons alone; first, because the same act of the prince
is not the same grievance, where it is agreeable to the
constitution, as where it infringes it; secondly, be-
ciuse redress in the two cases is not equally attain-
able. Resistance cannot be attempted with equal
hopes of success, or with the same prospect of receiv-
ing support from others, where the people are recon-
ciled to their sufferings, as where they are alarmedlry
innovation. In this way, and no otherwise, the sub--_
jects of different states possess different civil rights;
the duty of obedience is defined by different bounda-
ries; and the point of justifiable resistance placed at
different parts of the scale of suffering; ail which is
sufficiently intelligible without a social compact.

7. " The interest of the whole society is binding
upon every part of it.'* No rule, short of this, vvill
provide for the stability of civil government, or for
the peace and safety of social life. Wherefore, as in-
dividual members of the state are not permitted to
pursue their private emolument to the prejudice of the
community, so is it equally a consequence of this rule,
that no particular colony, province, town, or district,
can justly concert measures for their separate interest,
which shall appear at the same time to diminish the
sum of public prosperity. I do not mean that it is
necessary to the justice of a measure, that it proht
each and every part of the community (for,, as the
happiness of the whole may be increased, whilst that^,
of some parts is diminished, it is possible that the con-
duct of one part of an empire may be detrimental*"^

VOL. ii. 8

\

86 SUBMISSION TO CIVIL GOVERNMENT.

!

some other part, and yet just, provided one part gain
more in happiness than the other part loses, so that
the common weal be augmented by the change;) but
what I affirm is, that those counsels can never be re-
conjpiled with the obligations resulting from civil
union, which cause the whole happiness of society to
be impaired for the conveniency of apart. This con-
clusion is applicable to the question of right between
Great Britain and her revolted colonies. Had I been
an American, I should not have thought it enough to
have had it even demonstrated, that a separation from
the parent state would produce effects beneficial to
America; my relation to that state imposed upon me a
further inquiry, namely, whether the whole happiness
of the empire was likely to be promoted by such a mea-
sure ? not indeed the happiness of every part; that
was not necessary, nor to be expected; — but whether
what Great Britain would lose by the separation was
likely to be compensated to the joint stock of happi-
ness, by the advantages which America would receive
from it ? The contested claims of sovereign states and
their remote dependencies may be submitted to the
adjudication of this rule with mutual safety. A pub-
lic advantage is measured by the advantage which
"each individual receives, and by the number of those
"wtio receive it. A public evil is compounded of the
same proportions. Whilst, therefore, a colony is small,
or a province thinly inhabited, if a competition of in-
terests arise between the original country and their
acquired dominions, the former ought to be preferred;
because it is fit that, if one must' necessarily be sacri-
ficed, the less give place to the greater: but when, by
an increase cf population, the interest of the provinces
begins to bear a considerable portion to the entire
interests of the community, it is possible that they may
suffer so much by their subjection, that not only theirs,
but the whole happiness of the empire may be ob-
structed by their union. The rule and principle of
the calculation being still the same, the result is dif-
ferent: and this difference begets a new situation,
which entities the subordinate parts of the state to
more equal terms of confederation, and, if these be
refused, to independency.

DUTY OF CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 87

CHAPTER IV.

OF THE DUTY OF CIVIL OBEDIENCE, AS STATED
IN THE CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES.

WE affirm that, as to the extent of our civil rights
and obligations, Christianity hath left us where she
foun(J us; that she hath neither altered nor ascer-
tained it; that the New Testament contains not one
passage, which, fairly interpreted, affords either argu-
ment or objection applicable to any conclusions upon
the subject that are deduced from the law and religion
of nature.

The only passages which have been seriously alleged

in the controversy, or which it is necessary for us to

' state and examine, are the two following; the one

extracted from St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, the

other from the First General Epistle of St. Peter: — .

" Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers:
for there is no power but of God; the powers that be
are ordained of God. Whosoever, therefore, resist-
eth the power resisteth the ordinance of God: and
they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.
For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the
evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power ?
Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of
the same: for he is the minister of God to thee for

food. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for
e beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister
of God^a revenger to execute wrath upon him that
doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not
only for wrath, but also for conscience' sake. For,
for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God's
ministers, attending continually upon this very thing.
Render therefore to all their dues; tribute to whom
tribute is due, custom to whom custom, fear to whom
fear, honour to whom honour." Rom. xiii. 1 — 7.

" Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man, for
the Lord's sake; whether it be to the King, as su-
preme^; or unto governors, as unto them that are sent
by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the

88 DUTY OF CIVIL, OBEDIENCE.

praise of them that do well. For so is the will of
God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the
ignorance of foolish men: as free, and not using youi
liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as the ser-
vants of God." 1 Pet. ii. 13 — 18.

To comprehend the proper import of these instruc-
-r tions, let the reader reflect, that upon the subject of
^ civil obedience there are two questions: the first,
whether to obey government be a moral duty and
obligation upon the conscience at all ? the second,
^how far, and to what cases, that obedience ought to
2j- extend ? that these two questions are so distinguish-
able in the imagination, that it is possible to treat of
£] the one, without any thought of the other; and lastly,
that if expressions which relate to one of these ques-
tions be transferred and applied to the other, it is
with great danger of giving them a signification very
different from the author's meaning. This distinction
is not only possible, but natural. If I met with a per-
son who appeared to entertain doubts, whether civil
obedience were a moral duty which ought to be volun-
tarily discharged, or whether it were not a mere sub-
mission to force, like that which we yield to a robber
who holds a pistol to our breast, I should represent to
him the use and offices of civil government, the end
and the necessity of civil subjection; or if I preferred
a different theory, I should explain to him the social
compact, urge him with the obligation and the equity
of his implied promise and tacit consent to be governed
by the laws of the state from which he received pro-
tection: or I should argue, perhaps that Nature her-
self dictated the law of subordination, when she plant-
ed within us an inclination to associate with our spe-
cies, and framed us with capacities so various and un-
equal. From whatever principle I set out, I should
labour to infer from it this conclusion, " That obedi-
ence to the state is to be numbered amongst the re-
lative duties of human life, for the transgression of
which we shall be accountable at the tribunal of Di-
vine Justice, whether the magistrate be able to punish
us for it or not;" and being arrived at this conclusion,
I should stop, having delivered the conclusion itself,

DUTY OF CIVIL, OBEDIENCE. 89

and throughout the whole argument expressed the
obedience, which I inculcated, in the most general and
unqualified terms; all reservations and restrictions
being superfluous, and foreign to the doubts I was
employed to remove.

If, in a short time afterwards, I should be accosted
by the same person, with complaints of public griev-
ances, of exorbitant taxes, of acts of cruelty and op-
pression, of tyrannical encroachments upon the ancient
or stipulated rights of the people, and should be con-
sulted whether it were lawful to revolt, or justifiable to
join in an attempt to shake off the yoke by open resist-
ance; I should certainly consider myself as having a
case and question before me very different from the
former. I should now define and discriminate. I
should reply, that if public expediency be the foun
dation, it is also the measure, of civil obedience; that;
the obligation of subjects and sovereigns is reciprocal;
that the duty of allegiance, whether it be founded in
utility or compact, is neither unlimited nor uncondition-
al; that peace may oe purchased too dearly; that pa-
tience becomes culpable pusillanimity, when it serves
only to encourage our rulers to increase the weight of
our burden, or to bind it the faster; that the submis-
sion which surrenders the liberty of a nation, and en-
tails slavery upon future generations, is enjoined by
no law of rational morality: finally, I should instruct
the inquirer to compare the peril and expense of his
enterprise with the effects it was expected to produce,
and to make choice of the alternative by which, not
his own present relief or profit, but the whole and
permanent interest of the state was likely to be best
promoted. If any one who had been present at both
these conversations, should upbraid me with change
and inconsistency of opinion, should retort upon me
the passive doctrine which I before taught, the large
and absolute terms in which I then delivered lessons
of obedience and submission, I should account myself
unfairly dealt with. I should reply, that the only dif-
ference which the language of the two conversations
presented was, that I added now many exceptions and
limitations, which were omitted or unthought of then;

VOL. 11. S *

90 DUTY OF C^VIL OBEDIENCE.

that this difference arose naturally from the two occa-
sions, such exceptions being as necessary to the sub-
ject of our present conference, as they would have
been superfluous and unseasonable in the former.

Now the difference in these two conversations is
precisely the distinction to be taken in interpreting
those passages of Scripture, concerning which we are
debating. They inculcate the duty, they do not de-
scribe the extent of it. They enforce the obligation
by the proper sanctions of Christianity, without in-
tending either to enlarge or contract, without consi-
dering, indeed, the limits by which it is bounded.
This is also the method in which the same apostles
enjoin the duty of servants to their masters, of children
to their parents, of wives to their husbands: " Ser-
vants, be subject to your masters." — " Children, obey
your parents in all things." — "Wives, submit your-
selves unto your own husbands." The same concise
and absolute form of expression occurs in all these
precepts; the same silence as to many exceptions or
distinctions: yet no one doubts that the commands of
masters, parents, and husbands are often so immo-
derate, unjust, and inconsistent with other obligations,
that they both may and ought to be resisted. In let-
ters or dissertations written professedly upon separate
articles of morality, we might with more reason have
looked for a precise delineation of our duty, and some
degree of modern accuracy in the rules which were
laid down for our direction; but in those short collec-
tions of practical maxims which compose the conclu-
sion, or some small portion of a doctrinal or perhaps
controversial epistle, we cannot be surprised to find
the author more solicitous to impress the duty than
curious to enumerate exceptions.

The consideration of this distinction is alone suffi-
cient to vindicate these passages of Scripture from any
explanation which may be put upon them, in favour
of an unlimited passive obedience. But if we be
permitted to assume a supposition which many com-
mentators proceed upon as a certainty, that the first
Christians privately cherished an opinion, that their
conversion to Christianity entitled them tonewimmu-

DUTY OF CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 91

nities, to an exemption, as of right (however they
might give way to necessity,) from the authority of the
Roman sovereign; we are furnished with a still more apt
and satisfactory interpretation of the apostles' words.
The two passages apply with great propriety to the
refutation of this error: they teach the Christian con
vert to obey the magistrate " for the Lord's sake; —
" not only for wrath, but for conscience' sake;" —
"that there is no power but of God;" — "that the
powers that be," even the present rulers of the Roman
empire, though heathens and usurpers, seeing they
are in possession of the actual and necessary autho-
rity of civil government, " are ordained of God;'1 and,
consequently, entitled to receive obedience from those
who profess themselves the peculiar servants of God,
in a greater (certainly not in a less) degree than from
any others. They briefly describe the office of" civil
governors, the punishment of evildoers, and the praise
of them that do well:'1 from' which description of the
use of government, they justly infer the duty of sub-
jection; which duty, being as extensive as the reason
upon which it is founded, belongs to Christians, no
less than to the heathen members of the community.
If it be admitted, that the two apostles wrote with a
view to this particular question, it will be confessed,
that their words cannot be transferred to a question
totally different from this, with any certainty of carry-
ing along with us their authority an4 intention. There
exists no resemblance between the case of a primitive
convert, who disputed the jurisdiction of the Roman
government over a disciple of Christianity, and his
who, acknowledging the general authority of the state
over all its subjects, doubts whether that authority be
not, in some important branch of it, so ill constituted,
or abused, as to warrant the endeavours of the people
to bring about a reformation by force. Nor can we
judge what reply the apostles would have made to
this second question, if it had been proposed to them,
from any thing they have delivered upon the first ; any
more than, in the two consultations above described,
it could be known beforehand what I would say in the
latter, from the answer which I gave to the former.

92 DUTY OF CIVIL OBEDIENCE.

The only defect in this account is, that neither the
Scriptures, nor any subsequent history of the early
ages of the church, furnish any direct attestation of
the existence of such disaffected sentiments amongst
the primitive converts. They supply indeed some
circumstances which render probable the opinion, that
extravagant notions of the political rights of the
Christian state were at that time entertained by many
prosielytes to the religion. From the question pro-
posed to Christ, " Is it lawful to give tribute unto
Caesar ?" it may be presumed that doubts had be^n
started in the Jewish schools concerning the obligation,
or even the lawfulness, of submission to the Roman
yoke. The accounts delivered by Josephus, of various
insurrections of the Jews of that and the following
age, excited by this principle, or upon this pretence,
confirm the presumption. Now, as the Christians were
at first chiefly taken from the Jews, confounded with
them by the rest of the world, and, from the affinity
of the two religions, apt to intermix the doctrines of
both, it is not to be wondered at, that a tenet, so flat-
tering to the self-importance of those who embraced
it, should have been communicated to the new institu-
tion. Again, the teachers of Christianity, amongst
the privileges which their religion conferred upon its
professors, were wont to extol the " liberty into which
they were called" — " in which Christ had made them
free.-' This liberty, which was intended of a deli-
verance from the \arious servitude in which they had
heretofore lived, to the domination of sinful passions,
to the superstition of the Gentile jdolatry, or the en-
cumbered ritual of the Jewish dispensation, might by
some be interpreted to signify an emancipation from
all restraint which was imposed by an authority merely
human. At least, they might be represented by their
enemies as maintaining notions of this dangerous ten-
dency. To some exror or calumny of this kind, the
words of St. Peter seem to allude: — "for so is the
will of God, that with well doingye may put to silence
the ignorance of foolish men: as free, and not using
your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, (i. e. sedition,)
but as the servants of God." After all, if any one

DUTY OF CIVIL, OBEDIENCE. 93

think this conjecture too feebly supported by testi-
mony, to be relied upon in the interpretation of Scrip-
ture, he will then revert to the considerations alleged
in the preceding part of this chapter.

After so copious an account of what we apprehend
to be the general design and doctrine of these much
agitated passages, little need be added in explanation
of particular clauses. St. Paul has said, " Whosoever
resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God."
This phrase, " the ordinance of God," is by many so
interpreted as to authorize the most exalted and super-
stitious ideas of the regal character. But, surely,
such interpreters have sacrificed truth to adulation.
For, in the first place, the expression, as used by St.
Paul, is just as applicable to one kind of government,
and to one kind of succession, as to another; — to the
elective magistrates of a pure republic, as to an abso-
lute hereditary monarch. In the next place, it is not
affirmed of the supreme magistrate exclusively, that
he is the ordinance of God; the title, whatever it
imports, belongs to every inferior officer of the state
as much as to the highest. The divine right of kings
is, like the divine right of other magistrates — the law
of the land, or even actual and quiet possession of
their office; a right ratified, we humbly presume, by
the divine approbation, so long as obedience to their
authority appears to be necessary or conducive to the
common welfare. Princes are ordained of God by
virtue only of that general decree by which he assents,
and adds the sanction of his will, to every law of
society which promotes his own purpose — the com-
munication of human happiness; according to which
idea of their origin and constitution (and without any
repugnancy to the words of St. Paul,) they are by
St. Peter denominated the ordinance of man.

94 CIVIL. LIBERTY.

CHAPTER V.

OF CIVIL, LIBERTY.

CIVIL LIBERTY is the not being restrained by any

law but what conduces in a greater degree to the

public welfare.

To do what we will is natural liberty: to do what
we will, consistently with the interest of the commu-
nity to which we belong, is civil liberty; that is to
say, the only liberty to be desired in a state of civil
society.

I should wish, no doubt, to be allowed to act in
every instance as I pleased; but I reflect, that the
rest also of mankind would then do the same; in
which state of universal independence and self-direc-
tion, I should meet with so many checks and obsta-
cles to my owrn will, from the interference and oppo-
sition of other men's, that not only my happiness, but
my liberty, would be less, than whilst the whole com-
munity were subject to the dominion of equal laws.

The boasted liberty of a state of nature exists only
in a state of solitude. In every kind and degree of
union and intercourse with his species, it is possible
that the liberty of the individual may be augmented
by the very laws which restrain it; because he may
gain more from the limitation of other men's freedom
than he suffers by the diminution of his own. Natural
liberty is the right of common upon a waste; civil
liberty is the safe, exclusive, unmolested enjoyment of
a cultivated enclosure.

The definition of civil liberty above laid down im-
ports, that the laws of a free people impose no re-
straints upon the private will of the subject, which do
not conduce in a greater degree to the public happi-
ness; by which it is intimated, 1st, That restraint
itself is an evil; 2dly, That this evil ought to be over-
balanced by some public advantage; Sdly, That the
proof of this advantage lies upon the legislature,
4thly, That a law being found to produce no sensible
good effects is a sufficient reason for repealing it, as
adverse and injurious to the rights of a free citizen,

CIVIL, LIBERTY. 95

without demanding specific evidence of its bad effects.
This maxim might be remembered with advantage in
a revision of many laws of this country; especially of
the game laws; of the poor laws, so far as they lay re-
strictions upon the poor themselves; of the laws
against Papists and Dissenters: and amongst people
enamoured to excess and jealous of their liberty, it
eeems a matter of surprise that this principle has been
so imperfectly attended to.

The degree of actual liberty always bearing, ac-
cording to this account of it, a reversed proportion to
the number and severity of the restrictions which are
either useless, or the utility of which does not out-
weigh the evil of the restraint, it follows, that every
nation possesses some, no nation perfect liberty: that
this liberty may be enjoyed under every form of go-
vernment: that it may be impaired indeed, or increas-
ed, but that it is neither gained, nor lost, nor recov-
ered, by any single regulation, change, or event
whatever: that consequently, those popular phrases
which speak of a free people; of a nation of slaves;
which call one revolution the era of liberty, or another
the loss of it, with many expressions of a like ab-
solute form, are intelligible only in a comparative
sense.

Hence also we are enabled to apprehend the dis-
tinction between personal and civil liberty. A citizen
of the freest republic in the world may be imprisoned
for his crimes; and though his personal freedom be
restrained by bolts and fetters, so long as his confine-
ment is the effect of a beneficial public law, his civil
liberty is not invaded. If this instance appear dubi-
ous, the following will be plainer. A passenger from
the Levant, who upon his return to England, should
be conveyed to a lazaretto by an order of quarantine,
with whatever impatience he might desire his enlarge-
ment, and though he saw a guard placed at the door
to oppose his escape or even ready to destroy his life
if he attempted it, whould hardly accuse government
of encroaching upon his civil freedom; nay, might,
perhaps, be all the while congratulating himself that
he had at length set his foot again in a land of liberty.

96 CIVIL LIBERTT.

The manifest expediency of the measure not only jus-
tifies it, but reconciles the most odious confinement
with the perfect possession, and the loftiest notions of
civil liberty. And if ihis be true of the coercion of
a prison, that it is compatible with a state of civil free-
dom, it cannot with reason be disputed of those more
moderate constraints which the ordinary operation of
government imposes upon the will of the individual.
It is not the rigour, but the inexpediency of laws and
acts of authority which makes them tyrannical.

There is another idea of civil liberty which, though
neither so simple nor so accurate as the former, agrees
better with the signification which the usage of com-
mon discourse, as well as the example of many re-
spectable writers upon the subject, has affixed to the
term. This idea places liberty insecurity; making it
to consist, not merely in an actual exemption from
the constraint of useless and noxious laws and acts of
dominion, but in being free from the danger of hav-
ing such hereafter imposed or exercised. Thus, speak-
ing of the political state of modern Europe, we are
accustomed to say of Sweden, that she hath lost her
liberty by the revolution which lately took place in
that country; and yet we are assured that the people
continue to be governed by the same iavvs as before,
or by others whicn are wiser, milder, and more equita-
ble. What then have they lost ? They have lost the
power and functions of their diet; the constitution of
their states and orders, whose deliberations and con-
currence were required in the formation and establish-
ment of every public law; and thereby have parted
with the security which they possessed against any
attempts of the crown to harass its subjects, by op-
pressive and useless exertions of prerogative. The loss
of this security we denominate the loss of liberty.
They have changed, not their laws, but their legisla-
ture; not their enjoyment, but their safety; not their
present burdens, but their prospects of future griev-
ances; and this we pronounce a change from the
condition of freemen to that of slaves. In like man-
ner, in our own country, the act of parliament, in the
reign of Henry the Eighth, which gave to the king's

CIVIL LIBERTY. 97

proclamation the force of law, has properly been call-
ed a complete and formal surrender of the liberty of
the nation; and would have been so, although no pro-
clamation were issued in pursuance of these new pow-
ers, or none but what was recommended by the high-
est wisdom and utility. The security was gone. Were
it probable that the welfare and accommodation of
the people would be as studiously and as providently
consulted in the edicts of a despotic prince, as by the
resolutions of a popular assembly, then would an ab-
solute form of government be no less free than the
purest democracy. The different degree of care and
knowledge of the public interest, which may reasona-
bly be expected from the different form and composi-
tion of the legislature, constitutes the distinction, in
respect of liberty, as well between these two extremes,
as between all the intermediate modifications of civil
government.

The definitions which have been framed of civil
liberty, and which have become the subject of much
unnecessary altercation, are most of them adapted to
this idea. Thus one political writer makes the very
essence of the subject's liberty to consist in his being
governed by no laws but those to which he hath ac-
tually consented; another is satisfied with an indirect
and virtual consent; another, again, places civil
liberty in the separation of the legislative and execu-
tive offices of government; another, in the being go-
verned by law, that is, by known, preconstituted,
inflexible rules of action and adjudication; a fifth, in
the exclusive right of the people to tax themselves by
their own representatives; a sixth, in the freedom
and purity of elections of representatives; a seventh,
in the control which the democratic part of the con-
stitution possesses over the military establishment.
Concerning which, and some other similar accounts
of civil liberty, it may be observed, that they all la-
bour under one inaccuracy, viz. that they describe not
so much liberty itself, as the safeguards ancJ preser-
vatives of liberty: for example, a man's being go-
verned by no laws but those to which he has given
his consent, were it practicable, is no otherwise neces-

VOL,. II. 9

98 CIVIL LIBERTY.

sary to the enjoyment of civil liberty, than as it af
fords a probable security against the dictation of laws
imposing superfluous restrictions upon his private will.
This remark is applicable to the rest. The diversity
of these definitions will not surprise us, when we con-
sider that there is no contrariety or opposition amongst
them whatever: for, by how many different provisions
and precautions civil liberty is fenced and protected,
so many different accounts of liberty itself, all suffi-
ciently consistent with truth and with each other,
may, according to this mode of explaining the term,
be framed and adopted.

Truth cannot be offended by a definition, but pro-
priety may. In which view, those definitions of li-
berty ought to be rejected, which, by making that
essential to civil freedom which is unattainable in
experience, inflame expectations that can never be
gratified, and disturb the public content with com-
plaints, which no wisdom or benevolence of govern-
ment can remove.

It will not be thought extraordinary, that an idea,
which occurs so much oftener as the subject of pane-
gyric and careless declamation, than of just reasoning
or correct knowledge, should be attended with un-
certainty and confusion; or that it should be found
impossible to contrive a definition which may include
the numerous, unsettled, and ever varying significa-
tions, which the term is made to stand for, and at the
same time accord with the condiUon and experience
of social life.

Of the two ideas that have been stated of civil li-
berty, whichever we assume, and whatever reasoning
we found upon them, concerning its extent, nature,
value, and preservation, this is the conclusion; — that
that people, government, and constitution is the freest,
which makes the best provision for the enacting of
expedient and salutary laws

DIFFERENT FORMS OF GOVERNMENT. 99

CHAPTER VI.

OF DIFFERENT FORMS OF GOVERNMENT.

As a series of appeals must be finite, there neces-
sarily exists in every government a power from which
the constitution has provided no appeal; and which
power, for that reason, maybe termed absolute, omni-
potent, uncontrollable, arbitrary, despotic; and is
alike so in all countries.

The person, or assembly, in whom this power re-
sides, is called the sovereign, or the supreme power
of the state.

Since to the same power universally appertains the
office of establishing public laws, it is called also the
legislature of the state.

A government receives its denomination from the
form of the legislature; which form is likewise what
we commonly mean by the constitution of a country.

Political writers enumerate three principal forms
of government, which, however, are to be regarded
rather as the simple forms, by some combination and
intermixture of which all actual governments are com-
posed, than as any where existing in a pure and ele-
mentary state. These forms are,

1. Despotism, or absolute MONARCHY, where the
legislature is in a single person.

2. An ARISTOCRACY, where the legislature is in a
select assembly, the members of which either fill up
by election the vacancies in their own body, or suc-
ceed to their places in it by inheritance, property,
tenure of certain lands, or in respect of some personal
right or qualification.

3. A REPUBLIC, or democracy, where the people
at large, either collectively or by representation, con-
stitute the legislature.

The separate advantages of MONARCHY are unity
of counsel, activity, decision, secrecy, dispatch '*»«
military strength and energy which result from these
qualities of government; the exclusion of popular
and aristocratical contentions; the preventing, by a

100 DIFFERENT FORMS OF GOVERNMENT.

known rule of succession, of all competition for the
supreme power; and thereby repressing the hopes,
intrigues, and dangerous ambition of aspiring citizens.

The mischiefs, or rather the dangers, of MONARCHY
are tyranny, expense, exaction, military domination;
unnecessary wars, waged to gratify the passions of an
individual; risk of the character of the reigning prince;
ignorance in the governors, of the interests and
accommodation of the people, and a consequent de-
ficiency of salutary regulations-, want of constancy
and uniformity in the rules of government, and, pro-
ceeding from thence, insecurity of person and pro-
perty.

The separate advantage of an ARISTOCRACY con-
sists in the wisdom which may be expected from ex-
perience and education: — a permanent council natu-
rally possesses experience; and the members who suc-
ceed to their places in it by inheritance will, proba-
bly, be trained and educated with a view to the sta-
tions which they are destined by their birth to occupy.

The mischiefs of an ARISTOCRACY are dissensions
in the ruling orders of the state, which, from the
want of a common superior, are liable to proceed to
the most desperate extremities; oppression of the
lower orders by the privileges of the higher, and by
laws partial to the separate interest of the law makers.

The advantages of a REPUBLIC are liberty, or ex-
emption from needless restrictions; equal laws; regu-
lations adapted to the wants and circumstances of the
people; public spirit, frugality, averseness to war;
the opportunities which democratic assemblies afford
to men of every description, of producing their abili-
ties and counsels to public observation, and the ex-
citing thereby, and calling forth to the service of the
commonwealth the faculties of its best citizens.

The evils of a REPUBLIC are dissension, tumults,
faction; the attempts of powerful citizens to possess
themselves of the empire; the confusion, rage, and
clamour, which are the inevitable consequences of
assembling multitudes, and of propounding questions
of state to the discussion of the people; the delay and
disclosure of public counsels and designs; and the

DIFFERENT FORMS OF GOVERNMENT. 101

imbecility of measures retarded by the necessity of ob-
taining the consent of numbers: lastly, the oppression
of the provinces which are not admitted to a partici-
pation in the legislative power.

A mixed government is composed by the combina-
tion of two or more of the simple forms of government
above described; — and in whatever proportion each
form enters into the constitution of a government, in
the same proportion may both the advantages and
evils, which we have attributed to that form, be ex-
pected; that is, those are the uses to be maintained
and cultivated in each part of the constitution, and
these are the dangers to be provided against in each.
Thus, if secrecy and dispatch be truly enumerated
amongst the separate excellencies of regal govern-
ment, then a mixed government, which retains mo-
narchy in one part of its constitution, should be care-
ful that the other estates of the empire do not, by an
officious and inquisitive interference with the execu-
tive functions, which are, or ought to be, reserved to
the administration of the prince, interpose delays, or
divulge what it is expedient to conceal. On the
other hand, if profusion, exaction, military domina-
tion, and needless wars be justly accounted natural
properties of monarchy, in its simple unqualified form;
then are these the objects to which, in a mixed go-
vernment, the aristocratic and popular parts of the
constitution ought to direct their vigilance; the dan-
gers against which they should raise and fortify their
barriers; these are departments of sovereignty, over
which a power of inspection and control ought to be
deposited with the people.

The same observation may be repeated of all the
other advantages and inconveniences which have
been ascribed to the several simple forms of govern-
ment; and affords a rule whereby to direct the con-
struction, improvements, and administration of mixed
government, — subjected however to this remark, that
a quality sometimes results from the conjunction of
two simple forms of government, which belongs not
to the separate existence of either. Thus corruption,
which has no place in absolute monarchy, and little in

voi*. ii. 9 *

102 DIFFERENT FORMS OF GOVERNMENT.

a pure republic, is sure to gain admission into a con-
stitution which divides the supreme power between an
executive magistrate and a popular council.

An hereditary MONARCHY is universally to be pre-
ferred to an elective monarchy. The confession of
every writer on the subject of civil government, the
experience of ages, the example of Poland, and of the
papal dominions, seem to place this amongst the few
indubitable maxims which the science of politics ad-
mits of. A crown is too splendid a prize to be con-
ferred upon merit: the passions or interests of the
electors exclude all consideration of the qualities of
the competitors. The same observation holds con-
cerning the appointment to any office which is at-
tended with a great share of power or emolument.
Nothing is gained by a popular choice, worth the dis-
sensions, tumults, and interruption of regular indus-
try, with which it is inseparably attended. Add to
this, that a king who owes his elevation to the event
of a contest, or to any other cause than a fixed rule of
succession, will be apt to regard one part of his sub-
jects as the associates of his fortune, and the other as
conquered foes. Nor should it be forgotten, amongst
the advantages of an hereditary monarchy, that, as
plans of national improvement and reform are seldom
brought to maturity by the exertions of a single reign,
a nation cannot attain to the degree of happiness and
prosperity to which it is capable of being carried,
unless a uniformity of counsels, a consistency of pub-
lic measures and designs, be continued through a
succession of ages. This benefit may be expected
with greater probability, where the supreme power
descends in the same race, and where each prince
succeeds, in some sort, to the aim, pursuits, and dis-
position of his ancestor, than if the crown, at every
change, devolve upon a stranger, whose first care will
commonly be to pull down what his predecessor had
built up; and to substitute systems of administration,
which must, in their turn, give way to the more fa-
vourite novelties of the next successor.

ARISTOCRACIES are of two kinds: — First, where the
power of the nobility belongs to them in their collec-

DIFFERENT FORMS OF GOVERNMENT. 103

tive capacity alone; that is, where, although the go-
vernment reside in an assembly of the order, yet the
members of that assembly separately and individually
possess no authority or privilege beyond the rest of the
community: — this describes the constitution of Ve-
nice. Secondly, where the nobles are severally in-
vested with great personal power and immunities, and
where the power of the senate is little more than the
aggregated power of the individuals who compose it:
— this is the constitution of Poland. Of these two
forms of government, the first is more tolerable than
the last; for, although the members of a senate should
many, or even all of them, be profligate enough to
abuse the authority of their stations in the prosecution
of private designs, yet, not being all under a tempta-
tion to the same injustice, not having all the same end
to gain, it would still be difficult to obtain the con-
sent of a majority to any specific act of oppression
which the iniquity of an individual might prompt
him to propose: or if the will were the same, the
power is more confined; one tyrant, whether the
tyranny reside in a single person, or a senate, cannot
exercise oppression at so many places, at the same
time, as it may be carried on by the dominion of a
numerous nobility over their respective vassals and
dependants. Of all species of domination, this is the
most odious: the freedom and satisfaction of private
life are more constrained and harassed by it than by
the most vexatious laws, or even by the lawless will of
an arbitrary monarch, from whose knowledge, and
from whose injustice, the greatest part of his subjects
are removed by their distance, or concealed by their
obscurity.

Europe exhibits more than one modern example,
where the people, aggrieved by the exactions, or pro-
voked by the enormities of their immediate superiors,
have joined with the reigning prince in the over-
throw of the aristocracy, deliberately exchanging their
condition for the miseries of despotism. About the
middle of the last century, the commons of Den-
mark, weary of the oppressions which they had long
Buffered from the nobles, and exasperated by some ie-

104 DIFFERENT FORMS OF GOVERNMENT.

cent insults, presented themselves at the foot of the
throne with a formal offer of their consent to establish
unlimited dominion in the king. The revolution in
Sweden, still more lately brought about with the ac-
quiescence, not to say the assistance, of the people,
owed its success to the same cause, namely, to th«
prospect of deliverance that it afforded from the ty-
ranny which their nobles exercised under the old con-
stitution. In England, the people beheld the depres-
sion of the barons, under the house of Tudor, with
satisfaction, although they saw the crown acquiring
thereby a power which no limitations that the consti-
tution had then provided were likely to confine. The
lesson to be drawn from such events is this: that a
mixed government, which admits a patrician order
into its constitution, ought to circumscribe the per-
sonal privileges of the nobility, especially claims of
hereditary jurisdiction and local authority, with a
jealousy equal to the solicitude with which it wishes
its own preservation: for nothing so alienates the
minds of the people from the government under which
they live, by a perpetual sense of annoyance and in-
conveniency, or so prepares them for the practices of
an enterprising prince, or a factious demagogue, as
the abuse which almost always accompanies the ex-
istence of separate immunities.

Amongst the inferior, but by no means inconsider-
able advantages of a DEMOCRATIC constitution, or
of a constitution in which the people partake of the
power of legislation, the following should not be ne-
glected:—

1. The direction which it gives to the education,
studies, and pursuits of the superior orders of the
community. The share which this has in forming the
public manners and national character is very impor-
tant. In countries in which the gentry are excluded
from all concerns in the government, scarcely any
thing is left which leads to advancement, but the pro-
fession of arms. They who do not addict themselves
to this profession, (and miserable must that country
be, which constantly employs the military service of a
great proportion of any order of its subjects !) are

I

DIFFERENT FORMS OF GOVERNMENT. 105

commonly lost by the mere want of object and desti-
nation; that is, they either fall, without reserve, into
the most sottish habits of animal gratification, or en-
tirely devote themselves to the attainment of those
futile arts and decorations which compose the business
and recommendations of a court: on the other hand,
where the whole, or any effective portion, of civil
power is possessed by a popular assembly, more serious
pursuits will be encouraged; purer morals, and a more
intellectual character will engage the public esteem;
those faculties which qualify men for deliberation and
debate, and which are the fruit of sober habits, of
early and long continued application, will be roused
and animated by the reward which, of all others, most
readily awakens the ambition of the human mind—-
political dignity and importance.

2. Popular elections procure to the common peo-
ple courtesy from their superiors. That contemptuous
and overbearing insolence, with which the lower or-
ders of the community are wont to be treated by the
higher, is greatly mitigated where the people have
something to give. The assiduity with which their
favour is sought upon these occasions serves to gene-
rate settled habits of condescension and respect; and
as human life is more imbittered by affronts than in-
juries, whatever contributes to procure mildness and
civility of manners towards those who are most liable
to suffer from a contrary behaviour, corrects, with the
pride, in a great measure, the evil of inequality, and
deserves to be accounted among the most generous
institutions of social life.

3. The satisfactions which the people of free go
vernments derive from the knowledge and agitation of •
political subjects; such as the proceedings and de-
bates of the senate; the conduct and characters of
ministers; the revolutions, intrigues, and contentions
of parties; and, in general, from the discussion of
public measures, questions, and occurrences. Sub-
jects of this sort excite just enough of interest and
emotion to afford a moderate engagement to the
thoughts, without rising to any painful degree of
anxiety, or ever leaving a fixed oppression upon the

106 DIFFERENT FORMS OY GOVERNMENT.

spirits; — and what is this, but the end and aim of all
those amusements which compose so much of the bu-
siness of life and the value of riches? For my part
(and I believe it to be the case with most men who
are arrived at the middle age, and occupy the middle
classes of life,) had I all the money which I pay in
taxes to government, at liberty to lay out upon amuse-
ment and diversion, I know not whether I could make
choice of any in which I could find greater pleasure
than what I receive from expecting, hearing, and re-
lating public news; reading parliamentary debates
and proceedings; canvassing the political arguments,,
projects, predictions, and intelligence, which are con-
veyed, by various channels, to every corner of the
kingdom. These topics, exciting universal curiosity,
and being such as almost every man is ready to form
and prepared to deliver his opinion about, greatly
promote, and, I think, improve conversation. They
render it more rational and more innocent; they sup-
ply a substitute for drinking, gaming, scandal, and
obscenity. Now the secrecy, the jealousy, the soli-
tude, and precipitation of despotic governments ex-
clude all this. But the loss, you say, is trifling. I
know that it is possible to render even the mention of
it ridiculous, by representing it as the idle employ-
ment of the most insignificant part of the nation, the
folly of village statesmen and coffeehouse politicians:
but I allow nothing to be a trifle which ministers to
the harmless gratification of multitudes; nor any or-
der of men to be insignificant whose number bears a
respectable proportion to the sum of the whole com-
munity.

We have been accustomed to an opinion, that a
REPUBLICAN form of government suits only with the
affairs of a small state: which opinion is founded in
the consideration, that unless the people, in every dis-
trict of the empire, be admitted to a share in the na-
tional representation, the government is not, as to
them, a republic; that elections, where the constitu-
ents are numerous, and dispersed through a wide ex-
tent of country, are conducted with difficulty, or rather,
indeed, managed by the intrigues and combinations of

DIFFERENT FORMS OF GOVERNMENT. 107

a few, who are situated near the place of election,
each voter considering his single suffrage as too
minute a portion of the general interest to deserve his
care or attendance, much less to be worth any oppo-
sition to influence and application; that whilst we
contract the representation within a compass small
enough to admit of orderly debate, the interest of the
constituent becomes too small, or the representative
too great. It is difficult also to maintain any con-
nexion between them. He who represents two hun-
dred thousand is necessarily a stranger to the greatest
part of those who elect him; and when his interest
among them ceases to depend upon an acquaintance
with their persons and character, or a care or know-
ledge of their affairs; when such a representative finds
the treasures and honours of a great empire at the dis-
posal of a few, and himself one of the few; there is
little reason to hope that he will not prefer to his
public duty those temptations of personal aggran-
dizement which his situation offers, and which the
price of his vote will always purchase. All appeal to
the people is precluded by the impossibility of collect-
ing a sufficient proportion of their force and numbers.
The factions and the unanimity of the senate are
equally dangerous. Add to these considerations, that
in a democratic constitution the mechanism is too
complicated, and the motions too slow, for the opera-
tions of a great empire, whose defence and government
require execution and dispatch, in proportion to the
magnitude, extent, and variety of its concerns. There
is weight, no doubt, in these reasons; but much of
the objection seems to be done away by the contri-
vance of a federal republic, which, distributing the
country into districts of a commodious extent, and
leaving to each district its internal legislation, reserves
to a convention of the states the adjustment of their
relative claims; the levying, direction, and govern-
ment of the common force of the confederacy; the
requisition of subsidies for the support of this force;
the making of peace and war; the entering into trea-
ties; the regulation of foreign commerce; the equa-
lization of duties upon imports, so as to prevent the

108 BRITISH CONSTITUTION.

defrauding of the revenue of one province by smug-
gling articles of taxation from the borders of another;
and likewise so as to gifard against undue partialities
in the encouragement of trade. To what limits such
a republic might, without inconveniency, enlarge its
dominions, by assuming neighbouring provinces into
the confederation; or how far it is capable of uniting
the liberty of a small commonwealth with the safety
of a powerful empire; or whether, Amongst coordi-
nate powers, dissensions and jealousies would not be
likely to arise, which, for want of a common superior,
might proceed to fatal extremities; are questions, upon
which the records of mankind do not authorize us to
decide with tolerable certainty. The experiment is
about to be tried in America upon a large scale.

CHAPTER VII.

OF THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION.

BY the CONSTITUTION of a country is meant so
much of its law as relates to the designation and form
of the legislature; the rights and functions of the sev-
eral parts of the legislative body; the construction,
office, and jurisdiction of courts of justice. The consti-
tution is one principal division, section, or title of the
code of public laws; distinguished from the rest only
by the superior importance to the subject of which it
treats. Therefore the terms constitutional and uncon-
stitutional mean legal and illegal. The distinction and
the ideas which these terms denote are founded in the
same authority with the law of the land upon any
other subject; and to be ascertained by the same in-
quiries. In England, the system of public jurispru-
dence is made up of acts of parliament, of decisions of
courts of law, and of immemorial usages; conse-
quently, these are the principles of which the Eng-
ligh constitution itself consists, the sources from which
all our knowledge of its nature and limitations is to
be deduced, and the authorities to which all appeal

BRITISH CONSTITUTION. 109

ought to be made, and by which every constitutional
doubt and question can alone be decided. This
plain and intelligible definition is the more necessary
to be preserved in our thoughts, as some writers upon
the subject absurdly confound what is constitutional
with what is expedient; pronouncing forthwith a
measure to be unconstitutional, which they adjudge
in any respect to be detrimental or dangerous: whilst
others, again, ascribe a kind of transcendant autho-
rity, or mysterious sanctity, to the constitution, as if
it were founded in some higher original than that
which gives force and obligation to the ordinary laws
and statutes of the realm, or were inviolable on any
other account than its intrinsic utility. An act of par-
liament in England can never be unconstitutional, in
the strict and proper acceptation of the term; in a
lower sense it may, viz. when it militates with the
spirit, contradicts the analogy, or defeats the provi-
sion of other laws, made to regulate the form of go-
vernment. Even that flagitious abuse of their trust,
by which a parliament of Henry the Eighth conferred
upon the king's proclamation the authority of law,
was unconstitutional only in this latter sense.

Most of those who treat of the British constitution
consider it as a scheme of government formally plan-
ned and contrived by our ancestors, in some cer-
tain era of our national history, and as set up in pur-
suance of such regular plan and design. Something
of this sort is secretly supposed, or referred to, in the
expressions of those who speak of the " principles of
the constitution," of bringing back the constitution to
its " first principles," of restoring it to its " original
purity," or " primitive model." Now this appears to
me an erroneous conception of the subject. No such
plan was ever formed; consequently no such first
principles, original model, or standard, exist: I mean,
there never was a date or point of time in our history,
when the government of England was to be set up
anew, and when it was referred to any single person,
or assembly, or committee, to frame a charter for
the future government of the country; or when a
constitution so prepared and digested was by com-

VOL. II. 10

110 BRITISH CONSTITUTION.

mon consent received and established. In the time
of the civil wars, or rather between the death of
Charles the the First and the restoration of his son,
many such projects were published, but none were car-
ried into execution. The Great Charter and the Bill of
Rights were wise and strenuous efforts to obtain secu-
rity against certain abuses of regal power, by which
the subject had been formerly aggrieved: but these
were, either of them, much too pa/tial modifications
of the constitution, to give it a new original. The
constitution of England, like that of most countries of
Europe, hath grown out of occasion and emergency;
from the fluctuating policy of different ages; from the
contentions, successes, interests, and opportunities of
different orders and parties of men in the community.
It resembles one of those old mansions, which, instead
of being built all at once, after a regular plan, and
according to the rules of architecture at present es-
tablished, has been reared in different ages of the art,
has been altered from time to time, arid has been
continually receiving additions and repairs, suited to
the taste, fortune, or conveniency of its successive
proprietors. In such a building, we look in vain for
the elegance and proportion, for the just order and
correspondence of parts, which we expect in a mo-
dern edifice; and which external symmetry, after all,
contributes much more perhaps to the amusement
of the beholder than the accommodation of the inha-
bitant.

In the British, and possibly in all other constitu-
tions, there exists a wide difference between the actual
Ft ate of the government and the theory. The one re-
sults from the other; but still they are different. When
we contemplate the theory of the British government,
we ,«oe the king invested with the most absolute per-
sonal impunity; with a power of rejecting laws, which
have been resolved upon by both houses of parlia-
ment; of conferring by his charter, upon any set or
succession of men he pleases, the privilege of sending
representatives into one house of parliament, as by
his immediate appointment he can place whom he
will in the other. What is this, a foreigner might ask,

BRITISH CONSTITUTION. Ill

but a more circuitous despotism ? Yet, when we turn
our attention from the legal extent to the actual ex-
ercise of royal authority in England, we see these
formidable prerogatives dwindled into mere ceremo-
nies; and, in their stead, a sure and commanding in-
fluence, of which the constitution, it seems, is totally
ignorant, growing out of that enormous patronage
which the increased territory and opulence of the
empire have placed in the disposal of the executive
magistrate.

Upon questions of reform, the habit of reflection to
be encouraged is a sober comparison of the constitu-
tion under which we live, — not with models of spe-
culative perfection, but with the actual chance of ob-
taining a better. This turn of thought will generate
a political disposition, equally removed from that
puerile admiration of present establishments, which
sees no fault, and can endure no change; and that
distempered sensibility, which is alive only to per-
ceptions of inconveniency, and is too impatient to be
delivered from the uneasiness which it feels, to com-
pute either the peril or expense of the remedy. Politi-
cal innovations commonly produce many effects beside
those that are intended. The direct consequence is
often the least important. Incidental, remote, and
unthought of evils or advantages frequently exceed
that good that is designed, or the mischief that is fore-
seen. It is from the silent and unobserved operation,
from the obscure progress of causes set at work for
different purposes, that the greatest revolutions take
their rise. When Elizabeth and her immediate suc-
cessor applied themselves to the encouragement and
regulation of trade by many wise laws, they knew not,
that, together with wealth and industry, they were
diffusing a consciousness of strength and indepen-
dency, which would not long endure, under the forms
of a mixed government, the dominion of arbitrary
princes. When it was debated whether the mutiny
act, the law by which the army is governed and main-
tained, should be temporary or perpetual, little else
probably occurred to the advocates of an annual bill
than the expediency of retaining a control over the

112 BRITISH CONSTITUTION.

most dangerous prerogative of the crown, — the direc-
tion and command of a standing army; whereas, in
its effect, this single reservation has altered the whole
frame and quality of the British constitution. For
since, in consequence of the military system which
prevails in neighbouring and rival nations, as well as
on account of the internal exigencies of government,
a standing army has become essential to the safety
and administration of the empire, it enables parlia-
ment, by discontinuing this necessary provision, so to
enforce its resolutions upon any other subject, as to
render the king's dissent to a law which has received
the approbation of both houses, too dangerous an ex-
periment any longer to be advised. A contest be-
tween the king and parliament cannot now be per-
severed in without a dissolution of the government
Lastly, when the constitution conferred upon the
crown the nomination to all employments in the pub-
lic service, the authors of this arrangement were led
to it, by the obvious propriety of leaving to a master
the choice of his servants; and by the manifest incon-
Teniency of engaging the national council, upon every
vacancy, in those personal contests which attend elec-
tions to places of honour and emolument. Our an-
cestors did not observe that this disposition added an
influence to the regal office, which, as the number and
value of public employments increased, would super-
sede in a great measure the forms, and change the
character, of the ancient constitution. They knew
not, what the experience and reflection of modern
ages have discovered, that patronage universally is
power; that he who possesses in a sufficient degree
the means of gratifying the desires of mankind after
wealth and distinction, by whatever checks and forms
his authority may be limited or disguised, will direct
the management of public affairs. Whatever be the
mechanism of the political engine, he will guide the
motion. These instances are adduced in order to
illustrate the proposition which we laid down, that, in
politics, the most important and permanent effects
have, for the most part, been incidental and unfore-
seen: And this proposition we inculcate, for the sake

BRITISH COXSTITUTIOIf. 113

of the caution which teaches that changes ought not to
be adventured upon without a comprehensive discern-
ment of the consequences, — without a knowledge as
well of the remote tendency, as of the immediate de-
sign. The courage of a statesman should resemble
that of a commander, who, however regardless of per-
sonal danger, never forgets that, with his own, he
commits the lives and fortunes of a multitude; and
who does not consider it as any proof of zeal or va-
lour, to stake the safety of other men upon the suc-
cess of a perilous or desperate enterprise.

There is one end of civil government peculiar to a
good constitution, namely, the happiness of its sub-
jects; there is another end essential to a good govern-
ment, but common to it with many bad ones, — its
own preservation. Observing that the best form of-
government would be defective which did not pro-
vide for its own permanency, in our political reason-
ings we consider all such provisions as expedient;
and are content to accept as a sufficient ground for a
measure, or law, that it is necessary or conducive to
the preservation of the constitution. Yet, in truth,
such provisions are absolutely expedient, and such an
excuse final only whilst the constitution is worth pre-
serving; that is, until it can be exchanged for a bet-
ter. I premise this distinction, because many things
in the English, as in every constitution, are to be vin-
dicated and accounted for solely from their tendency
to maintain the government in its present state, and
the several parts of it in possession of the powers
which the constitution has assigned to them; and
because I would wish it to be remarked, that such
a consideration is always subordinate to another, — -
the value and usefulness of the constitution itself.

The Government of England, which has been
sometimes called a mixed government, sometimes a
limited monarchy, is formed by a combination of the
three regular species of government — the monarchy,
residing in the King; the aristocracy, in the House
of Lords; and the republic, being represented by the
House of Commons. The perfection intended by
such a scheme of government is, to unite the advan-

VOL. II. 10 *

114 BRITISH CONSTITUTION.

tages of the several simple forms, and to exclude the
inconveniencies. To what degree this purpose is
attained or attainable in the British constitution;
wherein it is lost sight of or neglected; and by what
means it may in any part be promoted with better
success, the reader will be enabled to judge, by a
separate recollection of these advantages and incon-
veniencies, as enumerated in the preceding chapter,
and a distinct application of each to the political con-
dition of this country. We will present our remarks
upon the subject in a brief account of the expedients
by which the British constitution provides,

1st, For the interest of its subjects;

2dly, For its own preservation.

The contrivances for the first of these purposes are
the following: —

In order to promote the establishment of salutary
public laws, every citizen of the state is capable of
becoming a member of the senate; and every senator
possesses the right of propounding to the deliberation
of the legislature whatever law he pleases.

Every district of the empire enjoys the privilege of
choosing representatives, informed of the interests,
and circumstances, and desires of their constituents,
and entitled by their situation to communicate that
information to the national council. The meanest
subject has some one whom he can call upon to bring
forward his complaints and requests to public atten-
tion.

By annexing the right of voting for members of the
House of Commons to different qualifications in dif-
ferent places, each order and profession of men in the
community become virtually represented; that is,
men of all orders and professions, statesmen, courtiers,
country gentlemen, lawyers, merchants, manufac-
turers, soldiers, sailors, interested in the prosperity,
and experienced in the occupation of their respective
professions, obtain seats in parliament.

The elections at the same time are so connected
with the influence of landed property, as to afford a
certainty that a considerable number of men of great
estates will be returned to parliament; and are also

BRITISH CONSTITUTION. 115

so modified, that men the most eminent and success-
ful in their respective professions are the most likely,
by their riches, or the weight of their stations, to pre-
vail in these competitions.

The number, fortune, and quality of the members; -
the variety of interests and characters amongst them;
above all, the temporary duration of their power, and
the change of men which every new election pro-
duces; are so many securities to the public, as well
against the subjection of their judgments to any ex-
ternal dictation, as against the formation of a junto in
their own body, sufficiently powerful to govern their
decisions. /

The representatives are so intermixed with the con- &
stituents, and the constituents with the rest of the
people, that they cannot, without a partiality too fla-
grant to be endured, impose any burthen upon the
subject, in which they do not share themselves; nor
scarcely can they adopt an advantageous regulation,
in which their own interests will not participate of the
advantage. y

The proceedings and debates of parliament, and /
the parliamentary conduct of each representative, are
known by the people at large.

The representative is so far dependent upon the 0
constituent, and political importance upon public fa-
vour, that a member of parliament cannot more effec-
tually recommend himself to eminence and advance-
ment in the state, than by contriving and patronizing
laws of public utility.

When intelligence of the condition, wants, and oc- G
casions of the people, is thus collected from every
quarter; when such a variety of invention, and so
many understandings are set at work upon the sub-
ject; it may be presumed, that the most eligible ex-
pedient, remedy, or improvement will occur to some
one or other: and when a wise counsel, or beneficial
regulation, is once suggested, it may be expected from
the disposition of an assembly so constituted as the
British House of Commons is, that it cannot fail of
receiving the approbation of a majority. ,,

To prevent those destructive contentions for the

116 BRITISH CONSTITUTION.

supreme power, which are sure to take place where
the members of the state do not live under an acknow-
ledged head, and a known rule of succession; to pre-
serve the people in tranquillity at home, by a speedy
and vigorous execution of the laws; to protect their
interest abroad, by strength and energy in military
operations, by those advantages of decision, secrecy,
and dispatch, which belong to the resolutions of mo-
narchical councils; — for these purposes, the constitu-
tion has committed the executive government to the
administration and limited authority of an hereditary
king.

In the defence of the empire; in the maintenance
of its power, dignity, and privileges, with foreign
nations; in the advancement of its trade by treaties
and conventions; and in the providing for the general
administration of municipal justice, by a proper choice
and appointment of magistrates; the inclination of the
king and of the people usually coincides: in this part,
therefore, of the regal office, the constitution intrusts
the prerogative with ample powers.

The dangers principally to be apprehended from
regal government relate to the two articles taxation
and punishment. In every form of government from
which the people are excluded, it is the interest of the
governors to get as much, and of the governed to give
as little, as they can: the power also of punishment,
in the hands of an arbitrary prince, oftentimes becomes
an engine of extortion, jealousy, and revenge. Wisely,
therefore, hath the British constitution guarded the
safety of the people, in these two points, by the most
studious precautions.

Upon that of taxation, every law which, by the
remotest construction, may be deemed to levy money
upon the property of the subject, must originate, that
is, must first be proposed and assented to in the
House of Commons: by which regulation, accompa-
nying the weight which that assembly possesses in
all its functions, the levying of taxes is almost exclu-
sively reserved to the popular part of the constitution,
who, it is presumed, will not tax themselves, nor their
fellow-subjects, without being first convinced of the
necessity of the aids which they grant.

BRITISH CONSTITUTION. 117

The application also of the public supplies is
watched with the same circumspection as the assess-
ment. Many taxes are annual; the produce of others
is mortgaged, or appropriated to specific services: the
expenditure of all of them is accounted for in the
House of Commons; as computations of the charge of
the purpose for which they are wanted are previously
submitted to the same tribunal.

In the infliction of punishment, the power of the
crown, and of the magistrate appointed by the crown,
is confined by the most precise limitations: the guilt
of the offender must be pronounced by twelve men of
his own order, indifferently chosen out of the county
where the offence was committed : the punishment,
or the limits to which the punishment may be extended,
are ascertained, and affixed to the crime, by laws
which know not the person of the criminal.

And whereas arbitrary or clandestine confinement
is the injury most to be dreaded from the strong hand
of the executive government, because it deprives the
prisoner at once of protection and defence, and delivers
him into the power, and to the malicious or interested
designs of his enemies; the constitution has provided
against this danger with double solicitude. The
ancient writ of habeas corpus, the habeas corpus act
of Charles the Second, and the practice and determi-
nations of our sovereign courts of justice founded upon
these laws, afford a complete remedy for every con-
ceivable case of illegal imprisonment.*

* Upon complaint in writing by, or on behalf of, any per-
son in confinement, to any of the four courts of Westminster-
Hall, in term-time, or to the Lord Chancellor, or one of the
Judges, in the vacation ; and upon a probable reason being
suggested to question the legality of the detention ; a writ
is issued to the person in whose custody the complainant is
alleged to be, commanding him within a certain limited and
short time to produce the body of the prisoner, and the au-
thority under which he is detained. Upon the return of the
writ, strict and instantaneous obedience to which is enforced
by very severe penalties, if no lawful cause of imprisonment
appear, the court or judge, before whom the prisoner is
brought, is authorized and bound to discharge him ; even

118 HKITISH CONSTITUTION.

Treason being that charge under colour of which
the destruction of an obnoxious individual is often
sought; and government being at all times more im-
mediately a party in the prosecution; the law, beside
the general care with which it watches over the safety
of the accused, in this case, sensible of the unequal
contest in which the subject is engaged, has assisted
his defence with extraordinary indulgences. By two
statutes, enacted since the Revolution, every person
indicted for high treason shall have a copy of his in-
dictment, a list of the witnesses to be produced, and
of the jury impanneled, delivered to him ten days be-
fore the trial ; he is also permitted to make his defence
by counsel; — privileges which are not allowed to the
prisoner, in a trial for any other crime: and, what is
of more importance to the party than all the rest, the
testimony of two witnesses, at the least, is required to
convict a person of treason; whereas, one positive
witness is sufficient in almost every other species of
accusation.

We proceed, in the second place, to inquire in what
manner the constitution has provided for its own pre-
servation; that is, in what manner each part of the
legislature is secured in the exercise of the powers
assigned to it, from the encroachments of the other
parts. This security is sometimes called the balance
of the constitution: and the political equilibrium
which this phrase denotes, consists in two contrivances,
— a balance of power, and a balance of interest. By
a balance of power is meant, that there is no power

though he may have been committed by a secretary, or other
high officer of state, by the privy-council, or by the king in
person : so that no subject of this realm can be held in con-
finement by any power, or under any pretence whatever,
provided he can find means to convey his complaint to one
of the four courts of Westminster-Hall, or, during their re-
cess, to any of the Judges of the same, unless all these seve-
ral tribunals agree in determining his imprisonment to be
legal. He may make application to them in succession ;
and if one out of the number be found, who thinks the pri-
soner entitled to his liberty, that one possesses authority to
restore it to him.

BRITISH CONSTITUTION. 119

possessed by one part of the legislature, the abuse or
excess of which is not checked by some antagonist
power, residing in another part. Thus the power of
the two houses of parliament to frame laws is checked
by the king's negative; that if laws subversive of
regal government should obtain the consent of parlia-
ment, the reigning prince, by interposing his preroga-
tive, may save the necessary rights and authority of
his station. On the other hand, the arbitrary appli-
cation of this negative is checked by the privilege
which parliament possesses, of refusing supplies of
money to the exigencies of the king's administration.
The constitutional maxim, «« that the king can do no
wrong," is balanced by another maxim not less con-
stitutional, " that the illegal commands of the king
do not justify those who assist, or concur, in carrying
them into execution;" and by a second rule, subsidiary
to this, '* that the acts of the crown acquire not a
legal force, until authenticated by the subscription of
some of its great officers." The wisdom of this con-
trivance is worthy of observation. As the king could
not be punished without a civil war, the constitution
exempts his person from trial or account; but, lest
this impunity should encourage a licentious exercise
of dominion, various obstacles are opposed to the pri-
vate will of the sovereign, when directed to illegal
objects. The pleasure of the crown must be announced
with certain solemnities, and attested by certain offi-
cers of state. In some cases, the royal order must be
signified by a secretary of state; in others, it must
pass under the privy seal; and in many under the
great seal. And when the king's command is regu-
larly published, no mischief can be achieved by it,
without the ministry and compliance of those to
whom it is directed. Now all who either concur in
an illegal order, by authenticating its publication
with their seal or subscription, or who in any man-
ner assist in carrying it into execution, subject them-
selves to prosecution and punishment for the part
they have taken; and are not permitted to plead
or oroduce the command of the king in justification

120 BRITISH CONSTITUTION.

of their obedience.* But further: the power of the
crown to direct the military force of the kingdom is
balanced by the annual necessity of resorting to par-
liament for the maintenance and government of that
force. The power of the king to declare war is
checked by the privilege of the House of Commons
to grant or withhold the supplies by which the war
must be carried on. The king's choice of his ministers
is controlled by the obligation he is under of appoint-
ing those men to offices in the state, who are found
capable of managing the affairs of his government with
the two houses of parliament. Which consideration
imposes such a necessity upon the crown, as hath in
a great measure subdued the influence of favouritism:
insomuch that it is become no uncommon spectacle in
this country, to see men promoted by the king to the
highest offices and richest preferments which he has
in his power to bestow, who have been distinguished
by their opposition to his personal inclinations.

By the balance of interest, which accompanies and
gives efficacy to the balance of power, is meant this; —
that the respective interests of the three estates of the
empire are so disposed and adjusted, that whichever
of the three shall attempt any encroachment, the other
two will unite in resisting it. If the king should en-
deavour to extend his authority, by contracting the
power and privileges of the Commons, the House of
Lords would see their own dignity endangered by

* Amongst the checks which Parliament holds over the ad-
ministration of public affairs, I forbear to mention the prac-
tice of addressing the king, to know by whose advice he re-
solved upon a particular measure ; and of punishing the au-
thors of that advice, for the counsel they had given. Not
because I think this method either unconstitutional or im-
proper ; but for this reason, — that it does not so much sub-
ject the king to the control of Parliament as it supposes him
to be already in subjection. For if the king were so far out
of the reach of the resentment of the House of Commons, as
to be able with safety to refuse the information requested, or
to take upon himself the responsibility inquired after, there
must be an end of all proceedings founded in this mode of
application.

BRITISH CONSTITUTION. 121

every advance which the Crown made to independency
upon the resolutions of parliament. The admission
of arbitrary power is no less formidable to the grandeur
of aristocracy than it is fatal to the liberty of the
republic; that is, it would reduce the nobility from
the hereditary share they possess in the national coun-
cils, in which their real greatness consists, to the being
made a part of the empty pageantry of a despotic
court. On the other hand, if the House of Commons
should intrench upon the distinct province, or usurp
the established prerogative of the crown, the House of
Lords would receive an instant alarm from every new
stretch of popular power. In every contest in which
the king may be engaged with the representative body,
in defence of his established share of authority, he will
find a sure ally in the collective power of the nobility.
An attachment to the monarchy, from which they derive
their own distinction; the allurements of a court, in
the habits and with the sentiments of which they have
been brought up; their hatred of equality and of all
levelling pretensions, which may ultimately effect the
privileges, or even the existence, of their order; in
short, every principle and every prejudice which are
wont to actuate human conduct, will determine their
choice to the side and support of the crown. Lastly,
if the nobles themselves should attempt to revive the
superiorities which their ancestors exercised under the
feudal constitution, the king and the people would
alike remember, how the one had been insulted, and
the other enslaved, by that barbarous tyranny. They
would forget the natural opposition of their views and
inclinations, when they saw themselves threatened
with the return of a domination which was odious and
intolerable to both.

The reader will have observed, that in describing'
the British constitution, little notice has been taken
of the House of Lords. The proper use and design
of this part of the constitution are the following:
First, to enable the king, by his right of bestowing
the peerage, to reward the servants of the public, in
a manner most grateful to them, and at a small ex-
pense to the nation: secondly, to fortify the power and

VOL,. II. 11

122 BRITISH CONSTITUTION1.

to secure the stability of regal government, by an or-
der of men naturally allied to its interests: and, third-
ly, to answer a purpose which, though of superior im-
portance to the other two, does not occur so readily
to our observation; namely, to stem the progress of
popular fury. Large bodies of men are subject to
Sudden frenzies. Opinions are sometimes circulated
amongst a multitude without proof or examination, ac-
quiring confidence and reputation, merely by being re-
peated from one to another; and passions founded upon
these opinions, diffusing themselves with a rapidity
which can neither be accounted for nor resisted, may
agitate a country with the most violent commotions.
Now the only way to stop the fermentation is to divide
the mass; that is, to erect different orders in the com-
munity, with separate prejudices and interests. And
this may occasionally become the use of an hereditary
nobility, invested with a share of legislation. Averse
to those prejudices which actuate the minds of the
vulgar; accustomed to contemn the clamour of the
populace; disdaining to receive laws and opinions
from their inferiors in rank; they will oppose resolu-
tions which are founded in the folly and violence of
the lower part of the community. Were the voice of
the people always dictated by reflection; did every
man, or even one man in a hundred, think for himself,
or actually consider the measure he was about to ap-
prove or censure; or even were the common people
tolerably steadfast in the judgment which they formed,
I should hold the interference of a superior order not
only superfluous, but wrong; for when every thing is
allowed to difference of rank and education, which the
actual state of these advant acres deserves, that, after
all, is most likely to be njjht and expedient, which
•appears to be so to the separate judgment, and decision
of a great majority of the nation; at least, that in
general, is right for them, which is agreeable to their
fixed opinions and desires. But when we observe
what is urged as the public opinion, to be, in truth,
the opinion only, or perhaps the feigned profession, of
a few crafty leaders; that the numbers who join in the
cry serve only to swell and multiply the sound, with-

BRITISH CONSTITUTION. 123

out any accession of judgment, or exercise of under-
standing; and that oftentimes the wisest counsels have
been thus overborne by tumult and uproar: — we may
conceive occasions to arise, in which the common-
wealth may be saved by the reluctance of the nobility
to adopt the caprices, or to yield to the vehemence, of
the common people. In expecting this advantage from
an order of nobles, we do not suppose the nobility to
be more unprejudiced than others : we only suppose
that their prejudices will be different from, and may
occasionally counteract, those of others.

If the personal privileges of the peerage, which are
usually so many injuries to the rest of the community,
be restrained, I see little inconveniency to the increase
of its number; for it is only dividing the same quan-
tity of power amongst more hands, which is rather
favourable to public freedom than otherwise

The admission of a small number of ecclesiastics
into the House of Lords is but an equitable compen-
sation to the clergy for the exclusion of their order
from the House of Commons. They are a set of men
considerable by their number and property, as well as
by their influence, and the duties of their station ; yet,
whilst every other profession has those amongst the
national representatives, who. being conversant in the
same occupation, are able to state, and naturally dis-
posed to support, the rights arid interests of the class
and calling to which they belong, the clergy alone
are deprived of this advantage ; which hardship is
made up to them by introducing the prelacy into par-
liament: and if bishops, from gratitude or expectation,
be more obsequious to the will of the crown than those
who possess great temporal inheritances, they are
properly inserted into that part of the constitution,
from which much or frequent resistance to the mea-
sures of government is not expected.

I acknowledge, that I perceive no sufficient reason
for exempting the persons of members of either house
of parliament from arrest for debt. The counsels or
suffrage of a single senator, especially of one who in
the management of his own affairs may justly be sus-
pected of a want of prudence or honesty, can seldom

124 BRITISH CONSTITUTION.

be so necessary to those of the public as to justify a
departure from that wholesome policy by which the
laws of a commercial state punish and stigmatize in-
solvency. But, whatever reason may be pleaded for
their personal immunity, when this privilege of par-
liament is extended to domestics and retainers, or when
it is permitted to impede or delay the course of judi-
cial proceedings, it becomes an absurd sacrifice of
equal justice to imaginary dignity.

There is nothing in the British constitution so re-
remarkable as the irregularity of the popular represen-
tation. The House of Commons consists of five hun-
dred and fifty-eight members, of whom two hundred
are elected by seven thousand constituents; so that a
majority of these seven thousand, without any reason-
able title to superior weight or influence in the state,
may, under certain circumstances, decide a question
against the opinion of as many millions. Or, to place
the same object in another point of view: If my estate
be situated in one county of the kingdom, I possess
the ten-thousandth part of a single representative; if
in another, the thousandth; if in a particular district,
I may be one in twenty who choose two representa-
tives; if in a still more favoured spot, I may enjoy the
right of appointing two myself. If I have been born,
or dwell, or have served an apprenticeship, in one
town, I am represented in the national assembly by
two deputies, in the choice of whom I exercise an ac-
tual and sensible share of power: if accident has
thrown my birth, or habitation, or service, into another
town, I have no representative at all, nor more power
or concern in the election of those who make the laws
by which I am governed, than if I was a subject of
the Grand Signior: — and this partiality subsists with-
out any pretence whatever of merit or of propriety,
to justify the preference of one place to another. Or,
thirdly, to describe the state of national representa-
tion as it exists in reality, it may be affirmed, I believe,
with truth, that about one half of the House of
Commons obtain their seats in that assembly by the
election of the people, the other half by purchase,

BRITISH CONSTITUTION". 125

or by the nomination of single proprietors of great
estates.

This is a flagrant incongruity in the constitution;
but it is one of those objections which strike most
forcibly at first sight. The effect of all reasoning
upon the subject is to diminish the first impression;
on which account it deserves the more attentive exa-
mination, that we may be assured, before we adventure
upon a reformation, that the magnitude of the evil
justifies the danger of the experiment. In a few re-
marks that follow, we would be understood, in the
first place, to decline all conference with those who
wish to alter the form of government of these king-
doms. The reformers with whom we have to do are
they who, whilst they change this part of the system,
would retain the rest. If any Englishman expect more
happiness to his country under a republic, he may
very consistently recommend a new-modelling of elec-
tions to parliament; because, if the King and House
of Lords were laid aside, the present disproportionate
representation would produce nothing but a confused
and ill digested oligarchy. In like manner, we wave
a controversy with those writers who insist upon re-
presentation as a natural right:* we consider it so
far only as a right at all, as it conduces to public
utility; that is, as it contributes to the establishment
of good laws, or as it secures to the people the just
administration of these laws. These effects depend
upon the disposition and abilities of the national
counsellors. Wherefore, if men the most likely
by their qualifications to know and to promote the
public interest be actually returned to parliament, it
signifies little who return them. If the properest per-
sons be elected, what matters it by whom they are

* If this right be natural, no doubt it must be equal ; and
the right, we may add, of one sex, as well as of the other.
Whereas every plan of representation that we have heard of
begins by excluding the votes of -women ; thus cutting off,
at a single stroke, one half of the public from a right which is
asserted to be inherent in all ; a right too, as some represent
it, not only universal, but unalienable, and indefeasible, and
imprescriptible.

VOL. II. 11 *

126 BRITISH CONSTITUTION.

elected ? At least, no prudent statesman would sub-
vert long-established or even settled rules of represen-
tation, without a prospect of procuring wiser or better
representatives. This then being well observed, let
us, before we seek to obtain any thing more, consider
duly what we already have. We have a House of Com-
mons composed of five hundred and fifty-eight mem-
bers, in which number are found the most considerable
landholders and merchants of the kingdom; the heads
of the army, the navy, and the law; the occupiers of
great offices in the state; together with many private
individuals, eminent by their knowledge, eloquence,
or activity. Now, if the country be not safe in such
hands, in whose may it confide its interests ? If such
a number of such men be liable to the influence of
corrupt motives, what assembly of men will be secure
from the same danger? Does any new scheme of
representation promise to collect together more wis-
dom, or to produce firmer integrity ? In this view of
the subject, and attending not to ideas of order and
proportion (of which many minds are much enamour-
ed,) but to effects alone, we may discover just excuses
for those parts of the present representation which ap-
pear to a hasty observer most exceptionable and ab-
surd. It should be remembered, as a maxim extremely
applicable to this subject, that no order or assembly
of men whatever can long maintain their place and
authority in a mixed government, of which the mem-
bers do not individually possess a respectable share of
personal importance. Now, whatever may be the de-
lects of the present arrangement, it infallibly secures
a great weight of property to the House of Commons,
by rendering many seats in that house accessible to men
of large fortunes, and to such mei alone. By which
means, those characters are engaged in the defence of
the separate rights and interests of this branch of the
legislature, that are best able to support its claims.
The constitution of most of the small boroughs, espe-
cially the burgage tenure, contributes, though unde-
signedly to the same effect: for the appointment of
the representatives we find commonly annexed to cer-
tain great inheritances. Elections purely popular are

BRITISH CONSTITUTION". 127

m this respect uncertain: in times of tranquillity, the
natural ascendency of wealth will prevail; but when
the minds of men are inflamed by political dissensions,
this influence often yields to more impetuous motives.
The variety of tenures and qualifications, upon which
the right of voting is founded, appears to me a recom-
mendation of the mode which now subsists, as it tends
to introduce into parliament a corresponding mixture
of characters and professions. It has been long ob-
served, that conspicuous abilities are most frequently
found with the representatives of small boroughs. And
this is nothing more than what the laws of human
conduct might teach us to expect: When such bo-
roughs are set to sale, those men are likely to become
purchasers, who are enabled by their talents to make
the best of their bargain: when a seat is not sold, but
given by the opulent proprietor of a burgage tenure,
the patron finds his own interest consulted, by the
reputation and abilities of the member whom he no-
minates. If certain of the nobility hold the appoint-
ment of some part of the House of Commons, it serves
to maintain that alliance between the two branches of
the legislature which no good citizen would wish to
see dissevered: it helps to keep the government of the
country in the House of Commons, in which it would
not perhaps long continue to reside, if so powerful
and wealthy a part of the nation as the peerage com-
pose, were excluded from all share and interest in its
constitution. If there be a few boroughs so circum-
stanced as to lie at the disposal of the crown, whilst
the number of such is known, and small, they may
be tolerated with little danger. For where would bo
the impropriety or the inconveniency, if the king at
once should nominate a limited number of his servants
to seats in parliament; or, what is the same thing, if
seats in parliament were annexed to the possession of
certain of the most efficient and responsible offices in
the state ? The present representation, after all these
deductions, and under the confusion in which it con-
fessedly lies, is still in such a degree popular; or ra-
ther, the representatives are so connected with the
mass of the community by a society of interests and

128 BRITISH CONSTITUTION.

passions, that the will of the people, when it is deter-
mined, permanent, and general, almost always at
length prevails.

Upon the whole, in the several plans which have
been suggested, of an equal or a reformed representa-
tion, it will be difficult to discover any proposal that
has a tendency to throw more of the business of the
nation into the House of Commons, or to collect a set
of men more fit to transact that business, or in gene-
ral more interested in the national happiness and pros-
perity. One consequence, however, may be expected
from these projects, namely, •' less flexibility to the
influence of the crown." And since the diminution
of this influence is the declared and perhaps the sole
design of the various schemes that have been pro-
duced, whether for regulating the elections, contract-
ing the duration, or for purifying the constitution of
parliament by the exclusion of placemen and pension-
ers; it is obvious to remark, that the more apt and na-
tural, as well as the more safe and quiet way of attain-
ing the same end, would be by a direct reduction of
the patronage of the crown, which might be effected
to a certain extent without hazarding further conse-
quences. Superfluous and exorbitant emoluments of
office may not only be suppressed for the present, but
provisions of law be devised, which should for the
future restrain within certain limits the number and
value of the offices in the donation of the king.

But whilst we dispute concerning different schemes
of reformation, all directed to the same end, a previ-
ous doubt occurs in the debate, whether the end itself
be good, or safe; — whether the influence so loudly
complained of can be destroyed, or even much dimi-
nished, without danger to the state. Whilst the zeal
of some men behold this influence with a jealousy
which nothing but its entire abolition can appease,
many wise and virtuous politicians deem a consider-
able portion of it to be as necessary a part of the
British constitution, as any other ingredient in the
composition; — to be that, indeed, which gives cohe-
sion and solidity to the whole. Were the measures
pf government, say they, opposed from nothing bul

BRITISH CONSTITUTION. 129

principle, government ought to have nothing but the
rectitude of its measures to support them: but since
opposition springs from other motives, government
must possess an influence to counteract these motives;
to produce, not a bias of the passions, but a neutra-
lity;— it must have some weight to cast into the scale,
to set the balance even. It is the nature of power
always to press upon the boundaries which confine it.
Licentiousness, faction, envy, impatience of control, or
inferiority; the secret pleasure of mortifying the
great, or the hope of dispossessing them; a constant
willingness to question and thwart whatever is dictated
or even proposed by another; a disposition common
to all bodies of men, to extend the claims and autho-
rity of their orders; above all, that love of power, and
of showing it, which resides more or less in every
human breast, and which, in popular assemblies, is
inflamed, like every other passion, by communication
and encouragement: these motives, added to private
designs and resentments, cherished also by popular
acclamation, and operating upon the great share of
power already possessed by the House of Commons,
might induce a majority, or at least a large party of
men in that assembly, to unite in endeavouring to
draw to themselves the whole government of the
state; or, at least, so to obstruct the conduct of pub-
lic affairs, by a wanton and perverse opposition, as to
render it impossible for the wisest statesman to carry
forwards the business of the nation with success or
satisfaction.

Some passages of our national history afford grounds
for these apprehensions. — Before the accession of
James the First, or at least during the reigns of his
three immediate predecessors, the government of
England was a government by force; that is, the
king carried his measures in parliament by intimida-
tion. A sense of personal danger kept the members
of the House of Commons in subjection. A conjunc-
tion of fortunate causes delivered, at least, the par-
liament and nation from slavery. That overbearing
system which had declined in the hands of James
expired early in the reign of his son. After the Res-

130 BRITISH CONSTITUTION.

toration, there succeeded in its place, and, since tha
Revolution, has been methodically pursued, the more
successful expedient of influence. Now we remem-
ber what passed between the loss of terror and the
establishment of influence. The transactions of that
interval, whatever we may think of their occasion or
effect, no friend of regal government would wish to
see revived. — But the affairs of this kingdom afford
a more recent attestation to the same doctrine. In
the British colonies of North America, the late assem-
blies possessed much of the power and constitution of
our House of Commons. The king and government
of Great Britain held no patronage in the country
which could create attachment and influence suffi-
cient to counteract that restless arrogating spirit,
which, in popular assemblies, when left to itself, will
never brook an authority that checks and interferes
with its own. To this cause, excited perhaps by some
unseasonable provocations, we may attribute, as 1<>
their true and proper original (we will not say the
misfortunes, but,) the changes that have taken place
in the British empire. The admonition which such ex-
amples suggest will have its weight with those who
are content with the general frame of the English
constitution, and who consider stability amongst the
first perfections of any government.

We protest, however, against any construction, by
which what is here said shall be attempted to be ap-
plied to the justification of bribery, or of any clandes-
tine reward or solicitation whatever. The very secrecy
of such negotiations confesses or begets a conscious-
ness of guilt; which, when the mind is once taught
to endure without uneasiness, the character is pre-
pared for every compliance; and there is the greater
danger in these corrupt practices, as the extent of their
operation is unlimited and unknown. Our apology
relates solely to that influence which results from the
acceptance of expectation of public preferments. Nor
does the influence which we defend require any sacri-
fice of personal probity. In political, above all other
subjects, the arguments, or rather the conjectures, on
each side of the question, are often so equally poised,

BRITISH CONSTITU T1ON. 131

that the wisest judgments may be held in suspense:
these I call subjects of indifference. But again;
when the subject is not indifferent in itself, it will
appear such to a great part ol' those to whom it is
proposed, for want of information, or reflection, or
experience, or of capacity to collect and weigh the
reasons by which either side is "supported. These
are subjects of apparent indifference. This indiffer-
ence occurs still more frequently in personal contests;
in which we do not often discover any reason of pub-
lic utility for the preference of one competitor to ano-
ther. These cases compose the province of influence:
that is, the decision in these cases will inevitably be
determined by influence of some sort or other. The
only doubt is, what influence shall be admitted. If
you remove the influence of the crown, it is only to
make way for influence from a different quarter. If
motives of expectation and gratitude be withdrawn,
other motives will succeed in their place, acting pro-
bably in an opposite direction, but equally irrel.itive
and external to the proper merits of the question.
There exist, as we have seen, passions in the human
heart, which will always make a strong party against
the executive power of a mixed government. Accord-
ing as the disposition of parliament is friendly or ad-
verse to the recommendation of the crown in matters
which are really or apparently indifferent, as indiffer-
ence hath been now explained, the business of the
empire will be transacted with ease and convenience,
or embarrassed with endless contention and difficulty.
Nor is it a conclusion founded in justice, or warranted
by experience, that because men are induced by views
of interest to yield their consent to measures concern-
ing which their judgment decides nothing, they may
be brought by the same influence to act in deliberate
opposition to knowledge and duty. Whoever reviews
the operations of government in this country since
the Revolution, will find few even of the most ques-
tionable measures of administration, about which the
best instructed judgment might not have doubted at
the time; but of which we may affirm with certainty,
they were indifferent to the greatest part of those

132 ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE.

who concurred in them. From the success, or the
facility, with which they who dealt out the patronage
of the crown carried, measures like these, ought we
to conclude that a similar application of honours and
emoluments would procure the consent of parliaments
to counsels evidently detrimental to the common wel-
fare ? Is there not on the contrary more reason to
fear, that the prerogative, if deprived of influence,
would not be long able to support itself? For when
we reflect upon the power of the House of Commons
to extort a compliance with its resolutions from the
other parts of the legislature; or to put to death the
constitution by a refusal of the annual grants of money
to the support of the necessary functions of govern-
ment;— when we reflect also what motives there are
which, in the vicissitudes of political interests and
passions, may one day arm and point this power
against the executive magistrate; — when we attend to
these considerations, we shall be led perhaps to ac-
knowledge, that there is not mere of paradox than of
truth in that important, but much decried apophthegm,
" that an independent parliament is incompatible with
the existence of the monarchy."

CHAPTER VIII.

OF THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE.

THE first maxim of a free state is, that the laws be
made by one set of men, and administered by ano-
ther; in other words, that the legislative and judicial
characters be kept separate. When these offices are
united in the same person or assembly, particular
laws are made for particular cases, springing often-
times from partial motives, and directed to private
ends: whilst they are kept separate, general laws are
made by one body of men, without foreseeing whom
they may affect; and, when made, must be applied
by the oth*r let. thorn effect whom they will.

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 133

For the sake of illustration let it be supposed, in
this country, either that, parliaments being laid aside,
the courts of Westminster Hall made their own laws;
or that the two houses of parliament, with the King
at their head, tried and decided causes at their bar:
it is evident, in the first place, that the decisions of
such a judicature would be so many laws; and, in the
second place, that, when the parties and the interests
to be affected by the laws were known, the inclina-
tions of the law makers would inevitably attach on
one side or the other; and that where there were
neither any fixed rules to regulate their determinations,
nor any superior power to control their proceedings,
these inclinations would interfere with the integrity of
public justice. The consequence of which must be,
that the subjects of such a constitution would live
either without any constant laws, that is, without any
known preestablished rules of adjudication whatever;
or under laws made for particular persons, and par-
taking of the contradictions and iniquity of the motives
to which they owed their origin.

Which dangers, by the division of the legislative
and judicial functions, are in this country effectually
provided against. Parliament knows not the indivi-
duals upon whom its acts will operate; it has no cases
or parties before it; no private designs to serve: con-
sequently, its resolutions will be suggested by the con-
sideration of universal effects and tendencies, which
always produces impartial, and commonly advanta-
geous regulations. When laws are made, courts of
justice, whatever be the disposition of the judges,
must abide by them; for the legislative being neces-
sarily the supreme power of the state, the judicial and
every other power is accountable to that: and it can-
not be doubted that the persons who possess the sove-
reign authority of government will be tenacious of the
laws which they themselves prescribe, and sufficiently
jealous of the assumption of dispensing and legislative
power by any others.

This fundamental rule of civil jurisprudence is vio-
lated in the case of acts of attainder or confiscation,
in bills of pains and penalties, and in all ex post facto

VOL. II. 12

134 ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE.

laws whatever, in which parliament cxeicises the
double office of legislature and judge. And whoever
either understands the value of the rule itself, or col-
lects the history of those instances in which it has
been invaded, will be induced, I believe, to acknow-
ledge, that it had been wiser and safer never to have
departed from it. He will confess, at least, that
nothing but the most manifest and immediate peril of
the commonwealth will justify a repetition of these
dangerous examples. If the laws in being do not
punish an offender, let him go unpunished; let the
legislature, admonished of the defect of the laws, pro-
vide against the commission of future crimes of the
same sort. The escape of one delinquent can never
produce so much harm to the community as may
arise from the infraction of a rule upon which the
purity of public justice, and the existence of civil
liberty, essentially depend.

The next security for the impartial administration
of justice, especially in decisions to which govern-
ment is a party, is the independency of the judges.
As protection against every illegal attack upon the
rights of the subject by the servants of the crown is to
be sought for from these tribunals, the judges of the
land become not unfrequently the arbitrators between
the king and the people; on which account they ought
to be independent of either; or, what is the same
thing, equally dependent upon both: that is, if they
be appointed by the one, they should be removable
only by the other. This was the policy which dic-
tated that memorable improvement in our constitution,
by which the judges, who before the Revolution held
their offices during the pleasure of the king, can now
be deprived of them only by an address from both
houses of parliament; as the most regular, solemn,
and authentic way, by which the dissatisfaction of the
people can be expressed. To make this independency
of the judges complete, the public salaries of their
office ought not only to be certain both in amount and
continuance, but so liberal as to secure their integrity
from the temptation of secret bribes; which liberality
will answer also the further purpose of preserving

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 135

their jurisdiction from contempt, and their characters
from suspicion; as well as of rendering the office
worthy of the ambition of men of eminence in their
profession.

A third precaution to be observed in the formation
of courts of justice is, that the number of the judges
be small. For, beside that the violence and tumult
inseparable from large assemblies are inconsistent with
the patience, method, and attention requisite in judi-
cial investigations; beside that all passions and pre-
judices act with augmented force upon a collected
multitude; beside these objections, judges, when they
are numerous, divide the shame of an unjust deter-
mination; they shelter themselves under one another's
example; each man thinks his own character hid in
the crowd: for which reason the judges ought always
to be so few as that the conduct of each may be con-
spicuous to public observation; that each may be
responsible in his separate and particular reputation
for the decisions in which he concurs. The truth of
the above remark has been exemplified in this coun-
try, in the effects of that wise regulation which trans-
ferred the trial of parliamentary elections from the
House of Commons at large to a select Committee of
that house, composed of thirteen members. This
alteration, simply by reducing the number of the
judges, and, in consequence of that reduction, ex-
posing the judicial conduct of each to public animad-
version, has given to a judicature, which had been
long swayed by interest and solicitation, the solemnity
and virtue of the most upright tribunals. — I should
prefer an even to an odd number of judges, and four
to almost any other number: for in this number, beside
that it sufficiently consults the idea of separate re-
sponsibility, nothing can be decided but by a majority
of three to one: and when we consider that every de-
cision establishes, a perpetual precedent, we shall
allow that it ought to proceed from an authority not
less than this. If the court be equally dividf d, nothing
is done; things remain as they were; with some in-
conveniency, indeed, to the parties, but without the
danger to the public of a hasty precedent.

136 ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE.

A fourth requisite in the constitution of a court of
justice, and equivalent to many checks upon the dis-
cretion of judges, is, that its proceedings he carried
un in public, apertis foribus; not only before a pro-
miscuous concourse of by-standers, but in the audi-
ence of the whole profession of the law. The opinion
of the bar concerning what passes will be impartial;
and will commonly guide that of the public. The
most corrupt judge will fear to indulge his dishonest
wishes in the presence of such an assembly: he must
encounter, what few can support, the censure of his
equals and companions, together with the indignation
and reproaches of his country.

Something is also gained to the public by appoint-
ing two or three courts of concurrent jurisdiction, that
it may remain in the option of the suitor to which he
will resort. By this means, a tribunal which may
happen to be occupied by ignorant or suspected judges,
will be deserted for others that possess more of the
confidence of the nation.

But, lastly, if several courts, coordinate to and in-
dependent of each other, subsist together in the coun-
try, it seems necessary that the appeals from all of
them should meet and terminate in the same judica-
ture; in order that one supreme tribunal, by whose
final sentence all others are bound and concluded,
may superintend and preside over the rest. This
constitution is necessary for two purposes; — to pre-
serve a uniformity in the decisions of inferior courts,
and to maintain to each the proper limits of its juris-
diction. Without a common superior, different courts
might establish contradictory rules of adjudication,
and the contradiction be final and without remedy; the
same question might receive opposite determinations,
according as it was brought before one court or ano-
ther and the determination in each be ultimate and
irreversible. A common appellant jurisdiction pre-
vents or puts an end to this confusion. For when the
judgments upon appeals are consistent (which may
be expected, whilst it is the same court which is at
last resorted to,) the different courts from which the
appeals are brought will be reduced to a like consis-

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 137

tency with one another. Moreover, if questions arise
between courts independent of each other, concerning
the extent and boundaries of their respective jurisdic-
tion, as each will be desirous of enlarging its own,
an authority which both acknowledge can alone adjust
the controversy. Such a power, therefore, must reside
somewhere, lest the rights and repose of the country
be distracted by the endless opposition and mutual
encroachments of its courts of justice.

There are two kinds of judicature: the one, where
the office of the judge is permanent in the same per-
son, and consequently where the judge is appointed
and known long before the trial; the other, where
the judge is determined by lot at the time of the trial,
and for that turn only. The one may be called a
fixed, the other a casual judicature. From the for-
mer may be expected those qualifications which are
preferred and sought for in the choice of judges, and
that knowledge and readiness which result from ex-
perience in the office. But then, as the judge is
knawn beforehand, he is accessible to the parties;
there exists a possibility of secret management and
undue practices: or, in contests between the crown
and the subject, the judge appointed by the crown
may be suspected of partiality to his patron, or of
entertaining inclinations favourable to the authority
from which he derives his own. The advantage at-
tending the second kind of judicature is indiflferency;
the defect, the want of that legal science which pro-
duces uniformity and justice in legal decisions. The
construction of English courts of law, in which causes
are tried by a jury, with the assistance of a judge,
combines the two species with peculiar success. This
admirable contrivance unites the wisdom of a fixed
with the integrity of a casual judicature; and avoids,
in a great measure, the inconveniencies of both. The
judge imparts to the jury the benefit of his erudition
and experience; the jury, by their disinterestedness,
check any corrupt partialities which previous applica-
tion may have produced in the judge. If the deter-
mination were left to the judge, the party .night suf-
fer under the superior interest of his adversary: if it

VOL. ii. 12 *

138 ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE.

were left to an uninstructed jury, his rights would be
in still greater danger, from the ignorance of those
who were to decide upon them. The present wise
admixture of chance and choice, in the constitution of
the court in which his cause is tried, guards him
equally against the fear of injury from either of these
causes.

In proportion to the acknowledged excellency of
this mode of trial, every deviation from it ought to be
watched with vigilance, and admitted by the legisla-
ture with caution and reluctance. Summary convic-
tions before justices of the peace, especially for of-
fences against the game laws; courts of conscience;
extending the jurisdiction of courts of equity; urging
too fur the distinction between questions of law and
matters of fact; — are all so many infringements upon
this great charter of public safety.

Nevertheless, the trial by jury is sometimes found
inadequate to the administration of equal justice.
This imperfection takes place chiefly in disputes in
which some popular passion or prejudice intervenes;
as where a particular order of men advance claims
upon the rest of the community, which is the case of
the clergy contending for tithes; or where an order
of men are obnoxious by their profession, as are
officers of the revenue, bailiffs, bailiffs' followers, and
other low ministers of the law; or where one of the
parties has an interest in corrxnon with the general
interest of the jurors, and that of the other is op-
posed to it, as in contests between landlords and
tenants, between lords of manors and the holders of
estates under them; or, lastly, where the minds of
men are inflamed by political dissensions or religious
hatred. These prejudices act most powerfully upon
the common people; of which order juries are made
up. The force and danger of them are also increased
by the very circumstance of taking juries out of the
country in which the subject of dispute arises. In
the neighbourhood of the parties, the cause is often
prejudged: and these secret decisions of the mind
proceed commonly more upon sentiments of favour or
hatred, — upon some opinion concerning the sect, fa-

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 139

mily, profession, character, connexions, or circum-
stances of the parties — than upon any knowledge or
discussion of the proper merits of the question. More
exact justice would, in many instances, be rendered
to the suitors, if the determination were left entirely
to the judges; provided we could depend upon the
same purity of conduct, when the power of these ma-
gistrates was enlarged, which they have long mani-
fested in the exercise of a mixed and restrained autho-
rity. But this is an experiment too big with public
danger to be hazarded. The effects, however, of some
local prejudices, might be safely obviated by a law
empowering the court in which the action is brought
to send the cause to trial in a distant country; the ex-
penses attending the change of place always falling
upon the party who applied for it.

There is a second division of courts of justice, which
presents a new alternative of difficulties. Either one,
two, or a few sovereign courts may be erected in the
metropolis, for the whole kingdom to resort to; or
courts of local jurisdiction may be fixed in various
provinces and districts of the empire. Great, though
opposite, inconveniences attend each arrangement.
If the court be remote and solemn, it becomes, by
these very qualities, expensive and dilatory: the ex-
pense is unavoidably increased when witnesses, par-
ties, and agents must be brought to attend from dis-
tant parts of the country: and, where the whole judi-
cial business of a large nation is collected in a few
superior tribunals, it will be found impossible, even
if the prolixity of forms which retards the progress of
causes were removed, to give a prompt hearing to
every complaint, or an immediate answer to any. On
the other hand, if, to remedy these evils, and to ren-
der the administration of justice cheap and speedy,
domestic and summary tribunals be erected in each
neighbourhood, the advantage of such courts will be
accompanied with all the dangers of ignorance and
partiality, and with the certain mischief of confusion
and contrariety in their decisions. The law of Eng-
land, by its circuit, or itinerary courts, contains a pro-
vision for the distribution of private justice, in a great

i;

140 ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE.

measure relieved from both these objections. As the
presiding magistrate comes into the country a stranger
to its prejudices, rivalships, and connexions, he brings
with him none of those attachments and regards
which are so apt to pervert the courts of justice when
the parties and the judges inhabit the same neighbour-
hood. Again; As this magistrate is usually one of the
judges of the supreme tribunals of the kingdom, and
has passed his life in the study and administration of
the laws, he possesses, it may be presumed, those pro-
fessional qualifications which befit the dignity and im-
portance of his station. Lastly, As both he and the
advocates who accompany him in his circuit are em-
ployed in the business of those superior courts (to
which also their proceedings are amenable,) they will
naturally conduct themselves by the rules of adjudica-
tion which they have applied or learned there; and by
this means maintain, what constitutes a principal per-
fection of civil government, one law of the land in
every part and district of the empire.

Next to the constitution of courts of justice, wo
are naturally led to consider the maxims which ought
to guide their proceedings; and upon this subject,
the chief inquiry will be, how far, and for what rea-
sons, it is expedient to adhere to former determina-
tions; or whether it be necessary for judges to attend
to any other consideration than the apparent and par-
ticular equity of the case before them. Now, although
to assert that precedents established by one set of
judges ought to be incontrovertible by their successors
in the same jurisdiction, or by those who exercise a
higher, would be to attribute to the sentence of those
judges all the authority we ascribe to the most solemn
acts of the legislature; yet the general security of
private rights, and of civil life, requires that such pre-
cedents, especially if they have been confirmed by
repeated adjudications, should not be overthrown,
without a detection of manifest error, or. without some
imputation of dishonesty upon the court by whose
judgment the question was first decided And this
deference to prior decisions is founded upon two rea-
sons; first, that the discretion of judges may be

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 141

bound down by positive rules; and secondly, that
the subject, upon every occasion in which his legal
interest is concerned, may know beforehand how to
act, and what to expect. To set judges free from
any obligation to conform themselves to the decisions
of their predecessors would be to lay open a latitude
of judging with which no description of men can
safely be intrusted: it would be to allow space for the
exercise of those concealed partialities, which, since
they cannot by any human policy be excluded, ought
to be confined by boundaries and landmarks. It is in
vain to allege, that the superintendency of parliament
is always at hand to control and punish abuses of judi-
cial discretion. By what rules can parliament pro-
ceed ? How shall they pronounce a decision to be
wrong, where there exists no acknowledged measure
or standard of what is right; which, in a multitude of
instances, would be the case, if prior determinations
were no longer to be appealed to ?

Diminishing the danger of partiality is one thing
gained by adhering to precedents; but not the prin-
cipal thing. The subject of every system of laws
must expect that decision in his own case, which he
knows that others have received in cases similar to his.
If he expect not this, he can expect nothing. There
exists no other rule or principle of reasoning by which
he can foretell, or even conjecture, the event of a ju-
dicial contest. To remove therefore the grounds of
this expectation, by rejecting the force and authority
of precedents, is to entail upon the subject the worst
property of slavery, — to have no assurance of his
rights, or knowledge of his duty. The quiet also of
the country, as well as the confidence and satisfaction
of each man's mind, requires uniformity in judicial
proceedings. Nothing quells a spirit of litigation
like despair of success : therefore nothing so com-
pletely puts an end to lawsuits as a rigid adherence
to known rules of adjudication. Whilst the event is
uncertain, which it ever must be whilst it is uncertain
whether former determinations upon the same subject
will be followed or not, lawsuits will be endless and
innumerable: men will commonly engage in them.

1-12 ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE

either from the hope of prevailing in their claims,
which the smallest chance is sufficient to encourage;
or with the design of intimidating their adversary by
the terrors of a dubious litigation. When justice is
rendered to the parties, only half the business of a
court of justice is done: the more important part of
its office remains; — to put an end, for the future, to
every fear and quarrel and expense upon the same
point; and so to regulate its proceedings, that not only
a doubt once decided may be stirred no more, but that
the whole train of lawsuits, which issue from one un-
rertainty, may die with the parent question. Now,
this advantage can be attained only by considering
each decision as a direction to succeeding judges.
And it should be observed, that every departure from
former determinations, especially if they have been
often repeated or long submitted to, shakes the stabi-
lity of all legal title. It is not fixing a point anew;
it is leaving every thing unfixed. For by the same
stretch of power by which the present race of judges
take upon them to contradict the judgment of their
predecessors, those who try the question next may set
aside theirs.

From an adherence however to precedents, by
which so much is gained to the public, two conse-
quences arise which are often lamented; the hardship
of particular determinations, and the intricacy of the
law as a science. To the first of these complaints,
we must apply this reflection: — " That uniformity is
of more importance than equity, in proportion as a ge-
neral uncertainty would be a greater evil than parti-
cular injustice." The second is attended with no
greater inconveniency than that of erecting the prac-
, tice of the law into a separate profession: which this
reason, we allow, makes necessary; for if we attribute
so much authority to precedents, it is expedient that
they be known, in every cause, both to the advocates
and to the judge: This knowledge cannot be general,
since it is the fruit oftentimes of laborious research,
or demands a memory stored with long collected eru-
dition.

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 143

To a mind revolving upon the subject of human
jurisprudence, there frequently occurs this question:
— Why, since the maxims of natural justice are few
and evident, do there arise so many doubts and con-
troversies in their application ? Or, in other words,
how comes it to pass, that although the principles of
the law of nature be simple, and for the most part suf-
ficiently obvious, there should exist nevertheless, in
every system of municipal laws, and in the actual ad-
ministration of relative justice, numerous uncertain-
ties and acknowledged difficulty ? Whence, it may be
asked, so much room for litigation, and so many sub-
sisting disputes, if the rules of human duty be neither
obscure nor dubious ? If a system of morality, con-
taining both the precepts of revelation and the deduc-
tions of reason, may be comprised within the compass
of one moderate volume; and the moralist be able, as
he pretends, to describe the rights and obligations of
mankind, in all the different relations they may hold
to one another; what need of those codes of positive
and particular institutions, of those tomes of statutes
and reports, which require the employment of a long
life even to peruse ? And this question is immediately
connected with the argument which has been dis-
cussed in the preceding paragraph: for, unless there
be found some greater uncertainty in the law of na-
ture, or what may be called natural equity, when it
comes to be applied to real cases and to actual adjudi-
cation, than what appears in the rules and principles
of the science, as delivered in the writings of those
who treat of the subject, it were better that the deter-
mination of every cause should be left to the conscience
of the judge, unfettered by precedents and authori-
ties; since the very purpose for which these are in-
troduced is to give a certainty to judicial proceed-
ings, which such proceedings would want without
them.

Now, to account for the existence of so many
sources of litigation, notwithstanding the clearness
and perfection of natural justice, it should be observed,
in the first place, that treatises of morality always
suppose facts to be ascertained; and not only so, but

144 ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE.

the intention likewise of the parties to be known and
laid bare. For example; when we pronounce that
promises ought to be fulfilled in that sense in which
the promiser apprehended, at the time of making the
promise, the other party received and understood it;
the apprehension of one side, and the expectation of
the other, must be discovered, before this rule can be
reduced to practice, or applied to the determination
of any actual dispute. Wherefore the discussion of
facts which the moralist supposes to be settled, the
discovery of intentions which he presumes to be
known, still remain to exercise the inquiry of courts
of justice. And as these facts and intentions are often
to be inferred, or rather conjectured, from obscure
indications, from suspicious testimony, or from a com-
parison of opposite and contending probabilities, they
afford a never failing supply of doubt and litigation.
For which reason, as hath been observed in a former
part of this work, the science of morality is to be con-
sidered rather as a direction to the parties, who are
conscious of their own thoughts and motives and de-
signs, to which consciousness the teacher of morality
constantly appeals; than as a guide to the judge, or
to any third person, whose arbitration must proceed
upon rules of evidence, and maxims of credibility,
with which the moralist has no concern.

Secondly, There exists a multitude of cases, in which
the law of nature,, that is, the law of public expedi-
ency, prescribes nothing, except that some certain rule
be adhered to, and that the rule actually established
be preserved; it either being indifferent what rule ob-
tains, or, out of many rules, no one being so much
more advantageous than the rest, as to recompense
the inconveniency of an alteration. In all such cases,
the law of nature sends us to the law of the land.
She directs, that either some fixed rule be introduced
by an act of the legislature, or that the rule which
accident, or custom, or common consent, hath already
established, be steadily maintained. Thus, in the
descent of lands, or the inheritance of personals from
intestate proprietors, whether the kindred of the
grandmother or of the great-grandmother shall be pre~

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 145

ferred in the succession; whether the degrees of con-
sanguinity shall be computed through the common an-
cestor, or from him; whether the widow shall take a
third or a moiety of her husband's fortune; whether
sons shall be preferred to daughters, or the elder to
the younger; whether the distinction of age shall be
regarded amongst sisters, as well as between brothers:
in these, and in a great variety of questions which the
same subject supplies, the law of nature determines
nothing. The only answer she returns to our inquiries
is, that some certain and general rule be laid down
by public authority; be obeyed when laid down; and
that the quiet of the country be not disturbed, nor the
expectations of heirs frustrated, by capricious inno-
vations. This silence or neutrality of the law of na-
ture, which we have exemplified in the case of intes-
tacy, holds concerning a great part of the questions
that relate to the right or acquisition of property.
Recourse then must necessarily be had to statutes, or
precedents, or usage, to fix what the law of nature has
left loose. The interpretation of these statutes, the
search after precedents, the investigation of customs
compose therefore an unavoidable, and at the same
time a large and intricate portion of forensic business.
Positive constitutions, or judicial authorities, are in
like manner wanted to give precision to many things
which are in their nature indeterminate. The age of
legal discretion; at what time of life a person shall
be deemed competent to the performance of any act
which may bind his property; whether at twenty, or
twenty-one, or earlier or later, or at some point of
time between these years; can only be ascertained by
a positive rule of the society to which the party be-
longs. The line has not been drawn by nature; the
human understanding advancing to maturity by insen-
sible degrees, and its progress varying in different in-
dividuals. Yet it is necessary, for the sake of mutual
security, that a precise age be fixed, and that what is
fixed be known to all. It is on these occasions that
the intervention of law supplies the inconstancy of
nature. Again, there are other things which are per-
fectly arbitrary^ and capable of no certainty but what

VOL. II. 13

146 ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE.

is given to them by positive regulation. It is fit that
a limited time should be assigned to defendants, to
plead to the complaints alleged against them; and
also that the default of pleading within a certain time
should be taken for a confession of the charge: but to
how many days or months that term should be ex-
tended, though necessary to be known with certainty,
cannot be known at all by any information which the
law of nature affords. And the same remark seems
applicable to almost all those rules of proceeding,
which constitute what is called the practice of the
court: as they cannot be traced out by reasoning,
they must be settled by authority.

Thirdly, In contracts, whether express or implied,
which involve a great number of conditions; as in
those which are entered into between masters and
servants, principals, and agents; many also of mer-
chandise, or for works of art; in some likewise which
relate to the negociation of money or bills, or to the
acceptance of credit or security; the original design
and expectation of the parties was, that both sides
should be guided by the course and custom of the
country in transactions of the same sort. Conse-
quently, when these contracts come to be disputed,
natural justice can only refer to that custom. But as
such customs are not always sufficiently uniform or
notorious, but often to be collected from the produc-
tion and comparison of instances and accounts repug-
nant to one another; and each custom being only that,
after all, which amongst a variety of usages seems to
predominate; we have here also ample room for doubt
and contest.

Fourthly, As the law of nature, founded in the very
construction of human society, which is formed to
endure, through a series of perishing generations, re-
quires that thp just engagements a man enters into
should continue in force beyond his own life; it fol-
lows, that the private rights of persons frequently
depend upon what has been transacted in times remote
from the present, by their ancestors or predecessors,
by those under whom they claim, or to whose obliga-
tions tney have succeeded. Thus the questions which

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 147

usually arise between lords of naanors and their ten-
ants, between the king and those who claim royal
franchises, or between them and the persons affected
by these franchises, depend upon the terms of the
original grant. In like manner, every dispute con-
cerning tithes, in which an exemption or composition
is pleaded, depends upon the agreement which took
place between the predecessor of the claimant and the
ancient owner of the land. The appeal to these
grants and agreements is dictated by natural equity,
as well as by the municipal law: but concerning the
existence, or the conditions, of such old covenants,
doubts will perpetually occur, to which the law of
nature affords no solution. The loss or decay of re-
cords, the perishableness of living memory, the cor-
ruption and carelessness of tradition, all conspire to
multiply uncertainties upon this head: what cannot be
produced or proved must be left to loose and fallible
presumption. Under the same head may be included
another topic of altercation — the tracing out of boun-
daries, which time, or neglect, or unity of possession,
or mixture of occupation, has confounded or obliterat-
ed. To which should be added, a difficulty which
often presents itself in disputes concerning rights of
way, both public and private, and of those easements
which one man claims in another man's property;
namely, that of distinguishing, after a lapse of years,
the use of an indulgence from the exercise of a right.

Fifthly, The quantity or extent of an injury, even
when the cause and author of it are known, is often
dubious and undefined. If the injury consist in the
loss of some specific right, the value of the right mea-
sures the amount of the injury: but what a man may
have suffered in his person, from an assault; in his
reputation, by slander; or in the comfort of his life,
by the seduction of a wife or a daughter; or what
sum of money shall be deemed a reparation for da-
mages such as these; cannot be ascertained by an}
rules which the law of nature supplies. The law of"
nature commands that reparation be made; and adds
to her command, that, when the aggressor and the
sufferer disagree, the damage be assessed by authorized

148 ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE.

and indifferent arbitrators. Here then recourse must
be had to courts of law, not only with the permission,
but in some measure by the direction of natural
justice.

Sixthly, When controversies arise in the interpre-
tation of written laws, they for the most part arise up-
on some contingency which the composer of the law
did not foresee or think of. In the adjudication of
such cases, this dilemma presents itself : If the laws
be permitted to operate only upon the cases which
were actually contemplated by the law-makers, they
will always be found defective: if they be extended to
every case to which the reasoning, and spirit, and ex-
pediency of the provision seems to belong, without
any further evidence of the intention of the legisla-
ture, we shall allow to the judges a liberty of applying
the law, which will fall very little short of the power
of making it. If a literal construction be adhered
to, the law will often fail of its end: If a loose and
vague exposition be admitted, the law might as well
have never been enacted; for this licence will bring
back into the subject all the discretion and uncertainty
which it was the design of the legislature to take
away. Courts of justice are, and always must be,
embarrassed by these opposite difficulties; and as it
never can be known beforehand in what degree either
consideration may prevail in the mind of the judge,
there remains an unavoidable cause of doubt, and a
place for contention.

Seventhly, The deliberations of courts of justice up-
on every new question are encumbered with additional
difficulties, in consequence of the authority which the
judgment of the court possesses as a precedent to fu-
ture judicatures; which authority appertains not only
to the conclusions the court delivers, but to the prin-
ciples and arguments upon which they are built. The
view of this effect makes it necessary for a judge to
look beyond the case before him; and, beside the
attention he owes to the truth and justice of the cause
between the parties, to reflect whether the principles
and maxims, and reasoning, which he adopts and
authorizes, can be applied with safety to all cases

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 149

which admit of a comparison with the present. The
decision of the cause, were the effects of the decision
to stop there, might be easy; but the consequence of
establishing the principle which such a decision as-
sumes, may be difficult, though of the utmost impor-
tance, to be foreseen and regulated.

Finally, After all the certainty and rest that can be
given to points of law, either by the interposition of
the legislature or the authority of precedents, one
principal source of disputation, and into which indeed
the greater part of legal controversies may be resolved,
will remain still, namely, " the competition of oppo-
site analogies." When a point of law has been once
adjudged, neither that question, nor any which com-
pletely, and in all its circumstances, corresponds with
that, can be brought a second time into dispute: but
questions arise, which resemble this only indirectly
and in part, in certain views and circumstances, and
which may seem to bear an equal or a greater affinity
to other adjudged cases; questions which can be
brought within any fixed rule only by analogy, and
which hold a relation by analogy to different rules.
It is by the urging of the different analogies that the
contention of the bar is carried on: and it is in the
comparison, adjustment, and reconciliation of them
with one another; in the discerning of such distinc-
tions; and in the framing of such a determination, as
may either save the various rules alleged in the cause,
or, if that be impossible, may give up the weaker
analogy to the stronger; that the sagacity and wisdom
of the court are seen and exercised. Amongst a
thousand instances of this, we may cite one of general
notoriety, in the contest that has lately been agitated
concerning literary property. The personal industry
which an author expends upon the composition of his
work bears so near a resemblance to that by which
every other kind of property is earned, or deserved,
or acquired; or rather there exists such a correspon-
dency between what is created by the study of a man's
mind, and the production of his labour in any other
way of applying it, that he seems entitled to the same
exclusive, assignable, and perpetual right in both; and

VOL. ii. 13*

150 ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE

that right to the same protection of law. This was
the analogy contended for on one side. On the other
hand, a book, as to the author's right in it, appears
similar to an invention of art, as a machine, an engine,
a medicine: and since the law permits these to be
copied, or imitated, except where an exclusive use or
sale is reserved to the inventor by patent, the same
liberty should be allowed in the publication and sale
of books. This was the analogy maintained by the
advocates of an open trade. And the competition of
these opposite analogies constituted the difficulty of
the case, as far as the same was argued, or adjudged,
upon principles of common law. — One example may
serve to illustrate our meaning: but whoever takes up
a volume of Reports will find most of the arguments
it contains capable of the same analysis; although
the analogies, it must be confessed, are sometimes so
entangled as not to be easily unravelled, or even
perceived.

Doubtful and obscure points of law are not however
nearly so numerous as they are apprehended to be.
Out of the multitude of causes which, in the course
of each year, are brought to trial in the metropolis, or
upon the circuits, there are few in which any point is
reserved for the judgment of superior courts. Yet
these few contain all the doubts with which the law
is chargeable; for as to the rest, the uncertainty, as
hath been shown above, is not in the law, but in the
means of human information.

THERE are two particularities in the judicial con-
stitution of this country, which do not carry with
them that evidence of their propriety which recom-
mends almost every other part of the system. The
first of these is the rule which requires that juries be
unanimous in their verdicts. To expect that twelve
men, taken by lot out of a promiscuous multitude,
should agree in their opinion upon points confessedly
dubious, and upon which oftentimes the wisest judg-
ments might be holden in suspense; or to suppose that
any real unanimity or change of opinion, in the dis-

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 151

santing jurors, could be procured by confining them
until they all consented to the same verdict; bespeaks
more of the conceit of a barbarous age, than of the
policy which could dictate such an institution as that
of juries. Nevertheless, the effects of this rule are
not so detrimental as the rule itself is unreasonable: —
in criminal prosecutions, it operates considerably in
favour of the prisoner; for if a juror finds it necessary
to surrender to the obstinacy of others, he will much
more readily resign his opinion on the side of mercy
than of condemnation: in civil suits, it adds weight to
the direction of the judge; for when a conference with
one another does not seem likely to produce, in the
jury, the agreement that is necessary, they will natu-
rally close their disputes by a common submission to
the opinion delivered from the bench. However,
theie seems to be less of the concurrence of separate
judgments in the same conclusion, consequently less
assurance that the conclusion is founded in reasons of
apparent truth and justice, than if the decision were
left to a plurality, or to some certain majority of
voices.

The second circumstance in our constitution, which,
however it may succeed in practice, does not seem to
have been suggested by any intelligible fitness in the
nature of the thing, is the choice that is made of the
House of Lords as a court of appeal from every civil
court of judicature in the kingdom; and the last also
and highest appeal to which the subject can resort.
There appears to be nothing in the constitution of that
assembly; in the education, habits, character, or pro-
fessions of the members who compose it; in the mode
of their appointment, or the right by which they suc-
ceed to their places in it, that should qualify them
for this arduous office; except, perhaps, that the eleva-
tion of their rank and fortune affords a security against
the offer and influence of small bribes. Officers of the
army and navy, courtiers, ecclesiastics; young men
who have just attained the age of twenty-one, and
who have passed their youth in the dissipation and
pursuits which commonly accompany the possession
or inheritance of great fortunes; country gentlemen

152 ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE.

occupied in the management of their estates, or in the
care of their domestic concerns and family interests-
the greater part of the assembly born to their station,
that is, placed in it by chance; most of the rest ad-
vanced to the peerage for services, and from motives
utterly unconnected with legal erudition: — these men
compose the tribunal, to which the constitution intrusts
the interpretation of her laws, and the ultimate deci-
sion of every dispute between her subjects. These are
the men assigned to review judgments of law pro-
nounced by sages of the profession, who have spent
their lives in the stu-dy and practice of the jurispru-
dence of their country. Such is the order which our
ancestors have established. The effect only proves
the truth of this maxim; — " That when a single insti-
tution is extremely dissonant from other parts of the
system to which it belongs, it will always find some
way of reconciling itself to the analogy which governs
and pervades the rest." By constantly placing in the
House of Lords some of the most eminent and expe-
rienced lawyers in the kingdom; by calling to their
aid the advice of the judges, when any abstract ques-
tion of law awaits their determination; by the almost
implicit and undisputed deference which the unin-
formed part of the house find it necessary to pay to
the learning of their colleagues; the appeal to the
House of Lords becomes in fact an appeal to the col-
lected wisdom of our supreme courts of justice; re-
ceiving indeed solemnity, but little perhaps of direc-
tion, from the presence of the assembly in which it is
heard and determined.

These, however, even if real, are minute imperfec-
tions. A politician who should sit down to delineate
a plan for the dispensation of public justice, guarded
against all access to influence and corruption, and
bringing together the separate advantages of know-
ledge and impartiality, would find, when he had done,
that he had been transcribing the judicial constitution
of England. And it may teach the most discontented
amongst us to acquiesce in the government of his
country, to reflect that the pure, and wise, and equal
administration of the laws forms the first end and

CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS. 153

blessing of social union; and that this blessing is en-
joyed by him in a perfection, which he will seek in
vain in any other nation of the world.

CHAPTER IX.

OF CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS.

THE proper end of human punishment is not the
satisfaction of justice, but the prevention of crimes.
By the satisfaction of justice, I mean the retribution
of so much pain for so much guilt; which is the dis-
pensation we expect at the hand of God, and which
we are accustomed to consider as the order of things
that perfect justice dictates and requires. In what
sense, or whether with truth in any sense, justice rnay
be said to demand the punishment of offenders, I do
not now inquire; but I assert, that this demand is not
the motive or occasion of human punishment. What
would it be to the magistrate, that offences went alto-
gether unpunished, if the impunity of the offenders
were followed by no danger or prejudice to the com-
monwealth ? The fear lest the escape of the criminal
should encourage him, or others by his example, to
repeat the same crime, or to commit different crimes,
is the sole consideration which authorizes the inflic-
tion of punishment by human laws. Now, that, what-
ever it be, which is the cause and end of the punish-
ment, ought undoubtedly to regulate the measure of
its severity. But this cause appears to be founded,
not in the guilt of the offender, but in the necessity of
preventing the repetition of the offence: and hence
results the reason, that crimes are not by any govern-
ment punished in proportion to their guilt, nor in all
cases ought to be so, but in proportion to the difficulty
and the necessity of preventing them. Thus the steal-
ing of goods privately out of a shop, may not, in its
moral quality, be more criminal than the stealing of
them out of a house; yet, being equally necessarv and
more difficult to be prevented, the law, in certain cir-

154 CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS

cumstances, denounces against it a severer punishment.
The crime must be prevented by some means or other;
and consequently, whatever means appear necessary to
this end, whether they be proportionable to the guilt
of the criminal or not, are adopted rightly, because
they are adopted upon the principle which alone justi-
fies the infliction of punishment at all. From the
same consideration it also follows, that punishment
ought not to be employed, much less rendered severe,
when the crime can be prevented by any other means
Punishment is an evil to which the magistrate resorts
only from its being necessary to the prevention of a
greater. This necessity does not exist, when the end
may be attained, that is, when the public may be de-
fended from the effects of the crime, by any other ex-
pedient. The sanguinary laws which have been made
against counterfeiting or diminishing the gold coin of
the kingdom might be just, until the method of de-
tecting the fraud, by weighing the money, was intro-
duced into general usage. Since that precaution was
practised, these laws have slept; and an execution
under them at this day \\ould be deemed a measure of
unjustifiable severity. The same principle accounts
for a circumstance which has been often censured as
an absurdity in the penal laws of this and of most
modern nations, namely, that breaches of trust aro
either not punished at all, or punished with less rigour
than other frauds. — Wherefore is it, some have asked,
that a violation of confidence, which increases the
guilt, should mitigate the penalty? — This lenity, or
rather forbearance of the laws is founded in the most
reasonable distinction. A due circumspection in the
choice of the persons whom they trust; caution in
limiting the extent of that trust; or the requiring of
sufficient security for the faithful discharge of it; will
commonly guard men from injuries of this description:
and the law will not interpose its sanctions to protect
negligence and credulity, or to supply the place of
domestic care and prudence. To be convinced that
the law proceeds entirely upon this consideration, we
have only to observe, that where the confidence is
unavoidable, — where no practicable vigilance could

CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS. 155

watch the offender, as in the case of theft committed
by a servant in the shop or dwelling-house of his
master, or upon property to which he must necessarily
have access, — the sentence of the law is not less
severe, and its execution commonly more certain and
rigorous than if no trust at all had intervened.

It is in pursuance of the same principle, which per-
vades indeed the whole system of penal jurisprudence,
that the facility with which any species of crimes is
perpetrated has been generally deemed a reason for
aggravating the punishment. Thus, sheep stealing,
horse stealing, the stealing of cloth from tenters or
bleaching grounds, by our laws, subject the offenders
to sentence of death: not that these crimes are in their
nature more heinous than many simple felonies which
are punished by imprisonment or transportation, but
because the property, being more exposed, requires
the terror of capital punishment to protect it. This
severity would be absurd and unjust, if the guilt of
the offender were the immediate cause and measure
of the punishment; but it is a consistent and regular
consequence of the supposition, that the right of pun-
ishment results from the necessity of preventing the
crime: for if this be the end proposed, the severity
of the punishment must be increased in proportion to
the expediency and the difficulty of attaining this
end; that is, in a proportion compounded of the mis-
chief of the crime, and of the ease with which it is ex-
ecuted. The difficulty of discovery is a circumstance
to be included in the same consideration. It consti-
tutes indeed, with respect to the crime, the facility of
which we speak. By how much therefore the detec-
tion of an offender is more rare and uncertain, by so
much the more severe must be the punishment when
he is detected. Thus the writing of incendiary let-
ters, though in itself a pernicious and alarming injury,
calls for a more condign and exemplary punishment,
by the very obscurity with which the crime is com-
mitted.

From the justice of God, we are taught to look for
a gradation of punishment exactly proportioned to the
guilt of the offender: when therefore, in assigning

156 CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS

the degrees of human punishment, we introduce con-
siderations distinct from that guilt, and a proportion
so varied by external circumstances that equal crimes
frequently undergo unequal punishments, or the less
crime the greater; it is natural to demand the rea-
son why a different measure of punishment should be
expected from God, and observed by man; why that
rule, which befits the absolute and perfect justice of
the Deity should not be the rule which ought to be
pursued and imitated by human laws. The solution
of this difficulty must be sought for in those peculiar
attributes of the Divine nature, which distinguish the
dispensations of Supreme Wisdom from the proceed-
ings of human judicature. A Being whose know-
ledge penetrates every concealment, from the opera-
tion of whose will no art or flight can escape, and in
whose hands punishment is sure; such a Being may
conduct the moral government of his creation, in the
best and wisest manner, by pronouncing a law that
every crime shall finally receive a punishment pro-
portioned to the guilt which it contains, abstracted
ifrom any foreign consideration whatever; and may
testify his veracity to the spectators of his judgments,
by carrying this law into strict execution. But when
the care of the public safety is intrusted to men,
whose authority over their fellow creatures is limited
by defects of power and knowledge; from whose ut-
most vigilance and sagacity the greatest offenders
often lie hid; whose wisest precautions and speediest
pursuit may be eluded by artifice or concealment; a
different necessity, a new rule of proceeding, results
from the very imperfection of their faculties. In their
hands, the uncertainty of punishment must be com-
pensated by the severity. The ease with which
crimes are committed or concealed must be counter-
acted by additional penalties and increased terrors.
The very end for which human government is esta-
blished requires that its regulations be adapted to the
suppression of crimes. This end, whatever it may do
in the plans of infinite Wisdom, does not, in the desig-
nation of temporal penalties, always coincide with tho
proportionate punishment of guilt.

CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS. 157

There are two methods of administering penal jus-
tice.

The first method assigns capital punishment to few
offences, and inflicts it invariably.

The second method assigns capital punishment to
many kinds of offences, but inflicts it only upon a
few examples of each kind.

The latter of which two methods has been long
adopted in this country, where, of those who receive
sentence of death, scarcely one in ten is executed.
And the preference of this to the former method seems
to be founded in the consideration, that the selection
of proper objects for capital punishment principally
depends upon circumstances, which, however easy to
perceive in each particular case after the crime is com-
mitted, it is impossible to enumerate or define before-
hand, or to ascertain, however, with that exactness
which is requisite in legal descriptions. Hence, al-
though it be necessary to fix by precise rules of law
the boundary on one side, that is, the limit to which
the punishment may be extended; and also that no-
thing less than the authority of the whole legislature
be suffered to determine that boundary, and assign
these rules; yet the mitigation of punishment, the
exercise of lenity, may without danger be intrusted to
the executive magistrate, whose discretion will ope-
rate upon those numerous, unforeseen, mutable, and
indefinite circumstances, both of the crime and the
criminal, which constitute or qualify the malignity of
each offence. Without the power of relaxation lodged
in a living authority, either some offenders would
escape capital punishment, whom the public safety
required to suffer; or some would undergo this pun-
ishment, where it was neither deserved nor neces-
sary. For if judgment of death were reserved for one
or two species of crimes only (which would probably
be the case if that judgment was intended to be exe-
cuted without exception,) crimes might occur of the
most dangerous example, and accompanied with cir-
cumstances of heinous aggravation, which did not
fall within any description of offences that the laws
had made capital, and which consequently could not

VOL. II. 14

153 CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS.

receive the punishment their own malignity and the
public safety required. What is worse, it would be
known before hand, that such crimes might be com-
mitted without danger to the offender's life. On the
other hand, if, to reach these possible cases, the whole
class of offences to which they belong be subjected to
pains of death, and no power of remitting this severity
remain any where, the execution of the laws will be-
come more sanguinary than the public compassion
would endure, 'or than is necessary to the general
security.

The law of England is constructed upon a different
and a better policy. By the number of statutes creat-
ing capital offences, it sweeps into the net every crime
which, under any possible circumstances, may merit
the punishment of death; but when the execution of
this sentence comes to be deliberated upon, a small
proportion of each class are singled out, the general
character, or the peculiar aggravations, of whose
crimes render them fit examples of public justice.
By this expedient, few actually suffer death, whilst
the dread and danger of it hang over the crimes of
many. The tenderness of the law cannot be taken
advantage of. The life of the subject is spared as far
as the necessity of restraint and intimidation permits;
yet no one will adventure upon the commission of any
enormous crime, from a knowledge that the laws have
not provided for its punishment. The wisdom and
humanity of this design furnish a just excuse for the
multiplicity of capital offences, which the laws of
England are accused of creating beyond those of
other countries. The chat go of cruelty is answered
by observing, that these laws were never meant to be
carried into indiscriminate execution; that the legis-
lature, when it establishes its last and highest sanc-
tions, trusts to the benignity of the crown to relax
their severity, as often as circumstances appear to pal-
liate the offence, or even as often as those circum-
stances of aggravation are wanting which rendered
this rigorous interposition necessary. Upon this plan,
it is enough to vindicate the lenity of the laws, that
some instances are to be found in each class of c&pi-

CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS. 159

tal crimes, which required the restraint of capital pun-
ishment, and that this restraint could not be applied
without subjecting the whole class to the same con-
demnation.

There is however one species of crimes, the making
of which capital can hardly, I think, be defended even
upon the comprehensive principle just now stated — I
mean that of privately stealing from the person. As
every degree of force is excluded by the description
of the crime, it will be difficult to assign an example,
where either the amount or circumstances of the theft
place it upon a level with those dangerous attempts to
which the punishment of death should be confined.
It will be still more difficult to show, that, without
gross and culpable negligence on the part of the suf-
ferer, such examples can ever become so frequent as
to make it necessary to constitute a class of capital
offences, of very wide and large extent.

The prerogative of pardon is properly reserved to
the chief magistrate. The power of suspending the
laws is a privilege of too high a nature to be commit-
ted to many hands, or to those of any inferior office
in the state. The king also can best collect the ad-
vice by which his resolutions shall be governed; and
is at the same time removed at the greatest distance
from the influence of private motives. But let this
power be deposited where it will, the exercise of it
ought to be regarded, not as a favour to be yielded to
solicitation, granted to friendship, or, least of all, to
be made subservient to the conciliating or gratifying
of political attachments, but as a judicial act; as a
deliberation to be conducted with the same character
of impartiality, with the same exact and diligent at-
tention to the proper merits and circumstances of the
case, as that which the judge upon the bench was ex-
pected to maintain and show in the trial of the prison-
er's guilt. The questions, whether the prisoner be
guilty, and whether, being guilty, he ought to be exe-
cuted, are equally questions of public justice. The
adjudication of the latter question is as much a func-
tion of magistracy, as the trial of the former. The
public welfare is interested in both. The conviction

1€0 CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS.

of an offender should depend upon nothing but the
proof of his guilt; nor the execution of the sentence
upon any thing beside the quality and circumstances
of his crime. It is necessary to the good order of
society, and to the reputation and authority of go-
vernment, that this be known and believed to be the
case in each part of the proceeding. Which reflec-
tions show, that the admission of extrinsic or oblique
considerations in dispensing the power of pardon, is a
crime, in the authors and advisers of such unmerited
partiality, of the same nature with that of corruption
in a judge.

Aggravations, which ought to guide the magistrate
in the selection of objects of condign punishment, are
principally these three — repetition, cruelty, combina*
tion. The first two, it is manifest, add to every rea-
son upon which the justice or the necessity of rigor-
ous measures can be founded; and with respect to
the last circumstance, it may be observed, that when
thieves and robbers are once collected into gangs,
their violence becomes more formidable, the con-
federates more desperate, and the difficulty of defend-
ing the public against their depredations much greater
than in the case of solitary adventurers. Which
several considerations compose a distinction that is
properly adverted to in deciding upon the fate of con-
victed malefactors.

In crimes, however, which are perpetrated by a
multitude, or by a gang, it is proper to separate, in
the punishment, the ringleader from his followers,
the principal from his accomplices, and even the per-
son who struck the blow, broke the lock, or first en-
tered the house, from those who joined him in the
felony; not so much on account of any distinction in
the guilt of the offenders, as for the sake of casting an
obstacle in the way of such confederacies, by render-
ing it difficult for the confederates to settle who shall
begin the attack, or to find a man amongst their num-
ber willing to expose himself to greater danger than
his associates. This is another instance in which the
punishment which expediency directs does not pursue
the exact proportion of the crime.

CRIMES AND PUNISHMEBTTS. 161

Injuries effected by terror and violence are those
which it is the first and chief concern of legal govern-
ment to repress; because their extent is unlimited;
because no private precaution can protect the subject
against them; because they endanger life and safety
as well as property; and, lastly, because they render
the condition of society wretched, by a sense of per-
sonal insecurity. These reasons do not apply to frauds
which circumspection may prevent; which must wait
for opportunity; which can proceed only to certain
limits; and by the apprehension of which, although
the business of life be incommoded, life itself is not
made miserable. The appearance of this distinction
has led some humane writers to express a wish, that
capital punishments might be confined to crimes of
violence.

In estimating the comparative malignancy of crimes
of violence, regard is to be had not only to the proper
and intended mischief of crime, but to the fright oc-
casioned by the attack, to the general alarm excited
by it in others, and to the consequences which may
attend future attempts of the same kind. Thus, in
affixing the punishment of burglary, or of breaking
into dwelling houses by night, we are to consider not
only the peril to which the most valuable property is
exposed by this crime, and which may be called the
direct mischief of it, but the danger also of murder in
case of resistance, or for the sake of preventing dis-
covery; and the universal dread with which the silent
and defenceless hours of rest and sleep must be dis-
turbed, were attempts of this sort to become frequent;
and which dread alone, even without the mischief
which is the object of it, is not only a public evil, but
almost of all evils the most insupportable. These
circumstances place a difference between the breaking
into a dwelling-house by day and by night; which
difference obtains in the punishment of the offence by
the law of Moses, and is probably to be found in the
judicial codes of most countries, from the earliest ages
to the present.

Of frauds or of injuries which are effected without
force, the most noxious kinds are, — forgeries, coun-

VOL. II. 14 *

162 CRIMES* AND PUNISHMENTS.

forfeiting or diminishing of the coin, and the stealing
ef letters in the course of their conveyance; inasmuch
as these practices tend to deprive the public of ac-
commodations, which not only improve the conve-
niencies of social life, but are essential to the pros-
perity, and even the existence of commerce. Of
these crimes it may be said, that although they seem
to affect property alone, the mischief of their opera-
tion does not terminate there. For let it be supposed,
that the remissness or lenity of the laws should, in
any country, suffer offences of this sort to grow into
such a frequency as to render the use of money, the
circulation of bills, or the public conveyance of letters,
no longer safe or practicable; what would follow, but
that every species of trade and of activity must de-
cline under these discouragements; the sources of
subsistence fail, by which the inhabitants of the coun-
try are supported; the country itself, where the inter-
course of civil life was so endangered and defective,
be deserted; and that, beside the distress and poverty
which the loss of employment would produce to the
industrious and valuable part of the existing com-
munity, a rapid depopulation must take place, each
generation becoming less numerous than the last; till
solitude and barrenness overspread the land; until a
'desolation similar to what obtains in many countries
of Asia, which were once the most civilized and fre-
quented parts of the world, succeed in the place of
crowded cities, of cultivated fields, of happy and well
peopled regions ? When therefore we carry forward,
our views to the more distant, but not less certain,
consequences of these crimes, we perceive tlrat,
though no living creature be destroyed by them, yet
human life is diminished; that an offence, the particu-
lar consequence of which deprives only an individual
of a small portion of his property, and which even
in its general tendency seems to do nothing more
than obstruct the enjoyment of certain public conve-
niences, may nevertheless, by its ultimate effects, con-
clude in the laying waste of human existence/ This
observation will enable those who regard the divine
rule of "life for life, and blood for blood," as the

CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS. 163

only authorized and justifiable measure of capital
punishment, to perceive, with respect to the effects
and quality of the actions, a greater resemblance than
they suppose to exist between certain atrocious frauds,
and those crimes which attack personal safety.

In the case of forgeries, there appears a substantial
difference between the forging of bills of exchange, or
of securities which are circulated, and of which the
circulation and currency are found to serve and facili-
tate valuable purposes of commerce; and the forging
of bonds, leases, mortgages, or of instruments which
are not commonly transferred from one hand to
another; because, in the former case, credit is neces-
sarily given to the signature, and without that credit
the negotiation of such property could not be carried
on, nor the public utility, sought from it, be attained:
in the other case, all possibility of deceit might be
precluded, by a direct communication between the
parties, or by due care in the choice of their agents,
with little interruption to business, arid without de-
stroying or much encumbering the uses for which
these instruments are calculated. This distinction I
apprehend to be not only real, but precise enough to
afford a line of division between forgeries, which, as
the law now stands, are almost universally capital,
and punished with undistinguishing severity.

Perjury is another crime of the same class and mag-
nitude. And when we consider what reliance is ne-
cessarily placed upon oaths; that all judicial decisions
proceed upon testimony; that consequently there is
not a right that a man possesses, of which false wit-
nesses may not deprive him; that reputation, pro-
perty, and life itself lie open to the attempts of per-
jury; that it may often be committed without a possi-
bility of contradiction or discovery; that the success
and prevalency of this vice tend to introduce the most
grievous and fatal injustice into the administration of
human affairs, or such a distrust of testimony as must
create universal embarrassment and confusion; — when
we reflect upon these mischiefs, we shall be brought,
probably, to agree with the opinion of those who con-
tend that perjury, in its punishment, especially that

164 CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS.

which is attempted in solemn evidence, and in the
face of a court of justice, should be placed upon a
level with the most flagitious frauds.

The obtaining of money by secret threats, whether
we regard the difficulty with which the crime is traced
out, the odious imputations to which it may lead, or
the profligate conspiracies that ape sometimes formed
to carry it into execution, deserves to be reckoned
amongst the worst species of robbery.

The frequency of capital executions in this country
owes its necessity to three causes; much liberty,
great cities, and the want of a punishment short of
death, possessing a sufficient degree of terror. And
if the taking away of the life of malefactors be more
rare in other countries than in ours, the reason will
be found in some difference in these articles. The
liberties of a free people, and still more the jealousy
with which these liberties are watched, and by which
they are preserved, permit not those precautions and
restraints, that inspection, scrutiny, and control, which
are exercised with success in arbitrary governments.
For example, neither the spirit of the laws, nor of the
people, will suffer the detention or confinement of sus-
pected persons, without proofs of their guilt, which it
is often impossible to obtain; nor will they allow that
masters of families be obliged to record and render
up a description of the strangers or inmates whom
they entertain; nor that an account be demanded, at
the pleasure of the magistrate, of each man's time,
employment, and means of subsistence; nor securi-
ties to be required when these accounts appear unsat-
isfactory or dubious; nor men to be apprehended
upon the mere suggestion of idleness or vagrancy;
nor to be confined to certain districts; nor the inhab-/
itarits of each district to be made responsible for one(
another's behaviour; nor passports to be exacted from
all persons entering or leaving the kingdom: least of
all will they tolerate the appearance of an armed force,
or of military law; or suffer the streets and public
roads to be guarded and patroled by soldiers; or,
lastly, intrust the police with such discretionary
powers as may make sure of the guilty, however they

CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS. 165

involve the innocent. These expedients, although
arbitrary and rigorous, are many of them effectual;
and, in proportion as they render the commission or
concealment of crimes more difficult, they subtract
from the necessity of severe punishment. — Great
cities multiply crimes, by presenting easier opportu-
nities, and more incentives to libertinism, which in
low life is commonly the introductory stage to other
enormities; by collecting thieves and robbers into the
same neighbourhood, which enables them to form
communications and confederacies that increase their
art and courage, as well as strength and wickedness;
but principally by the refuge they afford to villany, in
the means of concealment, and of subsisting in secrecy,
which crowded towns supply to men of every descrip-
tion. These temptations and facilities can only be
counteracted by adding to the number of capital pun-
ishments.— But a third cause which increases the fre-
quency of capital executions in England is a defect
of the laws, in not being provided with any other
punishment than that of death, sufficiently terrible to
keep offenders in awe. Transportation, which is the
sentence second in the order of severity, appears to
me to answer the purpose of example very imper-
fectly; not only because exile is in reality a slight
punishment to those who have neither property, nor
friends, nor reputation, nor regular means of subsis-
tence at home; and because their situation becomes
little worse by their crime than it was before they
committed it; but because the punishment, whatever
it be, is unobserved and unknown. A transported
convict may suffer under his sentence, but his suffer-
ings are removed from the view of his countrymen;
his misery is unseen; his condition strikes no terror
into the minds of those for whose warning and admo-
nition it was intended. This chasm in the scale of
punishment produces also two further imperfections
in the administration of penal justice: — the first is,
that the same punishment is extended to crimes of
very different character and malignancy; the second,
that punishments separated by a great interval, are

ICG CRIMES AND PUNISHMENT

assigned to crimes hardly distinguishable in their
gailt and mischief.

The end of punishment is twofold; — amendment
and example. In the first of these, the reformation
of criminals, little has ever heen effected, and little,
I fear, is practicable. From every species of punish-
ment that has hitherto been devised, from imprison-
ment and exile, from pain and infamy, malefactors
return more hardened in their crimes, and more in-
structed. If there be any thing that shakes the soul
of a confirmed villain, it is the expectation of ap-
proaching death. The horrors of this situation may
cause such a wrench in the mental organs as to give
them a holding turn: and I think it probable, that
many of those who are executed would, if they were
delivered at the point of death, retain such a remem-
brance of their sensations as might preserve them,
unless urged by extreme want, from relapsing into
their former crimes. But this is an experiment that,
from its nature, cannot be repeated often.

Of the reforming punishments which have not yet
been tried, none promises so much success as that of
solitary imprisonment, or the confinement of criminals
in separate apartments. This improvement augments
the terror of the punishment; secludes the criminal
from the society of his fellow-prisoners, in which so-
ciety the worse are sure to corrupt the better; weans
him from the knowledge of his companions, and from
the love of that turbulent precarious life, in which
his vices had engaged him; is calculated to raise up
in him reflections on the folly of his choice, and to
dispose his mind to such bitter and continued peni-
tence as may produce a lasting alteration in the prin-
ciples of his conduct.

As aversion to labour is the cause from which half
of the vices of low life deduce their origin and con-
tinuance, punishments ought to be contrived with a
view to the conquering of this disposition. Two op-
posite expedients have been recommended for this
purpose; the one, solitary confinement with hard la-
bour; the other, solitary confinement with nothing to
do. Both expedients seek the same end — to reconcile

CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS. 167

the idle to a life of industry. The former hopes to
effect this by making labour habitual; the latter, by
making idleness insupportable: and the preference of
one method to the other depends upon the question,
whether a man is more likely to betake himself, of
his own accord, to work, who has been accustomed
to employment, or who has been distressed by the
want of it. When gaols are once provided for the
separate confinement of prisoners, which both propo-
sals require, the choice between them may soon be
determined by experience. If labour be exacted, I
would leave the whole, or a portion, of the earnings
to the prisoner's use, and I would debar him from any
other provision or supply; that his subsistence, how-
ever coarse and penurious, may be proportioned to his
diligence, and that he may taste the advantage of in-
dustry together with the toil. I would go further;
I would measure the confinement, not by the duration
of time, but by quantity of work, in order both to
excite industry, and to render it more voluntary.
But the principal difficulty remains still; namely,
how to dispose of criminals after their enlargement.
By a rule of life, which is perhaps too invariably and
indiscriminately adhered to, no one will receive a
man or woman out of a gaol into any service or em-
ployment whatever. This is the common misfortune
of public punishments, that they preclude the offender
from all honest means of future support.* It seems
incumbent upon the state to secure a maintenance
to those who are willing to work for it; and yet it
is absolutely necessary to divide criminals as far asun-
der from one another as possible. Whether male
prisoners might not, after the term of their confine-
ment was expired, be distributed in the country, de-
tained within certain limits, and employed upon the
public roads; and females be remitted to the over-

* Until this inconvenience be remedied, small offences had
perhaps better go unpunished : I do not mean that the law
should exempt them from punishment, but that private per-
sons should be tender in prosecuting them.

168 CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS.

eeers of country parishes, to he there furnished with
dwellings, and with the materials and implements of
occupation; — whether by these, or by what other me-
thods it may be possible to effect the two purposes
of employment and dispersion ; well merits the atten-
tion of all who are anxious to perfect the internal re-
gulation of their country.

Torture is applied either to obtain confessions of
guilt, or to exasperate or prolong the pains of death.
No bodily punishment, however excruciating or long
continued, receives the name of torture, unless it be
designed to kill the criminal by a more lingering
death; or to extort from him the discovery of some
secret, which is supposed to lie concealed in his breast.
The question by torture appears to be equivocal in
its effects: for since extremity of pain, and not any
consciousness of remorse in the mind produces those
effects, an innocent man may sink under the torment
as well as he who is guilty. The latter has as much
to fear from yielding as the former. The instant and
almost irresistible desire of relief may draw from one
sufferer false accusations of himself or others, as it
may sometimes extract the truth out of another. This
ambiguity renders the use of torture, as a means of
procuring information in criminal proceedings, liable
to the risk of grievous and irreparable injustice. For
which reason, though recommended by ancient and
general example, it has been properly exploded from
the mild and cautious system of penal jurisprudence
established in this country.

Barbarous spectacles of human agony are justly
found fault with, as tending to harden and deprave
the public feelings, and to destroy that sympathy
with which the sufferings of our fellow creatures
ought always to be seen; or, if no effect of this kind
follow from them, they counteract in some measure
their own design, by sinking men's abhorrence of the
crime in their commiseration of the criminal. But
if a mode of execution could be devised, which would
augment the horror of the punishment without offend-
ing or impairing the public sensibility by cruel or
unseemly exhibitions of death, it might add some-

CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS. 169

thing to the efficacy of the example; and, by being
reserved for a few atrocious crimes, might also en-
large the scale of punishment; an addition to which
seems wanting: for, as the matter remains at present,
you hang a malefactor for a simple robbery, and can
do no more to the villain who has poisoned his father.
Somewhat of the sort we have been describing was
the proposal, not long since suggested, of casting
murderers into a den of wild beasts, where they would
perish in a manner dreadful to the imagination, yet
concealed from the view.

Infamous punishments are mismanaged in this
country, with respect both to the crimes and the crimi-
nals. In the first place, they ought to be confined
to offences which are holden in undisputed and uni-
versal detestation To condemn to the pillory the
author or editor of a libel against the state, who has
rendered himself the favourite of a party, if not of the
people, by the very act for which he stands there, is
to gratify the offender, and to expose the laws to
mockery and insult. In the second place, the delin-
quents who receive this sentence are for the most
part such as have long ceased either to value reputa-
tion or to fear shame; of whose happiness, and of
whose enjoyments, character makes no part. Thus
the low ministers of libertinism, the keepers of
bawdy or disorderly houses, are threatened in vain
with a punishment that affects a sense which they
have not; that applies solely to the imagination, to
the virtue and the pride of human nature. The pil-
lory or any other infamous distinction might be em-
ployed rightly, and with effect, in the punishment of
some offences of higher life; as of frauds and pecu-
lation in office; of collusions and connivances, by
which the public treasury is defrauded; of breaches
of trust; of perjury and subornation of perjury; of
the clandestine and forbidden sale of places; of fla-
grant abuses of authority, or neglect of duty; and,
lastly, of corruption in the exercise of confidential
or judicial offices. In all which, the more elevated
was the station of the criminal, the more signal and
conspicuous would be thy triumph of justice.

VOL. II. 15

170 CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS.

The certainty of punishment is of more conse-
quence than the severity. Criminals do not so much
flatter themselves with the lenity of the sentence as
with the hope of escaping. They are not so apt to
compare what they gain by the crime with what they
may suffer from the punishment, as to encourage
themselves with the chance of concealment or flight.
For which reason, a vigilant magistracy, an accurate
police, a proper distribution of force and intelligence,
together with due rewards for the discovery and ap-
prehension of malefactors, and an undeviating impar-
tiality in carrying the laws into execution, contribute
more to the restraint and suppression of crimes than
any violent exacerbations of punishment. And, for
the same reason, of all contrivances directed to this
end, those perhaps are most effectual which facilitate
the conviction of criminals. The offence of counter-
feiting the coin could not be checked by all the ter-
rors and the utmost severity of law, whilst the act of
coining was necessary to be established by specific
proof. The statute which made possession of the im-
plements of coining capital, that is, which constituted
that possession complete evidence of the offender's
guilt, was the first thing that gave force and efficacy
to the denunciations of law upon this subject. The
statute of James the First, relative to the murder of
bastard children, which ordains that the concealment
of the birth should be deemed incontestable proof of
the charge, though a harsh law, was, in like manner
with the former, well calculated to put a stop to the
crime.

[t is upon the principle of this observation, that I
apprehend much harm to have been done to the com-
munity, by the overstrained scrupulousness, or weak
timidity, of juries, which demands often such proof of
a prisoner's guilt as the nature -and secrecy of his
crime scarce possibly admit of ; and which holds it
the part of a safe conscience not to condemn any man,
whilst there exists the minutest possibility of his inno-
cence. Any story they may happen to have heard or
read, whether real or feigned, in which courts of jus-
tice have been misled by presumptions of guilt, is

CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS. 171

enough., in their minds, to found an acquittal upon,
where positive proof is wanting. I do not mean that
juries should indulge conjectures, should magnify sus-
picions into proofs, or even that they should weigh
probabilities in gold scales : but when the preponde-
ration of evidence is so manifest as to persuade every
private understanding of the prisoner's guilt; when it
furnishes ihe degree of credibility upon which men
decide and act in all other doubts, and which expe-
rience hath shown that they may decide and act upon
M-ith sufficient safety: to reject such proof, from an
insinuation of the uncertainty that belongs to all hu-
man affairs, and from a general dread lest the charge
of innocent blood should lie at their doors, is a con-
duct which, however natural to a mind studious of its
own quiet, is authorized by no considerat:ons of recti-
tude or utility. It counteracts the care., and damps
the activity of government; it holds out public en-
couragement to villany, by confessing the impossibility
of bringing villains to justice; and that, species of en-
couragement which, as hath been just now observed,
the minds of such men are most apt to entertain and
dwell upon.

There are two popular maxims, which seem to have
a considerable influence in producing the injudicious
acquittals of which we complain. One is, — " that
circumstantial evidence falls short of positive proof."
This assertion, in the unqualified sense in which it is
applied, is not true. A concurrence of well authenti-
cated circumstances composes a stronger ground of
assurance than positive testimony, unconfirmed by
circumstances usually affords. Circumstances cannot
lie. The conclusion also which results from them,
though deduced by only probable inference, is com-
monly more to be relied upon than the veracity of an
unsupported solitary witness. The danger of being
deceived is less, the actual instances of deception are
fewer, in the one case than the other. What is called
positive proof in criminal matters, as where a man
swears to the person of the prisoner, and that he ac-
tually saw him commit the crime with which he is
charged, may be founded in the mistake or perjury of

172 CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS.

a single witness. Such mistakes and such perjuries
are not without many examples. Whereas to impose
upon a court of justice a chain of circumstantial evi-
dence, in support of a fabricated accusation, requires
such a number of false witnesses as seldom meet toge-
ther; a union also of skill and wickedness which is
still more rare; and, after all, this species of proof lies
much more open to discussion, and is more likely, if
false, to be contradicted, or to betray itself by some
unforeseen inconsistency, than that direct proof, which,
being confined within the knowledge of a single per-
son, which, appealing to, or standing connected with
no external or collateral circumstances, is incapable,
by its very simplicity, of being confronted with oppo-
site probabilities.

The other maxim which deserves a similar exami-
nation is this: — *' That it is better that ten guilty
persons escape, than that one innocent man should
suffer." If by saying it is better be meant that it is
more for the public advantage, the proposition, I think,
cannot be maintained. The security of civil life,
which is essential to the value and the enjoyment of
every blessing it contains, and the interruption of
which is followed by universal misery and confusion,
is protected chiefly by the dread of punishment. The
misfortune of an individual (for such may the suffer-
ings, or even the death, of an innocent person be
called, when they are occasioned by no evil intention)
cannot be placed in competition with this object. I
do not contend that the life or safety of the meanest
subject ought, in any case, to be knowingly sacrificed:
no principle of judicature, no end of punishment, can
ever require that. But when certain rules of adjudi-
cation must be pursued, when certain degrees of cre-
dibility must be accepted, in order to reach the crimes
with which the public are infested; courts of justice
should not be deterred from the application of these
rules, by every suspicion of danger, or by the mere
possibility of confounding the innocent with the guilty.
They ought rather to reflect, that he who falls by a
mistaken sentence may be considered as falling for

RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS, &C. 173

his country, whilst he suffers under the operation of
those rules, by the general effect and tendency of
which the welfare of the community is maintained
and upholden.

CHAPTER X.

OF RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS, AND OP
TOLERATION.

" A RELIGIOUS establishment is no part of Chris-
tianity; it is only the means of inculcating it." Amongst
the Jews, the rights and offices, the order, family, and
succession of the priesthood were marked out by the
authority which declared the law itself. These, there-
fore, were parts of the Jewish religion, as well as the
means of transmitting it. Not so with the new insti-
tution. It cannot be proved that any form of church-
government was laid down in the Christian, as it had
been in the Jewish Scriptures, with a view of fixing a
constitution for succeeding ages; and which consti-
tution, consequently, the disciples of Christianity
would everywhere, and at all times, by the very law
of their religion, be obliged to adopt. Certainly, no
command for this purpose was delivered by Christ
himself: and if it be shown that the apostles ordained
bishops and presbyters amongst their first converts, it
must be remembered that deacons also and deacon-
esses were appointed by them, with functions very
dissimilar to any which obtain in the church at present.
The truth seems to have been, that such offices were
at first erected in the Christian church, as the good
order, the instruction, and the exigencies of the society
at that time required, without any intention, at least
without any declared design, of regulating the ap-
pointment, authority, or the distinction of Christian
ministers under future circumstances. This reserve,
if we may so call it, in the Christian Legislator, is
sufficiently accounted for by two considerations: —

VOL. II. 15 *

174 RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS,

First, that no precise constitution could be framed,
which would suit with the condition of Christianity
in its primitive state, and with that which it was to
assume when it should be advanced into a national
religion: Secondly, that a particular designation of
office or authority amongst the ministers of the new
religion might have so interfered with the arrange-
ments of civil policy, as to have formed, in somo
countries, a considerable obstacle to the progress and
reception of the religion itself.

The authority therefore of a church establishment
is founded in its utility: and whenever, upon this
principle, we deliberate concerning the form, pro-
priety, or comparative excellency of different estab-
lishments, the single view under which we ought to
consider any of them is, that of " a scheme of instruc-
tion;" the single end we ought to propose by them
is " the preservation and communication of religious
knowledge." Every other idea, and every other end,
that have been mixed with this, as the making of the
church an engine, or even an ally, of the state; con-
verting it into the means of strengthening or diffusing
influence ; or regarding it as a support of regal in oppo-
sition to popular forms of government; have served
only to debase the institution, and to introduce into
it numerous corruptions and abuses.

The notion of a religious establishment comprehends
three things; a clergy, or an order of men secluded
from other professions to attend upon the offices of
religion; a legal provision for the maintenance of the
clergy; and the confining of that provision to the
teachers of a particular sect of Christianity. If any
one of these three things be wanting; if there be no
clergy, as amongst the Quakers; or if the clergy have
no other provision than what they derive from the
voluntary contribution of their hearers; or if the pro-
vision which the laws assign to the support of religion
be extended to various sects and denominations of
Christians; there exists no national religion or esta-
blished church, according to the sense which these
terms are usually made lo convey. He therefore, who
would defend ecclesiastical establishments, must show

AND TOLERATION. 175

the separate utility of these three essential parts of
their constitution. —

1. The question first in order upon the subject, as
well as the most fundamental in its importance, is,
whether the knowledge and profession of Christianity
can be maintained in a country, without a class of
men set apart by public authority to the study and
teaching of religion, and to the conducting of public
worship; and for these purposes secluded from other
employments. I add this last circumstance, because
in it consists, as I take it, the substance of the con-
troversy. Now it must be remembered, that Chris-
tianity is an historical religion, founded in facts which
are related to have passed, upon discourses which were
holden, and letters which were written, in a remote
age and distant country of the world, as well as under
a state of life and manners, and during the prevalency
of opinions, customs, and institutions, very unlike any
which are found amongst mankind at present. More-
over, this religion, having been first published in the
country of Judea, and being built upon the more ancient
religion of the Jews, is necessarily and intimately con-
nected with the sacred writings, with the history and
polity of that singular people: to which must be added,
that the records of both revelations are preserved in
languages which have long ceased to be spoken in
any part of the world. Books which come down to
us from times so remote, and under so many causes
of unavoidable obscurity, cannot, it is evident, be un-
derstood without study and preparation. The lan-
guages must be learned. The various writings which
these volumes contain must be carefully compared
with one another, and with themselves. What re-
mains of contemporary authors, or of authors con-
nected with the age, the country, or the subject of
our Scriptures, must be perused and consulted, in
order to interpret doubtful forms of speech, and to
explain illusions which refer to objects or usages that
no longer exist. Above all, the modes of expression,
the habits of reasoning and argumentation, which
were then in use, and to which the discourses oven of
inspired teachers were necessarily adapted, must be

176 RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS,

mifficiently known, and can only be known at all by
a due acquaintance with ancient literature. And,
lastly, to establish the genuineness and integrity of
the canonical Scriptures themselves, a series of testi-
mony, recognising the notoriety and reception of these
books, must be deduced from times near to those of
their first publication, down the succession of ages
through which they have been transmitted to us. The
qualifications necessary for such researches demand,
it is confessed, a degree of leisure, and a kind of edu-
cation, inconsistent with the exercise of any other pro-
fession.— But how few are there amongst the clergy,
from whom any thing of this sort can be expected!
ho\v small a proportion of their number, who seem
likely either to augment the fund of sacred literature,
or even to collect what is already known! — To this
objection it may be replied, that we sow many seeds
to raise one flower. In order to produce a few capable
of improving and continuing the stock of Christian
erudition, leisure and opportunity must be afforded to
great numbers. Original knowledge of this kind can
never be universal; but it is of the utmost importance,
and it is enough, that there be, at all times, found
some qualified for such inquiries, and in whose concur-
ring and independent conclusions upon each subject,
the rest of the Christian community may safely con-
fide: whereas, without an order of clergy educated
for the purpose, and led to the prosecution of these
studies by the habits, the leisure, and the object of
their vocation, it may well be questioned whether the
learning itself would not have been lost, by which the
records of our faith are interpreted and defended. We
contend, therefore, that an order of clergy is necessary
to perpetuate the evidences of Revelation, and to in-
terpret the obscurity of those ancient writings in which
the religion is contained. But beside this, which
forms, no doubt, one design of their institution, the
more ordinary offices of public teaching, and of con-
ducting public worship, call for qualifications not
usually to be met with amidst the employments of
civil life. It has been acknowledged by some, who
cannot be suspected of making unnecessary conces-

AND TOLERATION. 177

sions in favour of establishments, " to be barely pos-
sible, that a person who was never educated for the
office should acquit himself with decency as a public
teacher of religion." And that surely must be a very
defective policy which trusts to possibilities for suc-
cess, when provision is to be made for regular and
general instruction. Little objection to this argu-
ment can be drawn from the example of the Quakers,
who, it may be said, furnish an experimental proof
that the worship and profession of Christianity maybe
upholden without a separate clergy. These sectaries
every where subsist in conjunction with a regular
establishment. They have access to the writings,
they profit by the labours of the clergy, in common
with other Christians. They participate in that
general diffusion of religious knowledge, which the
constant teaching of a more regular ministry keeps
up in the country. With such aids, and under such
circumstances, the defects of a plan may not be much
felt, although the plan itself be altogether unfit for
general imitation.

2. If then an order of clergy be necessary, if it be
necessary also to seclude them from the employments
and profits of other professions, it is evident they
ought to be enabled to derive a maintenance from
their own. Now this maintenance must either de-
pend upon the voluntary contributions of their hearers,
or arise from revenues assigned by authority of law.
To the scheme of voluntary contribution there exists
this insurmountable objection, that few would ulti-
mately contribute any thing at all. However the zeal
of a sect, or the novelty of a change, might support
such an experiment for a while, no reliance could be
placed upon it as a general and permanent provision.
It is at all times a bad constitution, which present?
temptations of interest in opposition to the duties of
religion; or which makes the offices of religion ex-
pensive to those who attend upon them; or which
allows pretences of conscience to be an excuse for not
sharing in a public burden. If, by declining to fre-
quent religious assemblies, men could save their
money, at the same time that they indulged their in-

ITS RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS,

dolence, and their disinclination to exercises of seri-
ousness and reliection; or if, by dissenting from the
national religion, they could be excused from contri-
buting to the support of the ministers of religion; it is
to be feared that many would take advantage of the
option which was thus imprudently left open to them,
and that this liberty might finally operate to the decay
of virtue, and an irrecoverable forgetfulness of all re-
ligion in the country. Is there not too much reason
to fear that, if it were referred to the discretion of
each neighbourhood, whether they would maintain
amongst them a teacher of religion or not, many dis-
tricts would remain unprovided with any ? that with
the difficulties which encumber every measure requir-
ing the co-operation of numbers, and where each in-
dividual of the number has an interest secretly plead-
ing against the success of the measure itself, associa-
tions for the support of Christian worship and instruc-
tion would neither be numerous nor long continued ?
The devout and pious might lament in vain the want
or the distance of a religious assembly: they could not
form or maintain one without the concurrence of
neighbours who felt neither their zeal nor their libe-
rality.

From the difficulty with which congregations would
be established and upheld upon the voluntary plan,
let us carry our thoughts to the condition of those who
are to officiate in them. Preaching, in time, would
become a mode of begging. With what sincerity, or
with what dignity, can a preacher dispense the truths
of Christianity, whose thoughts are perpetually soli-
cited to the reflection how he may increase his sub-
scription ? His eloquence, if he possess any, resem-
bles rather the exhibition of a player who is com-
puting the profits of his theatre than the simplicity of
a man who, feeling himself the awful expectations of
religion, is seeking to bring others to such a sense
and understanding of their duty as may save their
souls. Moreover, a little experience of the disposition
of the common people will in every country inform us,
that it is one thing to edify them in Christian know-
ledge, and another to gratify their taste for vehement,

AND TOLERATION. 179

impassioned oratory; that he, not only whose success,
but whose subsistence depends upon collecting and
pleasing a crowd, must resort to other arts than the
acquirement and communication of sober and profita-
ble instruction. For a preacher to be thus at the
mercy of his audience; to be obliged to adapt his doc-
trines to the pleasure of a capricious multitude; to be
continually affecting a style and manner neither natu-
ral to him, nor agreeable to his judgment; to live in
constant bondage to tyrannical and insolent directors;
are circumstances so mortifying, not only to the pride
of the human heart, but to the virtuous love of inde-
pendency, that they are rarely submitted to without
a sacrifice of principle and a depravation of character;
— at least it may be pronounced, that a ministry so
degraded would soon fall into the lowest hands; for it
would be found impossible to engage men of worth
and ability in so precarious and humiliating a profes-
sion.

If, in deference then to these reasons, it be admit-
ted, that a legal provision for the clergy, compulsory
upon those who contribute to it, is expedient; the
next question will be, whether this provision should
be confined to one sect of Christianity, or extended
indifferently to all ? Now it should be observed, that
this question never can offer itself where the people
are agreed in their religious opinions; and that it
never ought to arise, where a system may be framed
of doctrines and worship wide enough to comprehend
their disagreement; and which might satisfy all, by
uniting all in the articles of their common faith, and
in a mode of divine worship that omits every subject
of controversy or offence. Where such a comprehen-
sion is practicable the comprehending religion ought
to be made that of the state. But if this be despaired
of; if religious opinions exist, not only so various, but
so contradictory as to render it impossible to reconcile
them to each other, or to any one confession of faith,
rule of discipline, or form of worship; if, consequently,
separate congregations and different sects must un-
avoidably continue in the country: under such cir-
cumstances, whether the law ought to establish one

180 RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS,

sect in preference to the rest; that is, whether they
ought to confer the provision assigned to the main-
tenance of religion upon the teachers of one system
of doctrines alone, becomes a question of necessary
discussion and of great importance. And whatever
we may determine concerning speculative rights and
abstract properties, when we set about the framing
of an ecclesiastical constitution adapted to real life,
and to the actual state of religion in the country,
we shall find this question very nearly related to
and principally indeed dependent upon another ',
namely, " In what way, or by whom ought the mi-
nisters of religion to be appointed?" If the species
of patronage be retained to which we are accustomed
in this country, and which allows private individuals
to nominate teachers of religion for districts and con-
gregations to which they are absolute strangers; with-
out some test proposed to the persons nominated, the
utmost discordancy of religious opinions might arise
between the several teachers and their respective con-
gregations. A popish patron might appoint a priest
to say mass to a congregation of protestants; an epis-
copal clergyman be sent to officiate in a parish of
presbyterians; or a presbyterian divine to inveigh
against the errors of popery before an audience of
papists. The requisition then of subscription, or any
other test by which the national religion is guarded,
may be considered merely as a restriction upon the
exercise of private patronage. The laws speak to the
private patron thus : — '* Of those whom we have
previously pronounced to be fitly qualified to teach
religion, we allow you to select one; but we do not
allow you to decide what religion shall be established
in a particular district of the country; for which
decision you are nowise fitted by any qualifications
which, as a private patron, you may happen to pos-
sess." If it be necessary that the point be determined
for the inhabitants by any other will than their own,
it is surely better that it should be determined by a
deliberate resolution of the legislature than by the
casual inclination of an individual, by whom the
right is purchased, or to whom it devolves as a mere

AND TOLERATION. 181

seculai inheritance. Wheresoever, therefore, this
constitution of patronage is adopted, a national reli-
gion, or the legal preference of one particular religion
to all others, must almost necessarily accompany it. —
But, secondly, let it be supposed that the appoint-
ment of the minister of religion was in every parish
left to the choice of the parishioners; might not this
choice, we ask, be safely exercised without its being
limited to the teachers of any particular sect ? The
effect of such a liberty must be, that a papist, or a
presbyterian, a methodist, a moravian, or an ana-
baptist, would successively gain possession of the pul-
pit, according as a majority of the party happened at
ea*ch election to prevail. Now, with what violence
the conflict would upon every vacancy be renewed;
what bitter animosities would be revived, or rather be
constantly fed and kept alive in the neighbourhood;
with what unconquerable aversion the teacher and
his religion would be received by the defeated party;
may be foreseen by those who reflect, with how much
passion every dispute is carried on, in which the
name of religion can be made to mix itself; much
more where the cause itself is concerned so immedi-
ately as it would be in this. Or, thirdly, if the state
appoint the ministers or religion, this constitution will
differ little from the establishment of a national reli-
gion; for the state will, undoubtedly, appoint those,
and those alone, whose religious opinions, or rather
whose religious denominations, agree with its own;
unless it be thought that any thing would be gained
to religious liberty by transferring the choice of the
national religion from the legislature of the country to
the magistrate who administers the executive govern-
ment. The only plan which seems to render the legal
maintenance of a clergy practicable, without the legal
preference of one sect of Christians to others, is that
of an experinrr**<4^riich is said to be attempted or
designed in some of the new states of North America.
The nature of the plan is thus described: — A tax is
levied upon the inhabitants for the general support of
religion; the collector of the tax goes round with a
register in his hand, in which are inserted, at the

VOL. II. 16

182 RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS,

head of so many distinct columns, the names of the
several religious sects that are professed in the coun-
try. The person who is called upon for the assess-
ment, as soon as he has paid his quota, subscribes
his name and the sum in which of the columns he
pleases; and the amount of what is collected in each
column is paid over to the minister of that denomina-
tion. In this scheme it is not left to the option of the
subject, whether he will contribute, or how much
he shall contribute, to the maintenance of a Christian
ministry; it is only referred to his choice to deter-
mine by what sect his contribution shall be received.
The above arrangement is undoubtedly the best that
has been proposed upon this principle; it bears the
appearance of liberality and justice; it may contain
some solid advantages; nevertheless, it labours under
inconveniences which will be found, I think, upon
trial to overbalance all its recommendations. It is
scarcely compatible with that which is the first requi-
site in an ecclesiastical establishment, — the division
of the country into parishes of a commodious extent.
If the parishes be small, and ministers of every deno-
mination be stationed in each (which the plan seems
to suppose,) the expense of their maintenance will
become too burdensome a charge for the country to
support. If. to reduce the expense, the districts be
enlarged, the place of assembling will oftentimes bo
too far removed from the residence of the persons
who ought to resort to it. Again, the making the
pecuniary success of the different teachers of religion
to depend on the number and wealth of their respec-
tive followers would naturally generate strifes arid
indecent jealousies amongst them; as well as produce
a polemical and proselyting spirit, founded in or
mixed with views of private gain, which would both
deprave the principles of the clergy, and distract the
country with endless contentions.

The argument, then, by which ecclesiastical estab-
lishments are defended, proceeds by these steps: —
The knowledge and profession of Christianity cannot
be upholden without a clergy; a clergy cannot be
supported without a legal provision; a legal provi-

AND TOLERATION 188

sion for the clergy cannot be constituted without the
preference of one sect of Christians to the rest: and
the conclusion will be conveniently satisfactory in the
degree in which the truth of these several propositions
can be made out.

If it be deemed expedient to establish a national
religion, that is to say, one sect in preference to all
others; some test, by which the teachers of that sect
may be distinguished from the teachers of different
sects, appears to be an indispensible consequence.
The existence of such an establishment supposes it:
the very notion of a national religion includes that of
a test.

But this necessity, which is real, hath, according
to the fashion of human affairs, furnished to almost
every church a pretence for extending, multiplying,
and- continuing such tests, beyond what the occasion
justified. For though some purposes of order and
tranquillity may be answered by the establishment of
creeds and confessions, yet they are all at times attend-
ed with serious inconveniencies: they check inquiry;
they violate liberty; they ensnare the consciences of
the clergy, by holding out temptations to prevarica-
tion: however they may express the persuasion, or be
accommodated to the controversies or to the fears of
the age in which they are composed, in process of
time, and by reason of the changes which are wont
to take place in the judgment of mankind upon reli-
gious subjects, they came at length to contradict the
actual opinions of the church whose doctrines they
profess to contain; and they often perpetuate the pro-
scription of sects, and tenets, from which any danger
has long ceased to be apprehended.

It may not follow from these objections, that tests
and subscriptions ought to be abolished; but it fol-
lows, that they ought to be made as simple and easy
as possible; that they should be adapted, from time
to time, to the varying sentiments and circumstances
of the church in which they are received; and that
they should at no time advance one step further than
some subsisting necessity requires. If, for instance,
promises of conformity to the rites, liturgy, and offices

lS4 RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS,

of the church be sufficient to prevent confusion and
disorder in the celebration of divine worship, then
such promises ought to be accepted in the place of
stricter subscriptions.

If articles of peace, as they are called, that is,
engagements not to preach certain doctrines, nor to
revive certain controversies, would exclude indecent
altercations amongst the national clergy, as well as
secure to the public teaching of religion as much of
uniformity and quiet as is necessary to edification;
then confessions of faith ought to be converted into
articles of peace. In a word, it ought to be holden
a sufficient reason for relaxing the terms of subscrip-
tion, or for dropping any or all of the articles to be
subscribed, that no present necessity requires the
strictness which is complained of, or that it should he
extended to so many points of doctrine.

The division of the country into districts, and the
stationing in each district a teacher of religion, forms
the substantial part of every church establishment.
The varieties that have been introduced into the go-
vernment and discipline of different churches are of
inferior importance, when compared with this, in
which they all agree. Of these economical questions,
none seems more material than that which has been
long agitated in the reformed churches of Christen-
dom, whether a parity amongst the clergy, or a dis-
tinction of orders in the ministry, be more conducive
to the general ends of the institution. In favour of
that system which the laws of this country have pre-
ferred, we may allege the following reasons: — that it
secures tranquillity and subordination amongst the
clergy themselves; that it corresponds with the gra-
dations of rank in civil life, and provides for the edi-
fication of each rank, by stationing in each an order
of clergy of their own class and quality, and, lastly,
that the same fund produces more effect, both as an
allurement to men of talents to enter into the church,
and as a stimulus to the industry of those who are
already in it, when distributed into prizes of different
value, than when divided into equal shares.

After the state has once established a particular sys-

AND TOLERATION. 166

tern of faith as a national religion, a question will
soon occur, concerning the treatment and toleration
of those who dissent from it. This question is pro-
perly preceded by another, concerning the right which
the civil magistrate possesses to interfere in matters
of religion at all: for, although this right be acknow-
ledged whilst he is employed solely in providing
means of public instruction, it will probably be dis-
puted (indeed it ever has been,) when he proceeds to
inflict penalties, to impose restraints or incapacities,
on the account of religious distinctions. They who
admit no other just original of civil government than
what is founded in some stipulation with its subjects,
are at liberty to contend that the concerns of religion
were excepted out of the social compact; that, in an
affair which can only be transacted between God and
a man's own conscience, no commission or authority
was ever delegated to the civil magistrate, or could
indeed be transferred from the person himself to any
other. We, however, who have rejected this theory,
because we cannot discover any actual contract be-
tween the state and the people, and because we can-
not allow any arbitrary fiction to be made the founda-
tion of real rights and of real obligations, find our-
selves precluded from this distinction. The reasoning
which deduces the authority of civil government from
the will of God, and which collects that will from
public expediency alone, binds us to the unreserved
conclusion, that the jurisdiction of the magistrate is
limited by no consideration but that of general utility:
in plainer terms, that whatever be the subject to bo
regulated, it is lawful for him to interfere whenever
his interference, in its general tendency, appears to
be conducive to the common interest. There is no-
thing in the nature of religion, as such, which exempts
it from the authority of the legislator, when the safety
or welfare of the community requires his interposi-
tion. It has been said, indeed, that religion, pertain-
ing to the interests of a life to come, lies beyond the
province of civil government, the office of which is
confined to ihe affairs of this life. But in reply to
this objection it may be observed, that when the laws

VOL. II. 16 *

186 RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS,

interfere even in religion, they interfere only with
temporals; their effects terminate, their power ope-
rates only upon those rights and interests which con-
fessedly belong to their disposal. The acts of the
legislature, the edicts of the prince, the sentence of
the judge cannot affect my salvation; nor do they,
without the most absurd arrogance, pretend to any
such power: but they may deprive me of liberty, of
property, and even of life itself, on account of my reli-
gion; and however I may complain of the injustice
of the sentence by which I am condemned, I cannot
allege that the magistrate has transgressed the boun-
daries of his jurisdiction; because the property, the
liberty, and the life of the subject may be taken away
by the authority of the laws, for any reason which,
in the judgment of the legislature, renders such a
measure necessary to the common welfare. More-
over, as the precepts of religion may regulate all the
offices of life, or may be so construed as to extend to
all, the exemption of religion from the control of hu-
man laws might afford a plea, which would exclude
civil government from every authority over the con
duct of its subjects. Religious liberty is, like civil
liberty, not an immunity from restraint, but the being
restrained by no law but what in a greater degree con-
duces to the public welfare.

Still it is right " to obey God rather than man."
Nothing that we have said encroaches upon the truth
of this sacred and undisputed maxim: the right of
the magistrate to ordain, and the obligation of the
subject to obey, in matters of religion, may be very
different; and will be so, as often as they flow from
opposite apprehensions of the Divine will. In affairs
that are properly of a civil nature, in " the things that
are Caesar's," this difference seldom happens. The
law authorizes the act which it enjoins; Revelation
being either silent upon the subject, or referring to the
laws of the country, or requiring only that men act by
some fixed rule, and that this rule be established by
competent authority. But when human laws inter-
pose their direction in matters of religion; by dictat-
ing, for example, the object or the mode of divine

AND TOLERATION. 187

worship; by prohibiting the profession of some arti-
cles of faith, and by exacting that of others, they are
liable to clash with what private persons believe to be
already settled by precepts of Revelation; or to con-
tradict what God himself, they think, hath declared
to be true. In this case, on whichever side the mis-
take lies, or whatever plea the state may allege to jus-
tify its edict, the subject can have none to excuse his
compliance. The same consideration also points out
the distinction, as to the authority of the state be-
tween temporals and spirituals. The magistrate is
not to be obeyed in temporals more than in spirituals,
where a repugnancy is perceived between his com-
mands and any credited manifestations of the Divine
will: but such repugnancies are much less likely to
arise in one case than the other.

When we grant that it is lawful for the magistrate
to interfere in religion as often as his interference ap-
pears 1o him to conduce, in its general tendency, to
the public happiness; it may be argued, from this
concession, that since salvation is the highest interest
of mankind, and since, consequently, to advance that
is to promote the public happiness in the best way,
and in the greatest degree, in which it can be pro-
moted, it follows, that it is not only the right, but the
fluty, of uvery magistrate invested with supreme pow-
er, to enforce upon his subjects the reception of that
religion which he deems most acceptable to God, and
to enforce it by such methods as may appear most ef-
fectual for the end proposed. A popish king, for ex-
ample, who should believe that salvation is not attaina-
ble out of the precincts of the Romish church, would
derive a right from our principles (not to say that he
would be bound by them) to employ the power with
which the constitution intrusted him, and which power,
in absolute monarchies, commands the lives and for-
tunes of every subject of the empire, in reducing his
people within that communion. We confess that this
consequence is inferred from the principles we have
laid down concerning the foundation of civil authori-
ty, not without the resemblance of a regular deduc-
tion: we confess also that it is a conclusion which it

188 RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS,

behoves us to dispose of; because, if it really follow
from our theory of government, the theory itself ought
to l)Q given up. Now it will be remembered, that the
terms of our proposition are these: " That it is law-
ful for the magistrate to interfere in the affairs of re-
ligion, whenever his interference appears to him to
conduce, by its general tendency, to the public hap-
piness." The clause of " general tendency," when
this rule comes to be applied, will be found a very
significant part of the direction. It obliges the ma-
gistrate to reflect, not only whether the religion which
he wishes to propagate amongst his subjects be that
which will best secure their eternal welfare; not only,
whether the methods he employs be likely to effec-
tuate the establishment of that religion; but also upon
this farther question, Whether the kind of interference
which he is about to exercise, if it were adopted as a
common maxim amongst states and princes, or re-
ceived as a general rule for the conduct of government
in matters of religion, would, upon the whole, and in
the mass of instances in which his example might be
imitated, conduce to the furtherance of human salva-
tion. If the magistrate, for example, should think,
that although the application of his power might, in
the instance concerning which he deliberates, ad-
vance the true religion, and together with it the hap-
piness of his people, yet that the same engine, in other
hands, who might assume the right to use it with the
like pretensions of reason and authority that he him-'
self alleges, would more frequently shut out truth, and
obstruct the means of salvation; he would be bound
by this opinion, still admitting public utility to be the
supreme rule of his conduct, to refrain from expe-
dients, which, whatever particular effects he may ex-
pect from them, are, in their general operation, dan-
gerous or hurtful. If there be any difficulty in the
subject, it arises from that which is the cause of every
difficulty in morals, — the competition of particular
and general consequences', or, what is the same thing,
the submission of one general rule to another rulo
which is still more general.

Bearing then in mind, that it is the general ten-

AND TOLERATION. 189

dency of the measure, or, in other words, the effects
which would arise from the measure being generally
adopted, that fixes upon it the character of rectitude
or injustice; we proceed to inquire what is the degree
and the sort of interference of secular laws in matters
of religion, which are likely to be beneficial to the
public happiness. There are two maxims which will
in a great measure regulate our conclusions upon this
head. The first is, that any form of Christianity is
better than no religion at all; the second, that, of dif-
ferent systems of faith, that is the best which is the
truest. The first of these positions will hardly be dis-
puted, when we reflect that every sect and modifica-
tion of Christianity holds out the happiness and misery
of another life, as depending chiefly upon the practice
of virtue or of vice in this; and that the distinctions
of virtue and vice are nearly the same in all. A per-
son who acts under the impression of these hopes and
fears, though combined with many errors and super-
stitions, is more likely to advance both the public
happiness and his own, than one who is destitute of
all expectation of a future account. The latter pro-
position id founded in the consideration, that the prin-
cipal importance of religion consists in its influence
upon the fate and condition of a future existence.
This influence belongs only to that religion which
comes from God. A political religion may be framed,
which shall embrace the purposes, and describe the
duties of political society perfectly well; but if it be
not delivered by God, what assurance does it afford,
that the decisions of the Divine judgment will have
any regard to the rules which it contaJns? By a man
who acts with a view to a future judgment, the autho-
rity of a religion is the first thing inquired after: a re-
ligion which wants authority, with him wants every
thing. Since then this authority appertains, not to
the religion which is most commodious, — to the reli-
gion which is most sublime and efficacious, — to the
religion which suits best with the form, or seems most
calculated to uphold the power and stability of civil
government, — but only to that religion which comes
from God; we are justified in pronouncing the true

190 RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS,

religion by its very truth, and independently of all
considerations of tendencies, aptness, or any other in-
ternal qualities whatever, to be universally the best.

From the first proposition follows this inference,
that when the state enables its subjects to learn some
form of Christianity, by distributing teachers of a reli-
gious system throughout the country, and by providing
for the maintenance of these teachers at the public
expense; that is, in fewer terms, when the laws esfa-
blish a national religion, they exercise a power and an
interference which are likely, in their general ten-
dency, to promote the interest of mankind: for, even
supposing the species of Christianity which the laws
patronize to be erroneous and corrupt, yet when the
option lies between this religion and no religion at all
(which would be the consequence of leaving the peo-
ple without any public means of instruction, or any
regular celebration of the offices of Christianity,) our
proposition teaches us that the former alternative is
constantly to be preferred.

But after the right of the magistrate to establish a
particular religion has been, upon this principle ad-
mitted; a doubt sometimes presents itself, whether the
religion which he ought to establish be that which ho
himself professes, or that which he observes to pre-
vail amongst the majority of the people. Now, when
we consider this question with a view to the forma-
tion of a general rule upon the subject (v\hich view
alone can furnish a just solution of the doubt,) it must
be assumed to be an equal chance whether of the two
religions contains more of truth, — that of the magis-
trate, or that of the people. The chance then that is
left to truth being equal upon both suppositions, the
remaining consideration will be, from which arrange-
ment more efficacy can be expected; — from an order
of men appointed to teach the people their own reli-
gion, or to convert them to another? In my opinion,
the advantage lies on the side of the former scheme:
and this opinion, if it be assented to, makes it the
duty of the magistrate, in the choice of the religion
which he establishes, to consult the faith of the nation
rather than his own

AND TOLERATION 191

The case also of dissenters must be determined by
the principles just now stated. Toleration is of two
kinds; — the allowing to dissenters the unmolested
profession and exercise of their religion, but with
an exclusion from offices of trust and emolument in
the state; which is a partial toleration: and the
admitting them, without distinction, to all the civil
privileges and capacities of other citizens; which is
a complete toleration. The expediency of toleration,
and consequently the right of every citizen to demand
it, as far as relates to liberty of conscience, and the
claim of being protected in the free and safe profes-
sion of his religion, is deducible from the second of
those propositions which we have delivered as the
grounds of our conclusions upon the subject. That
proposition asserts truth, and truth in the abstract,
to be the supreme perfection of every religion. The
advancement, consequently, and discovery of truth
is that end to which all regulations concerning reli-
gion ought principally to be adapted. Now, every
species of intolerance which enjoins suppression and
silence, and every species of persecution which en-
forces such injunctions, is adverse to the progress of
truth; forasmuch as it causes that to be fixed by one
set of men, at one time, which is much better, and
with much more probability of success, left to the
independent and progressive inquiry of separate in-
dividuals. Truth results from discussion and from
controversy; is investigated by the labours and re-
searches of private persons. Whatever, therefore,
prohibits these, obstructs that industry and that, liber-
ty which it is the common interest of mankind to
promote. In religion, as in other subjects, truth, if
left to itself, will almost always obtain the ascendency.
If different religions be professed in the same coun-
try, and the minds of men remain unfettered and un-
awed by intimidations of law, that religion which
is founded in maxims of reason and credibility will
gradually gain over the other to it. I do not mean
that men will formally renounce their ancient reli-
gion, but that they will adopt into it the more rational
doctrines, the improvements and discoveries of the

192 RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENT*,

neighbouring sect; by which means the worse reli-
gion, without the ceremony of a reformation, will in-
sensibly assimilate itself to the better. If popery, for
instance, and protestantism were permitted to dwell
quietly together, papists might not become protes-
tants (for the name is commonly the last thing that
is changed,*) but they would become more enlight-
ened and informed; they would by little and little
incorporate into their creed many of the tenets of
protestantism, as well as imbibe a portion of its spirit
and moderation.

The justice and expediency of toleration we found
primarily in its conduciveness to trufh, and in the
superior value of truth to that of any other quality
which a religion can possess : this is the principal
argument; but there are some auxiliary considera-
tions too important to be omitted. The confining of
the subject to the religion of the state is a needless
violation of natural liberty, and is an instance in
which constraint is always grievous. Persecution
produces no sincere conviction, nor any real change
of opinion: on the contrary, it vitiates the public
morals, by driving men to prevarication; and com-
monly ends in a general though secret infidelity,
by imposing, under the name of revealed religion,
systems of doctrine which men cannot believe, and
dare not examine: finally, it disgraces the character,
and wounds the reputation, of Christianity itself,
by making it the author of oppression, cruelty, and
bloodshed.

Under the idea of religious toleration, I include
the toleration of all books of serious argumentation:
but I deem it no infringement of religious liberty to
restrain the circulation of ridicule, invective, and
mockery, upon religious subjects; because this spe-
cies of writing applies solely to the passions, weakens
the judgment, and contaminates the imagination of

* Would we let the name stand, we might often attract
men, without their perceiving it, much nearer to ourselves,
than, if they did perceive it, they would be willing to come.

AND TOLERATION. 193

its readers; has no tendency whatever to assist either
the investigation or the impression of truth; on the
contrary, whilst it stays not to distinguish between
the authority of different religions, it destroys alike
the influence of all.

Concerning the admission of dissenters from the
established religion to offices and in employments in
the public service (which is necessary, to render
toleration complete,} doubts have been entertained,
with some appearance of reason. It is possible that
such religious opinions may be holden as are utterly
incompatible with the necessary functions of civil
government; and which opinions consequently dis-
qualify those who maintain them from exercising
any share in its administration. There have been
enthusiasts who held, that Christianity has abolished
all distinction of property, arid that she enjoins upon
her followers a community of goods. With what
tolerable propriety could one of this sect be appointed
a judge or a magistrate, whose office it is to decide
upon questions of private right, and to protect men
in the exclusive enjoyment of their property ? It
would be equally absurd to intrust a military com-
mand to a Quaker, who believes it to be contrary to
the gospel to take up arms. This is possible; there-
fore it cannot be laid down as a universal truth, that
religion is not, in its nature, a cause which will justify
exclusion from public employments. When we exa-
mine, however, the sects of Christianity which actu-
ally prevail in the world, we must confess that, with
the single exception of refusing to bear arms, we find
no tenet in any of them which incapacitates men for
the service of the state. It has indeed been asserted,
that discordancy of religions, even supposing each
religion to be free from any errors that affect the
safety or the conduct of government, is enough to
render men unfit to act together in public stations.
But upon what argument, or upon what experience,
is this assertion founded ? I perceive no reason why
men of different religious persuasions may not sit
upon the same bench, deliberate in the same council,
or fight in the same ranks, as well as men of various

VOL,. II. 17

194 RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS,

or opposite opinions upon any controverted topic of
natural philosophy, history, or ethics.

There are two cases in which test-laws are wont to
be applied, and in which, if in any, they may be
defended. One is, where two or more religions are
contending for establishment, and where there ap-
pears no way of putting an end to the contest, but by
giving to one religion such a decided superiority in
the legislature and government of the country, as to
secure it against danger from any other. I own that
I should assent to this precaution with many scruples.
If the dissenters from the establishment become a
majority of the people, the establishment itself ought
to be altered or qualified. If there exist amongst
the different sects of the country such a parity of
numbers, interest, and power, as to render the prefer-
ence of one sect to the rest, and the choice of that
sect, a matter of hazardous success, and of doubtful
election, some plan similar to that which is meditated
in North America, and which we have described in
a preceding part of the present chapter, though en-
cumbered with great difh'culties, may perhaps suit
better with this divided state of public opinion, than
any constitution of a national church whatever. In
all other situations, the establishment will be strong
enough to maintain itself. However, if a test be ap-
plicable with justice upon this principle at all, it
ought to be applied in regal governments to the chief
magistrate himself, whose power might otherwise
overthrow or change the established religion of the
country, in opposition to the will and sentiments of
the people.

The second case of exclusion, and in which, I think,
the measure is more easily vindicated, is that of a
country in which some disaffection to the subsisting
government happens to be connected with certain
religious distinctions. The state undoubtedly has a
right to refuse its power and its confidence to those
who seek its destruction. — Wherefore, if the gene-
rality of any religious sect entertain dispositions hos-
tile to the constitution , and if government have no
other way of knowing its enemies than by the religion

AND TOLERATION 195

which they profess, the professors of that religion
may justly be excluded from offices of trust and au-
thority. But even here it should be observed, that
it is not against the religion that government shuts
its doors, but against those political principles, which,
however independent they may be of any article of
religious faith, the members of that communion are
found in fact to hold. Nor would the legislator make
religious tenets the test of men's inclinations towards
the state, if he could discover any other that was
equally certain and notorious. Thus, if the members
of the Romish church, for the most part, adhere to
the interests, or maintain the right, of a foreign pre-
tender to the crown of these kingdoms; and if there
be no way of distinguishing those who do from those
who do not retain such dangerous prejudices; govern-
ment is well warranted in fencing out the whole sect
from situations of trust and power. But even in this
example, it is not to popery that the laws object, but
to popery as the mark of jacobitism; an equivocal
indeed and fallacious mark, but the best, and perhaps
the only one that can be devised. But then it should
be remembered, that as the connexion between popery
and jacobitism, which is the sole cause of suspicion,
and the sole justification of those severe and jealous
laws which have been enacted against the professors
of that religion, was accidental in its origin, so pro-
bably it will be temporary in its duration ; and that
these restrictions ought not to continue one day
longer than some visible danger renders them neces-
sary to the preservation of public tranquillity.

After all, it may be asked, Why should not the
legislator direct his test against the political principles
themselves which he wishes to exclude, rather than
encounter them through the medium of religious tenets,
the only crime and the only danger of which consists
in their presumed alliance with the former ? Why,
for example, should a man be required to renounce
transubstantiation, before he be admitted to an office
in the state, when it might seem to be sufficient that
he adjure the pretender ? There are but two answers
that can be given to the objection which this question

196 RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS,

contains: first, that it is not opinions which the laws
fear so much as inclinations; and that political incli-
nations are not so easily detected by the affirmation
or denial of any abstract proposition in politics, as by
the discovery of the religious creed with which they
are wont to be united; — secondly, that when men
renounce their religion, they commonly quit all con-
nexion with the members of the church which they
have left; that church no longer expecting assistance
or friendship from them; whereas particular persons
might insinuate themselves into offices of trust and
authority, by subscribing political assertions, and yet
retain their predilection for the interests of the reli-
gious sect to which they continued to belong. By
which means, government would sometimes find,
though it could not accuse the individual whom it
had received into its service of disaffection to the civil
establishment, yet that, through him, it had commu-
nicated the aid and influence of a powerful station to
a party who were hostile to the constitution. These
answers, however, we propose rather than defend.
The measure certainly cannot be defended at all, ex-
cept where the suspected union between certain obnox-
ous principles in politics, and certain tenets in religion,
is nearly universal; in which case, it makes little dif-
ference to the subscriber, whether the test be religious
or political; and the state is somewhat better secured
by the one than the other.

The result of our examination of those general ten-
dencies, by which every interference of civil govern-
ment in matters of religion ought to be tried, is this:
"That a comprehensive national religion, guarded by
a few articles of peace and conformity, together with
a legal provision for the clergy of that religion; and
with a complete toleration of all dissenters from the
established church, without any other limitation or
exception than what arises from the conjunction of
dangerous political dispositions with certain religious
tenets; appears to be, not only the most just and
liberal, but the wisest and safest system which a state
can adopt; inasmuch as it unites the several perfec-
tions which a religious constitution ought to aim at —

AND TOLERATION. 197

liberty of conscience, with means of instruction; the
progress of truth, with the peace of society; the right
of private judgment, with the care of the public
safety."

CHAPTER XI.

€F POPULATION AND PROVISION; AND OF AGRI-
CULTURE AND COMMERCE, AS SUBSERVIENT
THERETO.

THE final view of all rational politics is to produce
the greatest quantity of happiness in a given tract of
country. The riches, strength, and glory of nations —
the topics which history celebrates, and which alone
almost engage the praises and possess the admiration
of mankind — have no value farther than as they con-
tribute tcthis end. When they interfere with it, they
are evils, and not the less real for the splendour that
surrounds them.

Secondly, Although we speak of communities as of
sentient beings; although we ascribe to them hap-
piness and misery, desires, interests, and passions;
nothing really exists or feels but individuals. The
happiness of a people is made up of the happiness of
single persons; and the quantity of happiness can
only be augmented by increasing the number of the
percipients, or the pleasure of their perceptions.

Thirdly, Notwithstanding that diversity of condi-
tion, especially different degrees of plenty, freedom,
and security, greatly vary the quantity of happiness
enjoyed by the same number of individuals; and not-
withstanding that extreme cases may be found, of hu-
man beings so galled by the rigours of slavery that the
increase of numbers is only the amplification of mi-
sery; yet within certain limits, and within those limits
to which civil life is diversified under the temperate
governments that obtain in Europe, it may be affirmed,
I think, with certainty, that the quantity of happiness

VOL. II. 17 *

198 POPULATION, PROVISION,

produced in any given district so far depends upon
the number of inhabitants, that, in comparing adjoin-
ing periods in the same country, the collective hap-
piness will be nearly in the exact proportion of (he
numbers; that is, twice the number of inhabitants
will produce double the quantity of happiness: in
distant periods, and different countries, under great
changes or great dissimilitude of civil condition, al-
though the proportion of enjoyment may fall much
short of that of the numbers, yet still any considerable
excess of numbers will usually carry with it a pre-
ponderation of happiness; that, at least, it may and
ought to be assumed in all political deliberations, that
a larger portion of happiness is enjoyed amongst ten
persons, possessing the means of healthy subsistence,
than can be produced by Jive persons, under every ad-
vantage of power, affluence, and luxury.

From these principles it follows, that the quantity
of happiness in a given district, although it is possible
it may be increased, the number of inhabitants remain-
ing the same, is chiefly and most naturally affected
by alteration of the numbers: that, consequently, the
decay of population is the greatest evil that a state
can suffer; and the improvement of it the object which
ought, in all countries, to be aimed at, in preference
to every other political purpose whatsoever.

The importance of population, and the superiority
of it to every other national advantage, are points
necessary to be inculcated, and to be understood;
inasmuch as false estimates, or fantastic notions of
national grandeur, are perpetually drawing the atten-
tion of statesmen and legislators from the care of this.
which is, at all times, the true and absolute interest of
a country: for which reason, we have stated these
points with unusual formality. We will confess, how-
ever, that a competition can seldom arise between the
advancement of population and any measure of sober
utility; because, in the ordinary progress of human
affairs, whatever, in any way, contributes to make a
people happier, tends to render them more numerous.

In the fecundity of the human, as of every other spe-
cies of animals, nature has provided for an indefinite

AGRICULTURE AND COMMERCE 199

multiplication. Mankind have increased to their pre-
sent number from a single pair: the offspring of early
marriages, in the ordinary course of procreation, do
more than replace the parents: in countries, and under
circumstances, very favourable to subsistence, the po-
pulation has been doubled in the space of twenty
years; the havoc occasioned by wars, earthquakes,
famine, or pestilence, is usually repaired in a short
time. These indications sufficiently demonstrate the
tendency of nature in the human species, to a con-
tinual increase of its numbers. It becomes therefore
a question that may reasonably be propounded, what
are the causes which confine or check the natural pro-
gress of this multiplication ? And the answer which
first presents itself to the thoughts of the inquirer is,
that the population of a country must stop when the
country can maintain no more, that is, when the in-
habitants are already so numerous as to exhaust all the
provision which the soil can be made to produce.
This, however, though an insuperable bar, will seldom
be found to be that which actually checks the progress
of population in any country of the world; because
the number of the people have seldom, in any country,
arrived at this limit, or even approached to it. The
fertility of the ground, in temperate regions, is capable
of being improved by cultivation to an extent which
is unknown; much, however, beyond the state of im-
provement in any country of Europe. In our own,
which holds almost the first place in the knowledge
and encouragement of agriculture, let it only be sup-
posed that every field in England, of the same original
quality with those in the neighbourhood of the me-
tropolis, and consequently capable of the same fertili-
ty, were by a like management made to yield an equal
produce; and it may be asserted, I believe with truth,
that the quantity of human provision raised in the
island would be increased five-fold. The two prin-
ciples, therefore, upon which population seems pri-
marily to depend, the fecundity of the species, and
the capacity of the soil, would in most, perhaps in all
countries, enable it to proceed much farther than it
has yet advanced. The number of marriageable

200 POPULATION, PROVISION,

women, who, in each country, remain unmarried, af-
ford a computation how much the agency of nature in
the diffusion of human life is cramped and contracted;
and the quantity of waste, neglected, or mismanaged
surface, — together with a comparison, like the pre-
ceding, of the crops raised from the soil in the neigh-
bourhood of populous cities, and under a perfect state
of cultivation, with those which lands of equal or su-
perior quality yield in different situations, — will show
in what proportion the indigenous productions of the
earth are capable of being farther augmented.

The fundamental proposition upon the subject of
population, which must guide every endeavour to im-
prove it, and from which every conclusion concerning
it may be deduced, is this: " Wherever the commerce
between the sexes is regulated by marriage, and a
provision for that mode of subsistence, to which each
class of the community is accustomed, can be procured
with ease and certainty, there the number of the
people will increase; and the rapidity, as well as the
extent, of the increase, will be proportioned to the
degree in which these causes exist.

This proposition we will draw out into the several
principles which it contains.

1. First, the proposition asserts the " necessity of
confining the intercourse of the sexes to the marriage
union." It is only in the marriage union that this
intercourse is sufficiently prolific. Beside which,
family establishments alone are fitted to perpetuate a
succession of generations. The offspring of a vague
and promiscuous concubinage are not only few, and
liable to perish by neglect, but are seldom prepared
for or introduced into situations suited to the ra.sing
of families of their own. Hence the advantages of
marriages. Now nature, in the constitution of the
sexes, has provided a stimulus which will infallibly se-
cure the frequency of marriages, with all their bcne5 •
cial effects upon the state of population, provided the
male part of the species be prohibited from irregular
gratifications. This impulse, which is sufficient to sur-
mount almost every impediment to marriage, will
operate in proportion to the difficulty, expense, dan-

AGRICULTURE, AND COMMERCE. 201

ger, or infamy, the sense of guilt, or the fear of punish-
ment, which attends licentious indulgences. Where-
fore, in countries in which subsistence is become
scarce, it behoves the state to watch over the public
morals with increased solicitude; for nothing but the
instinct of nature, under the restraint of chastity, will
induce men to undertake the labour, or consent to the
sacrifice of personal liberty and indulgence, which the
support of a family in such circumstances requires.

2. The second requisite which our proposition states
as necessary to the success of population, is, " the
ease and certainty with which a provision can be pro-
cured for that mode of subsistence to which each class
of the community is accustomed." It is not enough
that men's natural wants be supplied; that a provi-
sion adequate to the real exigencies of human life be
attainable: habitual superfluities become actual wants;
opinion and fashion convert articles of ornament and
luxury into necessaries of life. And it must not be
expected from men in general, at least in the present
relaxed state of morals and discipline, that they will
enter into marriages which degrade their condition,
reduce their mode of living, deprive them of the ac-
commodations to which they have been accustomed,
or even of those ornaments or appendages of rank
and station which they have been taught to regard as
belonging to their birth, or class* or profession, or
place in society. The same consideration, namely, a
view to their accustomed mode of life, which is so ap-
parent in the superior orders of the people, has no less
influence upon those ranks which compose the mass
of the community. The kind and quality of food and
liquor, the species of habitation, furniture, and cloth-
ing, to which the common people of each country are
habituated, must be attainable with ease and certainty,
before marriages will be sufficiently early and general
to carry the progress of population to its just extent.
It is in vain to allege, that a more simple diet, ruder
habitations, or coarser apparel, would be sufficient for
the purposes of life and health, or even of physical
ease and pleasure. Men will not marry with this en-
couragement. For instance, when the common peo-

202 POPULATION, PROVISION,

pie of a country are accustomed to eat a large pro-
portion of animal food, to drink wine, spirits, or beer,
to wear shoes and stockings, to dwell in stone houses,
they will not marry to live in clay cottages, upon
roots and milk, with no other clothing than skins, or
what is necessary to defend the trunk of the body
from the effects of cold; although these last may be
all that the sustentation of life and health requires, or
that even contribute much to animal comfort and en-
joyment.

The ease, then, and certainty with which the means
can be procured, not barely of subsistence, but of that
mode of subsisting which custom hath in each coun-
try established, from the point upon which the state
and progress of population chiefly depend. Now
there are three causes which evidently regulate this
point: the mode itself of subsisting which prevails in
the country; the quantity of provision, suited to that
mode of subsistence, which is .either raised in the
country or imported into it; and, lastly, the distribu-
tion of that provision.

These three causes merit distinct consideration.

1. The mode of living which actually obtains in a
country. In China, where the inhabitants frequent
the seashore, or the banks of large rivers, and subsist
in a great measure upon fish, the population is de-
scribed to be excessive. This peculiarity arises, not
probably from any civil advantages, any care or
policy, any particular constitution or superior wisdom
of government; but simply from hence, that the spe-
cies of food to which custom hath reconciled the de-
sires and inclinations of the inhabitants, is that which,
of all others, is procured in the greatest abundance,
with the most ease, and stands in need of the least
preparation. The natives of Indostan being confined,
by the laws of their religion, to the use of vegetable
food, and requiring little except rice, which the coun-
try produces in plentiful crops; and food, in warm
climates, composing the only want of life; these coun-
tries are populous, under all the injuries of a despotic,
and the the agitations of an unsettled government. If
any revalution, or what would be cal'ed perhaps re-

AGRICULTURE, AND COMMERCE. 203

fincment of manners, should generate in these people
a taste for the flesh of animals, similar to what pre-
vails amongst the Arabian hordes; should introduce
flocks and herds into grounds which are now covered
with corn; should teach them to account a certain por-
tion of this species of food amongst the necessaries of
life; the population, from this single change, would
suffer in a few years a great diminution: and this dimi-
nution would follow, in spite of every effort of the
laws, or even of any improvement that might take
place in their civil condition. In Ireland, the simpli-
city of living alone maintains a considerable degree of
population, under great defects of police, industry,
and commerce.

Under this head, and from a view of these conside-
rations, may be understood the true evil and proper
danger of luxury.

Luxury, as it supplies employment and promotes
industry, assists population. But then there is another
consequence attending it, which counteracts and
often overbalances these advantages. When, by in-
troducing more superfluities into general reception,
luxury has rendered the usual accommodations of life
more expensive, artificial, and elaborate, the difficulty
of maintaining a family, conformably with the esta-
blished mode of living, becomes greater, and what
each man has to spare from his personal consumption
proportionably less: the effect of which is, that mar-
riages grow less frequent, agreeably to the maxim
above laid down, and which must be remembered as
the foundation of all our reasoning upon the subject,
that men will not marry to sink their place or condi-
tion in society, or to forego those indulgences which
their own habits, or what they observe amongst their
equals, have rendered necessary to their satisfaction
This principle is applicable to every article of diet
and dress, to houses, furniture, attendance; and this
effect will be felt in every class of the community.
For instance, the custom of wearing broadcloth and
fine linen repays the shepherd and flax grower, feeds
the manufacturer, enriches the merchant, gives not
only support but existence to multitudes of families;

204 POPULATION, PROVISION,

hitherto, therefore, the effects are beneficial; and
were these the only effects, such elegancies, or, if you
please to call them so, such luxuries, could not be
too universal. But here follows the mischief: when
once fashion hath annexed the use of these articles of
dress to any certain class, the middling ranks, for ex-
ample, of the community, each individual of that rank
finds them to be necessaries of life; that is, finds
himself obliged to comply with the example of his
equals, and to maintain that appearance which the
custom of society requires. This obligation creates
such a demand upon his income, and which adds so
much to the cost and burden of a family, as to put it
out of his power to marry, with the prospect of con-
tinuing his habits, or of maintaining his place and
situation in the world. We see, in this description,
the cause which induces men to waste their lives in a
barren celibacy; and this cause, which impairs the
very source of population, is justly placed to the ac-
count of luxury.

It appears, then, that luxury, considered with a
view to population, acts by two opposite effects; and
it seems probable that there exists a point in the scale
to which luxury may ascend, or to which the wants
of mankind may be multiplied with advantage to the
community, and beyond which the prejudicial conse-
quences begin to preponderate. The determination
of this point, though it assume the form of an arith-
metical problem, depends upon circumstances too
numerous, intricate, and undefined, to admit of a pre-
cise solution. However, from what has been ob-
served concerning the tendency of luxury to diminish
marriages, in which tendency the evil of it resides, the
following general conclusions may be established: —
1st, That, of different kinds of luxury, those are
the most innocent which afford employment to the
greatest number of artists and manufacturers; or
those, in other words, in which the price of the work
bears the greatest proportion to that of the raw ma-
terial. Thus, luxury in dress or furniture is univer-
sally preferable to luxury in eating, because the arti-
cles which constitute the one are more the production

AGRICULTURE, AND COMMERCE. 205

of human art and industry than those which supply
the other.

2dly, That it is the diffusion, rather than the degree
of luxury, which is to be dreaded as a national evil.
The mischief of luxury consists, as we have seen, in
the obstruction which it forms to marriage. Now it
is only a small part of the people that the higher
ranks in any country compose; for which reason,
the facility or the difficulty of supporting the expense
of their station, and the consequent increase or dimi-
nution of marriages among them, will influence the
state of population but little. So long as the preva-
lency of luxury is confined to a few of elevated rank,
much of the benefit is felt, and little of the inconve-
niency. But when the imitation of the same man-
ners descends, as it always will do, into the mass of
the people; when it advances the requisites of living
beyond what it adds to men's abilities to purchase
them; then it is that luxury checks the formation of
families, in a degree that ought to alarm the public
fears.

3dly, That the condition most favourable to popu-
lation is that of a laborious, frugal people, minister-
ing to the demands of an opulent, luxurious nation;
because this situation, whilst it leaves them every ad-
vantage of luxury, exempts them from the evils which
naturally accompany its admission into any country.

2. Next to the mode of living, we are to consider
** the quantity of provision suited to that mode, which
is either raised in the country, or imported into it;"
for this is the order in which we assigned the causes
of population, and undertook to treat of them. Now,
if we measure the quantity of provision by the num-
ber of human bodies it will support in due health and
vigour, this quantity, the extent and quality of the
soil from which it is raised being given, will depend
greatly upon the kind. For instance, a piece of
ground capable of supplying animal food sufficient
for the subsistence of ten persons, would sustain at
least the double of that number with grain, roots,
and milk. The first resource of savage life is in the
flesh of wild animals: hence the numbers amongst sav-

VOL. II. 18

206 POPULATION, PROVISION,

age nations, compared with the tract of country
which they occupy, arc universally small; because thia
species of provision is, of all others, supplied in the
slenderest proportion. The next step was the inven-
tion of pasturage, or the rearing of flocks and herds
of tame animals: this alteration added to the stock
of provision much. But the last and principal im-
provement was to follow; namely, tillage, or the arti-
ficial production of corn, esculent plants and roots.
This discovery, whilst it changed the quality of
human food, augmented the quantify in a vast pro-
portion. So far as the state of population is governed
and limited by the quantity of provision, perhaps
there is no single cause that affects it so powerfully
as the kind and quality of food which chance or
usage hath introduced into a country. In England,
notwithstanding the produce of the soil has been, of
late, considerably increased by the enclosure of
wastes, and the adoption, in many places, of a more
successful husbandry, yet we do not observe a cor-
responding addition to the number of inhabitants;
the reason of which appears to me to be, the more
general consumption of animal food amongst us.
Many ranks of people whose ordinary diet was, in
the last century, prepared almost entirely from milk,
roots, and vegetables, now require every day a con-
siderable portion of the flesh of animals. Hence a
great part of the richest lands of the country is con-
verted to pasturage. Much also of the bread-corn
which went directly to the nourishment of human
bodies, now only contributes to it by fattening the
flesh of sheep and oxen. The mass and volume of
provisions are hereby diminished; and what is gained
in the melioration of the soil, is lost in the quality of
the produce. This consideration teaches us, that til-
lage , as an object of national care and encouragement,
is universally preferable to pasturage, because the
kind of provision which it yields goes much further in
the sustentation of human life. Tillage is also re-
commended by this additional advantage, that it af-
fords employment to a much more numerous peasantry.
Indeed, oasturage seems to be the art of a nation,

AGRICULTURE AND COMMERCE. 207

either imperfectly civilized, as are many of the tribes
which cultivate it in the internal parts of Asia; or of
a nation like Spain, declining from its summit by
luxury and inactivity.

The kind and quality of provision, together with
the extent and capacity of the soil from which it is
raised, being the same, the quantity procured will
principally depend upon two circumstances, — the
ability of the occupier, and the encouragement which
he receives. The greatest misfortune of a country is
an indigent tenantry. Whatever be the native advan-
tages of the soil, or even the skill and industry of the
occupier, the want of a sufficient capital confines every
plan, as well as cripples and weakens every operation
of husbandry. This evil is felt, where agriculture is
accounted a servile or mean employment ; where
farms are extremely subdivided, and badly furnished
with habitations; where leases are unknown, or are
of short or precarious duration. With respect to the
encouragement of husbandry; in this, as in every
other employment, the true reward of industry is in
the price and sale of the produce. The exclusive
right to the produce is the only incitement which
acts constantly and universally; the only spring which
keeps human labour in motion. All therefore that
the laws can do is to secure this right to the occu-
pier of the ground; that is, to constitute such a sys-
tem of tenure, that the full and entire advantage of
every improvement go to the benefit of the improver;
that every man work for himself, and not for another;
and that no one share in the profit who does not assist
in the production. By the occupier I here mean, not
so much the person who performs the work, as him
who procures the labour and directs the management,
and I consider the whole profit as received by the
occupier, when the occupier is benefitted by the whole
value of what is produced, which is the case with the
tenant who pays a fixed rent for the use of land, no
less than with the proprietor who holds it as his own.
The one has the same interest in the produce, and in
the advantage of every improvement, as the other.
Likewise the proprietor, though he grant out his

208 POPULATION, PROVISION,

estate to farm, may be considered as the occupier, in-
asmuch as he regulates the occupation by the choice,
superintendency, and encouragement of his tenants,
by the disposition of his lands, by erecting buildings,
providing accommodations, by prescribing conditions,
or supplying implements and materials of improve-
ment; and is entitled, by the rule of public expedi-
ency above mentioned, to receive, in the advance of
his rent, a share of the benefit which arises from the
increased produce of his estate. The violation of this
fundamental maxim of agrarian policy constitutes the
chief objection to the holding of lands by the state,
by the king, by corporate bodies, by private persons
in right of their offices or benefices. The inconven-
iency to the public arises not so much from the un-
alienable quality of lands thus holden in perpetuity,
as from hence, — that proprietors of this description
seldom contribute much either of attention or expense
to the cultivation of their estates, yet claim, by the
rent, a share in the profit of every improvement that
is made upon them. This complaint can only be ob-
viated by " long leases at a fixed rent," which convey
a large portion of the interest to those who actually
conduct the cultivation. The same objection is ap-
plicable to the holding of lands by foreign proprietors,
and in some degree to estates of too great extent be-
ing placed in the same hands.

3. Beside the production of provision, there re-
mains to be considered the DISTRIBUTION, — It is in
vain that provisions abound in the country, unless I
be able to obtain a share of them. This reflection
belongs to every individual. The plenty of provision
produced, the quantity of the public stock affords
subsistence to individuals, and encouragement to the
formation of families, only in proportion as it is dis-
tributed, that is, in proportion as these individuals are
allowed to draw from it a supply of their own wants.
The distribution, therefore, becomes of equal conse-
quence to population with the production* Now
there is but one principle of distribution that can ever
become universal, namely, the principle " of ex-
change >" or, in other words, that every man have

AGRICULTURE AND COMMERCE. 209

something to give in return for what he wants. Bounty,
however it may come in aid of another principle,
however it may occasionally qualify the rigour, or
supply the imperfection, of an established rule of dis-
tribution, can never itself become that rule or princi-
ple; because men will not work to give the produce
of their labour away. Moreover, the only equivalents
that can be offered in exchange for provision are pow-
er and labour. All property is power. What we call
property in land, is the power to use it, and to exclude
others from the use. Money is the representative of
power, because it is convertible into power: the value
of it consists in its faculty of procuring power over
things and persons. But power which results from
civil conventions (and of this kind is what we call a
man's fortune or estate,) is necessarily confined to a
few, and is withal soon exhausted; whereas the capa-
city of labour is every man's natural possession, and
composes a constant and renewing fund. The hire,
therefore, or produce of personal industry, is that
which the bulk of every community must bring to
market, in exchange for the means of subsistence; m
other words, employment must, in every country, be
the medium of distribution, and the source of supply
to individuals. But when we consider the production
and distribution of provision, as distinct from and
independent of each other; when, supposing the
same quantity to be produced, we inquire in what
way, or according to what rule, it may be distributed;
we are led to a conception of the subject not at all
agreeable to truth and reality: for, in truth and re-
ality, though provision must be produced before it be
distributed, yet the production depends, in a great
measure, upon the distribution. The quantity of
provision raised out of the ground, so far as the rais-
ing of it requires human art or labour, will evidently
be regulated by the demand: the demand, or, in
other words, the price and sale being that which alone
rewards the care, or excites the diligence, of the hus-
bandman. But the sale of provision depends upon
the number, not of those who want, but of those who
h?ve something to offer in return for what they want;
VOL. n. 18*

210 POPULATION, PROVISION,

not of those who would consume, but of those who
can buy; that is, upon the number of those who have
the fruits of some other kind of industry to tender in
exchange for what they stand in need of from the pro-
duction of the soil.

We see, therefore, the connexion between popula-
tion and employment. Employment affects population
" directly," as it affords the only medium of distribu-
tion by which individuals can obtain from the com-
mon stock a supply for the wants of their families: it
affects population "indirectly," as it augments the
stock itself of provision, in the only way by which the
production of it can be effectually encouraged — by
furnishing purchasers. No man can purchase with-
out an equivalent; and that equivalent, by the gene-
rality of the people, must in every country be derived
from employment.

And upon this basis is founded the public benefit
of trade, that is to say, its subserviency to population,
in which its only real utility consists. Of that indus-
try, and of those arts and branches of trade, which
are employed in the production, conveyance, and pre-
paration of any principal species of human food, as
of the business of the husbandman, the butcher, baker,
brewer, corn-merchant, &c. we acknowledge the ne-
cessity: likewise, of those manufactures which furnish
us with warm clothing, convenient habitations, do-
mestic utensils, as of the weaver, tailor, smith, carpen-
ter, &c. we perceive (in climates, however, like ours,
removed at a distance from the sun) the conducive-
ness to population, by their rendering human life more
healthy, vigorous, and comfortable. But not one
half of the occupations which compose the trade of
Europe fall within either of these descriptions. Per-
haps two thirds of the manufacturers in England are
employed upon articles of confessed luxurv, ornament,
or splendour; in the superfluous embellishment of
same articles which are useful in their kind, or upon
others which have no conceivable use or value but
what is founded in caprice or fashion. What can bo
less necessary, or less connected with the sustentation
of hu<nan life, than the whole produce of the silk,

AGRICULTURE AND COMMERCE. 211

lace, and plate manufactory ? yet what multitudes
labour in the different branches of these arts! What
can be imagined more capricious than the fondness
for tobacco and snuff? yet how many various occupa-
tions, and how many thousands in each, are set at
work in administering to this frivolous gratification!
Concerning trades of this kind (and this kind com-
prehends more than half of the trades that are ex-
ercised,) it may fairly be asked. " How, since they
add nothing to the stock of provision, do they tend to
increase the number of the people?" We are taught
to say of trade, " that it maintains multitudes:" but
by what means does it maintain them, when it pro-
duces nothing upon which the support of human life
depends ? — In like manner with respect to foreign
commerce; of that merchandise which brings the ne-
cessaries of life into a country, which imports, for ex-
ample, corn, or cattle, or cloth, or fuel; we allow the
tendency to advance population, because it increases
the stock of provision by which the people are sub-
sisted. But this effect of foreign commerce is so little
seen in our own country, that, I believe, it may be
affirmed of Great Britain, what Bishop Berkeley said
of a neighbouring island, that, if it were encompassed
with a wall of brass fifty cubits high, the country
might maintain the same number of inhabitants that
find subsistence in it at present; and that every neces-
sary, and even every real comfort and accommodation,
of human life, might be supplied in as great abun-
dance as they now are. Here, therefore, as before,
we may fairly ask, by what operation it is that foreign
commerce, which brings into the country no one arti-
cle of human subsistence, promotes the multiplication
of human life ?

The answer of this inquiry will be contained in the
discussion of another, viz.

Since the soil will maintain many more than it can
employ, what must be done, supposing the country to
be full, with the remainder of the inhabitants ? They
who, by the rules of partition (and some such must
be established in every country,) are entitled te the
land; and they who, by their labour upon th« §oil,

212 POPULATION, PROVISION,

acquire a right in its produce, will not part with their
property for nothing; or rather they will no longer
raise from the soil what they can neither use them-
selves, nor exchange for what they want. Or, lastly,
if these were willing to distribute what they could
spare of the provision which the ground yielded, to
others who had no share or concern in the property
or cultivation of it, yet still the most enormous mis-
chiefs would ensue from great numbers remaining un-
employed. The idleness of one half of the commu-
nity would overwhelm the whole with confusion and
disorder. One only way presents itself of removing
the difficulty which this question states, and which is
simply this; that they, whose work is not wanted, nor
can be employed, in the raising of provision out of the
ground, convert their hands and ingenuity to the fabri-
cation of articles which may gratify and requite those
who are so employed, or who, by the division of lands
in the country, are entitled to the exclusive possession
of certain parts of them. By this contrivance, all
things proceed well. The occupier of the ground
raises from it the utmost that he can procure, because
he is repaid for what he can spare by something else
which he wants, or with which he is pleased: the
artist or manufacturer, though he have neither any
property in the soil, nor any concern in its cultivation,
is regularly supplied with the produce, because he
gives, in exchange for what he stands in need of,
something upon which the receiver places an equal
value: and the community is kept quiet, while both
sides are engaged in their respective occupations.

It appears, then, that the business of one half of
mankind is to set the other half at work; that is, to
provide articles which, by tempting the desires, may
stimulate the industry, and call forth the activity of
those, upon the exertion of whose industry, and the
application of whose faculties, the production of
human provision depends. A certain portion only of
human labour is, or can be, productive ; the rest is
instrumental; — both equally necessary, though the
one have no other object than to excite the other. It
appears also, that it signifies nothing, as to the main

AGRICULTURE AND COMMERCE. 218

purpose of trade, how superfluous the articles which
it furnishes are; whether the want of them be real or
imaginary; whether it be founded in nature or in
opinion, in fashion, habit, or emulation: it is enough
that they be actually desired and sought after. Flour-
ishing cities are raised and supported by trading in
tobacco; populous towns subsist by the manufacture
of ribands. A watch may be a very unnecessary
appendage to the dress of a peasant ; yet if the peasant
will till the ground in order to obtain a watch, the
true design of trade is answered; and the watch-
maker, while he polishes the case, or files the wheels
of his machine, is contributing to the production of
corn as effectually, though not so directly, as if he
handled the spade or held the plough. The use of
tobacco has been mentioned already, not only as an
acknowledged superfluity, but as affording a remarka-
ble example of the caprice of human appetite: yet,
if the fisherman will ply his nets, or the mariner fetch
"Vice from foreign countries, in order to procure to
himself this indulgence, the market is supplied with
two important articles of provision, by the instrumen-
tality of a merchandise which has no other apparent,
use than the gratification of a vitiated palate.

But it may come to pass that the husbandman,
landowner, or whoever he be that is entitled to the
produce of the soil, will no longer exchange it for
what the manufacturer has to offer. He is already
supplied to the extent of his desires. For instance,
he wants no more cloth; he will no longer therefore
give the weaver corn in return for the produce of his
looms; but he would readily give it for tea, or for
wine. When the weaver finds this to be the case, he
has nothing to do but to send his cloth abroad, in ex-
change for tea or for wine, which he may barter for
that provision which the offer of his cloth will no
longer procure. The circulation is thus revived: and
the benefit of the discovery is, that whereas the num-
ber of weavers, who could find subsistence from their
employment, was before limited by the consumption
of cloth in the country, that number is now augment-
ed, in proportion to the demand for tea and wine

214 POPULATION, PROVISION,

This is the principle of foreign commerce. In the
magnitude and complexity of the machine, the princi-
ple of motion is sometimes lost or unobserved: but it
is always simple and the same, to wnatever extent it
may be diversified and enlarged in its operation.

The effect of trade upon agriculture, the process
of which we have been endeavouring to describe, is
visible in the neighbourhood of trading towns, and
in those districts which carry on a communication
with the markets of trading towns. The husband-
men are busy and skilful; the peasantry laborious:
the land is managed to the best advantage; and
double the quantity of corn or herbage (articles which
are ultimately converted into human provision) raised
from it, of what the same soil yields in remoter and
more neglected parts of the country. Wherever a
thriving manufactory finds means to establish itself,
a new vegetation springs up around it. I believe it
is true, that- agriculture never arrives at any consider-
able, much less at its highest degree of perfection,
where it is not connected with trade, that is, where
the demand for the produce is not increased by the
consumption of trading cities.

Let it be remembered, then, that agriculture is the
immediate source of human provision; that trade con-
duces to the production of provision only as it pro-
motes agriculture; that the whole system of commerce,
vast and various as it is, hath no other public impor-
tance than its subserviency to this end.

We return to the proposition we laid down, " that
employment universally promotes population." From
this proposition it follows, that the comparative utility
of different branches of national commerce is mea-
sured by the number which each branch employs.
Upon which principle a scale may easily be con-
structed, which shall assign to the several kinds and
divisions of foreign trade their respective degrees of
public importance. In this scale, the first place
belongs to the exchange of wrought goods for raw
materials, as of broad-cloth for raw silk; cutlery for
wool; clocks or watches for iron, flax, and furs;
because this traffic provides a market for the labour

AGRICULTURE AND COMMERCE. 215

that has already been expended, at the same time
that it supplies materials for new industry. Popula-
tion always flourishes where this species of commerce
obtains to any considerable degree. It is the cause
of employment, or the certain indication. As it takes
off the manufactures of the country, it promotes em-
ployment; as it brings in raw materials, it supposes
the existence of manufactories in the country, and a
demand for the article when manufactured. The
second place is due to that commerce which barters
one species of wrought goods for another, as stuffs
for calicoes, fustians for cambrics, leather for paper,
or wrought goods for articles which require no further
preparation, as for wine, oil, tea, sugar, &c. This
also assists employment; because, when the country
is stocked with one kind of manufacture, it renews
the demand by converting it into another: but it is
inferior to the former, as it promotes this end by one
side only of the bargain, — by what it carries out.—
The last, the lowest, and most disadvantageous spe-
cies of commerce, is the exportation of raw materials
in return for wrought goods; as when wool is sent
abroad to purchase velvets; hides or peltry, to pro-
cure shoes, hats, or linen cloth. This trade is unfa-
vourable to population, because it leaves no room or
demand for employment, either in what it takes out
of the country, or in what it brings into it. Its ope-
ration on both sides is noxious. By its exports, it
diminishes the very subjects upon which the industry
of the inhabitants ought to be exercised; by its im-
ports, it lessens the encouragement of that industry,
in the same proportion that it supplies the consump-
tion of the country with the produce of foreign labour.
Of different branches of manufacture, those are, in
their nature, the most beneficial, in which the price
of the wrought article exceeds in the highest propor-
tion thai of the raw material: for this excess measures
the quantity of employment, or, in other words, the
number of manufacturers which each branch sustains.
The produce of the ground is never the most advan-
tageous article of foreign commerce. Under a per-
fect state of public economy, the soil of the country

216 POPULATION, PROVISION,

should be applied solely to the raising of provisions
for the inhabitants, and its trade be supplied by their
industry. A nation will never reach its proper ex-
tent of population, so long as its principal commerce
consists in the exportation of corn or cattle, or even
of wine, oil, tobacoo, madder, indigo, timber; because
these last articles take up that surface which ought to
be covered with the materials of human subsistence.

It must be here however noticed, that we have all
along considered the inhabitants of a country as main-
tained by the produce of the country: and that what
we have said is applicable with strictness to this sup-
position alone. The reasoning, nevertheless, may
easily be adapted to a different case: for when pro-
vision is not produced, but imported, what has been
affirmed concerning provision will be, in a great
measure, true of that article, whether it be money,
produce, or labour, which is exchanged for provision.
Thus, when the Dutch raise madder, and exchange it
for corn; or when the people of America plant to-
bacco, and send it to Europe for cloth; the cultiva-
tion of madder and tobacco becomes as necessary to
the subsistence of the inhabitants, and by conse-
quence will affect the state of population in these
countries as sensibly as the actual production of food,
or the manufacture of raiment. In like manner,
when the same inhabitants of Holland earn money
by the carriage of the produce of one country to
another, and with that money purchase the provision
from abroad which their own land is not extensive
enough to supply, the increase or decline of this car-
rying trade will influence the numbers of the people,
no less than similar changes would do in the cultiva-
tion of the soil.

The few principles already established will enable
us to describe the effects upon population vvhicn may
be expected from the following important articles of
national conduct and economy.

1. EMIGRATION. — Emigration may be either the
overflowing of a country, or the desertion. As the
increase of the species is indefinite; and the number
of inhabitants which any given tract or surface can

AGRICULTURE AND COMMERCE. 217

support, finite; it is evident that great numbers may
be constantly leaving a country, and yet the country
remain constantly full. Or, whatever be the cause
which invincibly limits the population of a country;
when the number of the people has arrived at that
limit, the progress of generation, beside continuing
the succession, will supply multitudes for foreign
emigration. In these two cases, emigration neither
indicates any political decay, nor in truth diminishes
the number of the people; nor ought to be prohibited
or discouraged. But emigrants may relinquish their
country, from a sense of insecurity, oppression, an-
noyance, and inconveniency. Neither again here is
it emigration which wastes the people, but the evils
that occasion it. It would be in vain, if it were
practicable, to confine the inhabitants at home: for
the same causes which drive them out of the country,
would prevent their multiplication if they remained
in it. Lastly, Men may be tempted to change their
situation by the allurement of a better climate, of a
more refined or luxurious manner of living; by the
prospect of wealth; or, sometimes, by the mere nomi-
nal advantage of higher wages and prices. This
class of emigrants, with whom alone the laws can
interfere with effect, will never, I think, be numerous.
With the generality of a people, the attachment of
mankind to their homes and countries, the irksome-
ness of seeking new habitations, and of living amongst
strangers, will outweigh, so long as men possess the
necessaries of life in safety, or at least so long as they
can obtain a provision for that mode of subsistence
which the class of citizens to which they belong are
accustomed to enjoy, all the inducements that the
advantages of a foreign land can offer. There ap-
pear, therefore, to be few cases in which emigration
can be prohibited, with advantage to the state; it
appears also that emigration is an equivocal symptom,
which will probably accompany the decline of the poli-
tical body, but which may likewise attend a condition
of perfect health and vigour.

2. COLONIZATION. — The only view under which
our subject will permit us to consider colonization

VOL, II. 19

218 POPULATION, PROVISION,

is in its tendency to augment the population of the
parent state. — Suppose a fertile, but empty island, to
lie within the reach of a country in which arts and
manufactures are already established; suppose a colo-
ny sent out from such a country, to take possession
of the island, and to live there under the protection
and authority of their native government: the new
settlers will naturally convert their labour to the cul-
tivation of the vacant soil, and with the produce of
that soil will draw a supply of manufactures from
their countrymen at home. Whilst the inhabitants
continue few, and lands cheap and fresh, the colonists
will find it easier and more profitable to raise corn or
rear cattle, and with corn and cattle to purchase
woollen cloth, for instance, or linen, than to spin or
weave these articles for themselves. The mother
country, meanwhile, derives from this connexion an
increase both of provision and employment. It pro-
motes at once the two great requisites upon which
the facility of subsistence, and by consequence the
state of population, depend — production and distribu-
tion; and this in a manner the most direct and bene-
ficial. No situation can be imagined more favourable
to population than that of a country which works up
goods for others, whilst these others are cultivating
new tractg of land for them; for as, in a genial
climate and from a fresh soil, the labour of one man
will raise provision enough for ten, it is manifest that,
where all are employed in agriculture, much the
greater part of the produce will be spared from the
consumption; and that three out of four, at least, of
those who are maintained by it, will reside in the
country which receives the redundancy. When the
new country does not remit provision to the old one,
the advantage is less; but still the exportation of
wrought goods, by whatever return they are paid for,
advances population in that secondary way, in which
those trades promote it that are not employed in the
production of provision. Whatever prejudice, there-
fore, some late events have excited against schemes
of colonization, the system itself is founded in appa-
rent national utility; and what is more, upon princi-

AGRICULTURE AND COMMERCE. 219

pies favourable to the common interest of human na-
ture, for it does not appear by what other method
newly discovered and unfrequented countries can be
peopled, or during the infancy of their establishment
be protected or supplied. The error, which we of
this nation at present lament, seems to have consisted
not so much in the original formation of colonies, as
in the subsequent management; in imposing restric-
tions too rigorous, or in continuing them too long;
in not perceiving the point of time when the irresisti-
ble order and progress of human affairs demand a
change of laws and policy.

3. MONEY. — Where money abounds, the people
are generally numerous: yet gold and silver neither
feed nor clothe mankind; nor are they in all countries
converted into provision by purchasing the necessa-
ries of life at foreign markets; nor do they, in any
rountry, compose those articles of personal or domes-
tic ornament, which certain orders of the community
have learned to regard as necessaries of life, and
without the means of procuring which they will not
enter into family establishments: — at least this pro-
perty of the precious metals obtains in a very small
degree. The effect of money upon the number of the
people, though visible to observation, is not explained
without some difficulty. To understand this connexion
properly, we must return to the proposition with which
we concluded our reasoning upon the subject; " that
population is chiefly promoted by employment." Now,
of employment, money is partly the indication, and
partly the cause. The only way in which money
regularly and spontaneously flows into a country is in
return for the goods that are sent out of it, or the
work that is performed by it; and the only way in
which money is retained in a country, is by the coun-
try's supplying, in a great measure, its own consump-
tion of manufactures. Consequently, the quantity of
money found in a country denotes the amount of la-
bour and employment : but still, employment, not
money, is the cause of population; the accumulation
of money being merely a collateral effect of the same
cause, or a circumstance which accompanies the ex-

220 POPULATION, PROVISION,

istence, and measures the operation of that cause.
And this is true of money, only whilst it is acquired
by the industry of the inhabitants. The treasures
which belong to a country by the possession of mines,
or by the exaction of tribute from foreign dependen-
cies, afford no conclusion -concerning the state of
population. The influx from these sources may be
immense, and yet the country remain poor and ill
peopled; of which we see an egregious example in
the condition of Spain, since the acquisition of its
South American dominions.

But, secondly, Money may become also a real and
an operative cause of population, by acting as a stimu-
lus to industry, and by facilitating the means of sub-
sistence. The ease of subsistence, and the encourage-
ment of industry, depend neither upon the price of
labour, nor upon the price of provision, but upon the
proportion which one bears to the other. Now the
influx of money into a country naturally tends to ad-
vance this proportion; that is, every fresh accession
of money raises the price of labour before it raises the
price of provision. When money is brought from
abroad, the persons, be they who they will, into
whose hands it first arrives, do not buy up provision
with it, but apply it to the purchase and payment of
labour. If the state receives it, the state dispenses
what it receives amongst soldiers, sailors, artificers,
engineers, shipwrights, workmen; — if private persons
bring home treasures of gold and silver, they usually
expend them in the building of houses, the improve-
ment of estates, the purchase of furniture, dress, equi-
page, in articles of luxury or splendour; — if the mer-
chant be enriched by returns of his foreign commerce,
he applies his increased capital to the enlargement of
his business at home. The money ere long comes to
market for provision; but it comes thither through the
hands of the manufacturer, the artist, the husband-
man, and labourer. Its effects, therefore, upon the price
of art and labour, will precede its effect upon the price
of provision; and during the interval between one
effect and the other, the means of subsistence will be
multiplied and facilitated, as well as industry be ex-

AGRICULTURE AND COMMERCE. 221

cited by new rewards. When the greater plenty of
money in circulation has produced an advance in the
price of provision, corresponding to the advanced
price of labour, its effect ceases. The labourer no
longer gains any thing by the increase of his wages.
It if not, therefore, the quantity of specie collected
into a country, but the continual increase of that
quantity, from which the advantage arises to employ-
ment and population. It is only the accession of
money which produces the effect, and it is only by
money constantly flowing into a country that the ef-
fect can be constant. Now, whatever consequence
arises to the country from the influx of money, the
contrary may be expected to follow from the diminu-
tion of its quantity: and accordingly we find, that
whatever cause drains off the specie of a country,
faster than the streams which feed it can supply, not
only impoverishes the country, but depopulates it.
The knowledge and experience of this effect have
given occasion to a phrase which occurs in almost,
every discourse upon commerce or politics. The
balance, of trade with any foreign nation is said to be
against or in favour of a country, simply as it tends to
carry money out, or bring it in; that is, according as
the price of the imports exceeds or falls short of the
price of the exports: so invariably is the increase or
diminution of the specie of a country regarded as a
test of the public advantage or detriment which arises
from any branch of its commerce.

4. TAXATION. — As taxes take nothing out of a
country; as they do not diminish the public stock,
only vary the distribution of it; they are not neces-
sarily prejudicial to population. If the state exact
money from certain members of the community, she
dispenses it also amongst other members of the same
community. They who contribute to the revenue,
and they who are supported or benefited by the ex-
penses of government, are to be placed one against
the other: and whilst what the subsistence of one part
is profiting by receiving, compensates, for what that
of the other suffers by paying, the common fund of
the society is not lessened. This is true: but it must

VOL. II. 19 *

POPULATION, PROVISION,

be observed, that although the sum distributed by the
state be always equal to the sum collected from the
people, yet the gain and loss to the means of subsist-
ence may be very unequal; and the balance will re-
main on the wrong or the right side of the account, ac-
cording as the money passes by taxation from the in-
dustrious to the idle, from the many to the few, from
those who want to those who abound, or in a contrary
direction. For instance: a tax upon coaches, to be
laid out in the repair of roads, would probably improve
the population of a neighbourhood; a tax upon cot-
tages, to be ultimately expended in the purchase and
support of coaches, would certainly diminish it. In
like mariner, a tax upon wine or tea, distributed in
bounties to fishermen or husbandmen, would augment
the provision of a country; a tax upon fisheries and
husbandry, however indirect or concealed, to be con-
verted, when raised, to the procuring of wine or tea
for the idle and opulent, would naturally impair the
public stock. The effect, therefore, of taxes upon the
means of subsistence depends not so much upon the
amount of the sum levied, as upon the object of the
tax and the application. Taxes likewise may be so
adjusted as to conduce to the restraint of luxury, and
the correction of vice; to the encouragement of indus-
try, trade, agriculture and marriage. Taxes thus
contrived, become rewards and penalties; not only
sources of revenue, but instruments of police. Vices
indeed themselves cannot be taxed, without holding
forth such a conditional toleration of them as to de-
stroy men's perception of their guilt; a tax comes to
be considered as a commutation: the materials, how-
ever, and incentives of vice may. Although, for in-
stance, drunkenness would be, on this account, an
unfit object of taxation, yet public houses and spir-
ituous liquors are very properly subjected to heavy
imposts.

Nevertheless, although it may be true that taxes
cannot be pronounced to be detrimental to population,
by any absolute necessity in their nature; and though,
under some modifications, and when urged only to a
certain extent, they may even operate in favour of

AGRICULTURE AND COMMERCE. 223

it; yet it will be found, in a great plurality of in-
stances, that their tendency is noxious. Let it be
supposed that nine families inhabit a neighbourhood,
each possessing barely the means of subsistence, or of
that mode of subsistence which custom hath estab-
lished amongst them; let a tenth family be quartered
upon these, to be supported by a tax raised from the
nine; or rather, let one of the nine have his income
augmented by a similar deduction from the incomes
of the rest: in either of these cases, it is evident that
the whole district would be broken up; for as the
entire income of each is supposed to be barely suffi-
cient for the establishment which it maintains, a de-
duction of any part destroys that establishment. Now
it is no answer to this objection, it is no apology for
the grievance, to say, that nothing is taken out of the
neighbourhood; that the stock is not diminished: the
mischief is done by deranging the distribution. Nor,
again, is the luxury of one family, or even the main-
tenance of an additional family, a recompense to the
country for the ruin of nine others. Nor, lastly, will
it alter the effect, though it may conceal the cause,
that the contribution, instead of being levied directly
upon each day's wages, is mixed up in the price of
some articles of constant use and consumption, as in a
tax upon candles, malt, leather, or fuel. This example
illustrates the tendency of taxes to obstruct subsist
ence; and the minutest degree of this obstruction will
be felt in the formation of families. The example,
indeed, forms an extreme case; the evil is magnified^
in order to render its operation distinct and visible.
In real life, families may not be broken up, or forced
from their habitation, houses be quitted, or countries
suddenly deserted, in consequence of any new impo-
sition whatever; but marriages will become gradually
less frequent.

It seems necessary, however, to distinguish between
the operation of a new tax, and the effect of taxes
which have been long established. In the course of
circulation, the money may flow back to the hands
from which it was taken. The proportion between
the supply and the expense of subsistence, which had

224 POPULATION, PROVISION,

been disturbed by the tax, may at length recover itself
again. In the instance just now stated, the addition
of a tenth family to the neighbourhood, or the enlarged
expenses of one of the nine, may, in some shape or
other, so advance the profits, or increase the employ-
ment, of the rest, as to make full restitution for the
share of their property of which it deprives them; or,
what is more likely to happen, a reduction may take
place in their mode of living, suited to the abridgment
of their incomes. Yet still the ultimate and perma-
nent effect of taxation, though distinguishable from
the impression of a new tax, is generally adverse to
population. The proportion above spoken of can
only be restored by one side or other of the following
alternative: by the people either contracting their
wants, which at the same time diminishes consumption
and employment; or by raising the price of labour,
which necessarily adding to the price of the produc-
tions and manufactures of the country, checks their
sale at foreign markets. A nation which is burdened
with taxes must always be undersold by a nation which
is free from them, unless the difference be made up
by some singular advantage of climate, soil, skill, or
industry. This quality belongs to all taxes which
affect the mass of the community, even when imposed
upon the properest objects, and applied to the fairest
purposes. But abuses are inseparable from the dis-
posal of public money. As governments are usually
administered, the produce of public taxes is expended
upon a train of gentry, in the maintaining of pomp,
or in the purchase of influence. The conversion of
property which taxes effectuate, when they are em-
ployed in this manner, is attended with obvious evils.
Jt takes from the industrious to give to the idle; it
increases the number of the latter; it tends to accu-
mulation; it sacrifices the conveniency of many to the
luxury of a few; it makes no return to the people,
from whom the tax is drawn, that is satisfactory or
intelligible; it encourages no activity which is useful
or productive.

The sum to be raised being settled, a wise states-
man will contrive his taxes principally with a view t©

AGRICULTURE AND COMMERCE. 225

their effect upon population ; that is, he will so adjust
them as to give the least possible obstruction to those
means of subsistence by which the mass of the com-
munity is maintained. We are accustomed to an
opinion, that a tax, to be just, ought to be accurately
proportioned to the circumstances of the persons who
pay it. But upon what, it might be asked, is this
opinion founded ? unless it could be shown that such
a proportion interferes the least with the general con-
veniertcy of subsistence: whereas I should rather be-
lieve, that a tax, constructed with a view to that con-
veniency, ought to rise upon the different classes of
the community, in a much higher ratio than the simple
proportion of their incomes. The point to be regarded
is, not what men have, but what they can spare; and
it is evident that a man who possesses a thousand
pounds a year, can more easily give up a hundred,
than a man with a hundred pounds a year can part
with ten: that is, those habits of life which are rea-
sonable and innocent, and upon the ability to continue
which the formation of families depends, will be much
less affected by the one deduction than the other. It
is still more evident, that a man of a hundred pounds
a year would not be so much distressed in his subsist-
ence, by a demand from him of ten pounds, as a man
of ten pounds a year would by the loss of one: to
which we must add, that the population of every
country being replenished by the marriages of the
lowest ranks of the society, their accommodation and
relief become of more importance to the state, than
the conveniency of any higher but less numerous order
of its citizens. But whatever be the proportion which
public expediency directs, whether the simple, the
duplicate, or any higher or intermediate proportion
of men's incomes, it can never be attained by any
single tax; as no single object of taxation can be
found, which measures the ability of the subject with
sufficient generality and exactness. It is only by a
system and variety of taxes mutually balancing and
equalizing one another, that a due proportion can be
preserved. For instance: if a tax upon lands press
with greater hardship upon those who live in the

226 POPULATION, PROVISION,

country, it may be properly counterpoised by a tax
upon the rent of houses, which will affect principally
the inhabitants of large towns. Distinctions may also
be framed in some taxes, which shall allow abatements
or exemptions to married persons; to the parents of a
certain number of legitimate children; to improvers
of the soil; to particular modes of cultivation, as to
tillage in preference to pasturage; and in general to
that industry which is immediately productive, in pre-
ference to that which is only instrumental; but above
all, which may leave the heaviest part of the burden
upon the methods, whatever they be, of acquiring
wealth without industry, or even of subsisting in
idleness.

5. EXPORTATION OF BREAD-CORN. — Nothing
seems to have a more positive tendency to reduce the
number of the people than the sending abroad part of
the provision by which they are maintained; yet this
has been the policy of legislators very studious of the
improvement of their country. In order to reconcile
ourselves to a practice which appears to militate with
the chief interest, that is, with the population of the
country that adopts it, we must be reminded of a
maxim which belongs to the productions both of nature
and art, «' that it is impossible to have enough without
a superfluity." The point of sufficiency cannot, in
any case, be so exactly hit upon, as to have nothing
to spare, yet never to want. This is peculiarly true of
bread-corn, of which the annual increase is extremely
variable. As it is necessary that the crop be adequate
to the consumption in a year of scarcity, it must, of
consequence, greatly exceed it in a year of plenty.
A redundancy therefore will occasionally arise from
the very care that is taken to secure the people against
the danger of want; and it is manifest that the expor-
tation of this redundancy subtracts nothing from the
number that can regularly be maintained by the pro-
duce of the soil. Moreover, ad the exportation of
corn under these circumstances is attended with no
direct injury to population, so the benefits which in-
directly arise to population from foreign commerce
belong to this, in common with other species of trade*

AGRICULTURE AND COMMERCE. 227

together with the peculiar advantage of presenting a
constant incitement to the skill and industry of the
husbandman, by the promise of a certain sale and ao
adequate price, under every contingency of season
and produce. There is another situation, in which
corn may not only be exported, but in which the
people can thrive by no other means; that is, of a
newly settled country with a fertile soil. The expor-
tation of a large proportion of the corn which a
country produces proves, it is true, that the inhab-
itants have not yet attained to the number which the
country is capable of maintaining; but it does not
prove but that they may be hastening to this limit
with the utmost practicable celerity, which is the per-
fection to be sought for in a young establishment. In
all cases except these two, and in the former of them
to a greater degree than what is necessary to take
off occasional redundancies, the exportation of corn is
either itself noxious to population, or argues a defect
of population, arising from some other cause.

6. ABRIDGEMENT OF LABOUR. — It has long been
made a question, whether those mechanical contri-
vances which abridge labour, by performing the same
work by fewer hands, be detrimental or not to the
population of a country. From what has been de-
livered in preceding parts of the present chapter,
it will be evident that this question is equivalent to
another, — whether such contrivances diminish or not
the quantity of employment ? Their first and most
obvious effect undoubtedly is this : because, if one
man be made to do what three men did before, two
are immediately discharged: but if, by some more
general and remoter consequence, they increase the
demand for work, or, what is the same thing, prevent
the diminution of that demand, in a greater proportion
than they contract the number of hands by which it
is performed, the quantity of employment, upon the
whole, will gain an addition. Upon which principle
it may be observed, first, that whenever a mechanical
invention succeeds in one place, it is necessary that it
be imitated in every other where the same manufac-
ture is carried on: for it is manifest, that he who has

228 POPULATION, PROVISION,

the benefit of a conciser operation will soon outvie
and undersell a competitor who continues to use a
more circuitous labour. It is also true, in the second
place, that whoever first discover or adopt a mecha-
nical improvement will, for some time, draw to them-
selves an increase of employment; and that this pre-
ference may continue even after the improvement has
become general; for, in every kind of trade, it is not
only a great but permanent advantage, to have once
preoccupied the public reputation. Thirdly, after
every superiority which might be derived from the
possession of a secret has ceased, it may be well ques-
tioned whether even then any loss can accrue to em-
ployment. The same money will be spared to the
same article still. Wherefore, in proportion as the
article can be afforded at a lower price, by reason of
an easier or shorter process in the manufacture, it will
either grow into more general use, or an improvement
will take place in the quality and fabric, which will
demand a proportionable addition of hands. The
number of persons employed in the manufactory of
stockings has not, I apprehend, decreased since the
invention of stocking mills. The amount of what is
expended upon the article, after subtracting from it
the price of the raw material, and consequently what
is paid for work in this branch of our manufactories,
is not less than it was before. Goods of a finer tex-
ture are worn in the place of coarser. This is the
change which the invention has produced; and which
compensates to the manufactory for every other in-
conveniency. Add to which, that in the above, and
in almost every instance, an improvement which con-
duces to the recommendation of a manufactory, either
by the cheapness or the quality of the goods, draws
up after it many dependent employments, in which no
abbreviation has taken place.

FROM the reasoning that has been pursued, and the
various considerations suggested in this chapter, a
judgment may, in some sort, be formed, how far regu-

AGRICULTURE AND COMMERCE. 229

lations of law are in their nature capable of contri-
buting to the support and advancement of population.
I say how far : for, as in many subjects, so especially
in those which relate to commerce, to plenty, to riches,
and to the number of people, more is wont to be ex-
pected from laws, than laws can do. Laws can only
imperfectly restrain that dissoluteness of manners,
which, by diminishing the frequency of marriages,
impairs the very source of population. Laws cannot
regulate the wants of mankind, their mode of living,
or their desire of those superfluities which fashion,
more irresistible than laws, has once introduced into
general usage; or, in other words, has erected into
necessaries of life. Laws cannot induce men to Qnter
into marriages, when the expenses of a family must
deprive them of that system of accommodation to
which they have habituated their expectations. Laws,
by their protection, by assuring to the labourer the
fruit and profit of his labour, may help to make a
people industrious; but, without industry, the laws
cannot provide either subsistence or employment: laws
cannot make corn grow without toil and care, or trade
flourish without art and diligence. In spite of all
laws, the expert, laborious, honest workman will be
employed, in preference to the lazy, the unskilful, the
fraudulent, and evasive: and this is not more true of
two inhabitants of the same village, than it is of the
people of two different countries, which communicate
either with each other, or with the rest of the world.
The natural basis of trade is rivalship of quality and
price; or, which is the same thing, of skill and indus-
try. Every attempt to force trade by operation of
law, that is, by compelling persons to buy goods at
one market, which they can obtain cheaper and better
from another, is sure to be either eluded by the quick-
sightedness and incessant activity of private interest,
or to be frustrated by retaliation. One half of the
commercial laws of many states are calculated merely
to counteract the restrictions which have been impos-
ed by other estates. Perhaps the only way in which
the interposition of the law is salutary in trade is in
the prevention of frauds.

VOL ii. 20

280 POPULATION, PROVISION,

Next to the indispensable requisites of internal peace
and security, the chief advantage which can be de-
rived to population from the interference of law ap-
pears to me to consist in the encouragement of agri-
culture. This, at least, is the direct way of increasing
the number of the people: every other mode being
effectual only by its influence upon this. Now the
principal expedient, by which such a purpose can be
promoted, is to adjust the laws of property, as nearly
as possible, to the two following rules: first, " to give
to the occupier all the power over the soil which is
necessary for its perfect cultivation;" — secondly, " to
assign the whole profit of every improvement to the
perspns by whose activity it is carried on." What
we call property in land, as hath been observed above,
is power over it. Now it is indifferent to the public
in whose hands this power resides, if it be rightly
used, it matters not to whom the land belongs, if it
be well cultivated. When we lament that great
estates are often united in the same hand, or complain
that one man possesses what would be sufficient for a
thousand, we suffer ourselves to be misled by words.
The owner of ten thousand pounds a year consumes
little more of the produce of the soil than the owner
of ten pounds a year. If the cultivation be equal,
the estate, in the hands of one great lord, affords
subsistence and employment to the same number of
persons as it would do if it were divided amongst a
hundred proprietors. In like manner we ought to
judge of the effect upon the public interest, which
may arise from lands being holden by the king, or by
the subject; by private persons, or by corporations;
by laymen, or ecclesiastics; in fee, or for life; by
virtue of office, or in right of inheritance. I do not
mean that these varieties make no difference, but I
mean that all the difference they do make respects the
cultivation of the lands which are so holden.

There exists in this country conditions of tenure
which condemn the land itself to perpetual sterility.
Of this kind is the right of common, which precludes
each proprietor from the improvement, or even the
convenient occupation, of his estate, without (what

AGRICULTURE AND COMMERCE. 231

seldom can be obtained) the consent of many others.
This tenure is also usually embarrassed by the inter-
ference of manorial claims, under which it often hap-
pens that the surface belongs to one owner, and the
soil to another; so that neither owner can stir a clod
without the concurrence of his partner in the property.
In many manors, the tenant is restrained from granting
leases beyond a short term of years, which renders
every plan of solid improvement inpracticable. In
these cases, the owner wants, what the first rule of
rational policy requires, " sufficient power over the
soil for its perfect cultivation." This power ought to
be extended to him by some easy and general law of
enfranchisement, partition, and enclosure; which,
though compulsory upon the lord, or the rest of the
tenants, whilst it has in view the melioration of the
soil, and tenders an equitable compensation for every
right that it takes away, is neither more arbitrary, nor
more dangerous to the stability of property, than that
which is done in the construction of roads, bridges,
embankments, navigable canals, and indeed in almost
every public work, in which private owners of land are
obliged to accept that price for their property which
an indifferent jury may award. It may here, however,
be proper to observe, that although the enclosure of
wastes and pastures be generally beneficial to popu-
lation, yet the enclosure of lands in tillage, in order to
convert them into* pastures, is as generally hurtful.

But, secondly, Agriculture is discouraged by every
constitution of landed property which lets in those,
who have no concern in the improvement, to a parti-
cipation of the profit. This objection is applicable to
all such customs of manors as subject the proprietor,
upon the death of the lord or tenant, or the alienation
of the estate, to a fine apportioned to the improved
value of the land. But of all institutions which are
in this way adverse to cultivation and improvement,
none is so noxious as that of tithes. A claimant here
enters into the produce, who contributed no assistance
whatever to the production. When years perhaps, of
care and toil have matured an improvement; when
the husbandman sees new crops ripening to his skill

232 WAR AND MILITARY ESTABLISHMENTS.

and industry; the moment he is ready to put his sickle
to the grain, he finds himself compelled to divide his
harvest with a stranger. Tithes are a tax not only
upon industry, but upon that industry which feeds
mankind; upon that species of exertion which it is the
aim of all wise laws to cherish and promote; and to
uphold and excite which, composes, as we have seen,
the main benefit that the community receives from the
whole system of trade, and the success of commerce.
And, together with the more general inconveniency
that attends the exaction of tithes, there is this addi-
tional evil, in the mode at least according to which
they are collected at present, that they operate as a
bounty upon pasturage. The burden of the tax falls
with its chief, if not with its whole weight, upon til-
lage; that is to say, upon that precise mode of culti-
vation which, as hath been shown above, it is the
business of the state to relieve and remunerate, in
preference to every other. No measure of such exten-
sive concern appears to me so practicable, nor any
single alteration so beneficial, as the conversion of
tithes into corn-rents. This commutation, I am con-
vinced, might be so adjusted, as to secure the tithe-
holder a complete and perpetual equivalent for hia
interest, and to leave to industry its full operation,
and entire reward.

CHAPTER XII.

OF WAR, AND OF MILITARY ESTABLISHMENTS.

BECAUSE the Christian Scriptures describe wars as
what they are — as crimes or judgments, some have
been led to believe that it is unlawful for a Christian
to bear arms. But it should be remembered, that it
may be necessary for individuals to unite their force,
and for this end to resign themselves to the direction
of a common will; and yet it may be true, that that
will is often actuated by criminal motives, and often

WAR AND MILITARY ESTABLISHMENTS. 233

determined to destructive purposes. Hence, although
the origin of wars be ascribed, in Scripture, to the
operation of lawless and malignant passions;* and
though war itself be enumerated among the sorest
calamities with which a land can be visited, the pro-
fession of a soldier is no where forbidden or con-
demned. When the soldiers demanded of John the
Baptist what they should do, he said unto them, " Do
violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely, and
be content with your wages. "f In which answer we
do not find that, in order to prepare themselves for
the reception of the kingdom of God, it was required
of soldiers to relinquish their profession, but only that
they should be aware of the vices of which that pro-
fession was accused. The precept which follows,
" Be content with your wages," supposed them to
continue in their situation. It was of a Roman centu-
rion that Christ pronounced that memorable eulogy,
" I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.":}:
The first Gentile convert§ who was received into the
Christian church, and to whom the Gospel was im-
parted by the immediate and especial direction of
Heaven, held the same station; and in the history of
this transaction we discover not the smallest intima-
tion, that Cornelius, upon becoming a Christian,
quitted the service of the Roman legion; that his
profession was objected to, or his continuance in it
considered as in any wise inconsistent with his new
character.

In applying the principles of morality to the affairs
of nations, the difficulty which meets us arises from
hence, '* that the particular consequence sometimes
appears to exceed the value of the general rule." In
this circumstance is founded the only distinction that
exists between the case of independent states, and of
independent individuals. In the transactions of pri-
vate persons, no advantage that results from the
breach of a general law of justice can compensate to
the public for the violation of the law; in the concerns
of empire, this may sometimes be doubted. Thus,

* James, iv. 1. f Luke, iii. 14. "j: Luke, vii. 9. § Acts, x 1.
IT f-t i * on #

VOL ii. 20 *

234 WAR AND MILITARY ESTABLISHMENTS.

that the faith of promises ought to be maintained, as
far as is lawful, and as far as was intended by the par-
ties, whatever inconveniency either of them may suf-
fer by his fidelity, in the intercourse of private life, '&
seldom disputed; because it is evident to almost every
man who reflects upon the subject, that the common
happiness gains more by the preservation of the rule
than it could do by removal of the inconveniency.
But when the adherence to a public treaty would en-
slave a whole people; would block up seas, rivers, or
harbours; depopulate cities; condemn fertile regions
to eternal desolation; cut off a country from its
sources of provision, or deprive it of those commercial
advantages to which its climate, produce, or situation,
naturally entitle it: the magnitude of the particular
evil induces us to call in question the obligation of the
general rule. Moral philosophy furnishes no precise
solution to these doubts. She cannot pronounce that
any rule of morality is so rigid as to bend to no excep-
tions; nor, on the other hand, can she comprise these
exceptions within any previous description. She con-
fesses that the obligation of every law depends upon
its ultimate utility; that this utility having a finite and
determinate value, situations may be feigned, and
consequently may possibly arise, in which the general
tendency is outweighed by the enormity of the parti-
cular mischief: but she recalls at the same time to
the consideration of the inquirer, the almost inestima-
ble importance, as of other general rules of relative
justice, so especially of national and personal fidelity;
the unseen, if not unbounded, extent of the mischief
•which must follow from the want of it; the danger of
leaving it to the sufferer to decide upon the compari-
son of particular and general consequences; and the
still greater danger of such decisions being drawn into
future precedents. If treaties, for instance, be no
longer binding than whilst they are convenient, or
until the inconveniency ascend to a certain point
(which point must be fixed by the judgment, or rather
by the feelings, of the complaining party;) or if such
an opinion, after being authorized by a few examples,
come at length to prevail; one and almost the only

WAR AND MILITARY ESTABLISHMENTS. 235

method of averting or closing the calamities of war,
of either preventing or putting a stop to the destruc-
tion of mankind, is lost to the world for ever. We do
not say that no evil can exceed this, nor any possible
advantage compensate it; but we say that a loss,
whicfl affects a//, will scarcely be made up to the
common stock of human happiness by any benefit that
can be procured to a single nation, which, however,
respectable when compared with any other single na-
tion, bears an inconsiderable proportion to the whole.
These, however, are the principles upon which the
calculation is to be formed. It is enough, in this place,
to remark the cause which produces the hesitation
that we sometimes feel, in applying rules of personal
probity to the conduct of nations.

As between individuals it is found impossible to
ascertain every duty by an immediate reference to
public utility, not only because such reference is often-
times too remote for the direction of private con-
sciences, but because a multitude of cases arise in
which it is indifferent to the general interest by what
rule men act, though it be absolutely necessary that
they act by some constant and known rule or other;
and as, for these reasons, certain positive constitu-
tions are wont to be established in every society,
which, when established, become as obligatory as the
original principles of natural justice themselves; so,
likewise, it is between independent communities.
Together with those maxims of universal equity which
are common to states and to individuals, and by which
the rights and conduct of the one as well as the other
ought to be adjusted, when they fall within' the scope
and application of such maxims; there exists also
amongst sovereigns a system of artificial jurispru-
dence, under the name of the law of nations. In this
code are found the rules which determine the right
to vacant or newly discovered countries; those which
relate to the protection of fugitives, the privileges of
ambassadors, the condition and duties of neutrality,
the immunities of neutral ships, ports, and coasts, the
distance from shore to which these immunities extend,
the distinction between free and contraband goods,

236 WAR AND MILITARY ESTABLISHMENTS.

and a variety of subjects of the same kind. Concein-
ing which examples, and indeed the principal part of
what is called the jus gentium, it may be observed,
that the rules derive their moral force (by which I
mean the regard that ought to be paid to them by the
consciences of sovereigns,) not from their internal
reasonableness or justice, for many of them are per-
fectly arbitrary, nor yet, from the authority by which
they were established, for the greater part have grown
insensibly into usage, without any public compact,
formal acknowledgement, or even known original; but
simply from the fact of their being established, ami
the general duty of conforming to established rules
upon questions, and between parties, where nothing
but positive regulations can prevent disputes, and
where disputes are followed by such destructive con-
sequences. The first of the instances which we have
just now enumerated may be selected for the illustra-
tion of this remark. The nations of Europe consider
the sovereignty of newly discovered countries as be-
longing to the prince or state whose subject makes the
discovery; and, in pursuance of this rule, it is usual
for a navigator, who falls upon an unknown shore, to
take possession of it, in the name of his sovereign at
home, by erecting his standard, or displaying his flag,
upon a desert coast. Now nothing can be more fan-
ciful, or less substantiated by any considerations of
reason or justice, than the right which such discovery,
or the transient occupation and idle ceremony that
accompany it, confer upon the country of the dis-
coverer. Nor can any stipulation be produced, by
which the rest of the world have bound themselves to
submit to this pretension. Yet when we reflect that
the claims to newly discovered countries can hardly
be settled, between the different nations which fre-
quent them, without some positive rule or other; that
such claims, if left unsettled, would prove sources of
ruinous and fatal contentions; that the rule already
proposed, however arbitrary, possesses one principal
quality of a rule, — determination and certainty; above
all, that it is acquiesced in, and that no one has pow-
er to substitute another, however he might contrive a

WAR AND MILITARY ESTABLISHMENTS. 237

better, in its place: when we reflect upon these pro-
perties of the rule, or rather upon these consequences
of rejecting its authority, we are led to ascribe to it
the virtue and obligation of a precept of natural jus-
tice, because we perceive in it that which is the foun-
dation of justice itself, — public importance and utili-
ty. And a prince who should dispute this rule, for the
want of regularity in its formation, or of intelligible
justice in its principle, and by such disputes should
disturb the tranquillity of nations, and at the same
time lay the foundation of future disturbances, would
be little less criminal than he who breaks the public
peace by a violation of engagements to which he had
himself consented, or by an attack upon those nation-
al rights which are founded immediately in the law
of nature, and in the first perceptions of- equity.
The same thing may be repeated of the rules which
the law of nations prescribes in the other instances
that were mentioned, namely, that the obscurity of
their origin, or the arbitrariness of their principle, sub-
tracts nothing from the respect that is due to them,
when once established.

War may be considered with a view to its causes
and its conduct.

The justifying causes of war are deliberate inva-
sions of right, and the necessity of maintaining such
a balance of power amongst neighbouring nations, as
that no single state, or confederacy of states, be strong
enough to overwhelm the rest. The objects of just
war are, precaution, defence, or reparation. In a
larger sense, every just war is a defensive war, inas-
much as every just war supposes an injury perpetrated,
attempted, or feared.

The insufficient causes or unjustifiable motives of
war, are the family alliances, the personal friendships,
or the personal quarrels of princes; the internal dis-
putes which are carried on in otner nations; the jus-
tice of other wars; the extension of territory or of
trade; the misfortunes or accidental weakness of a
neighbouring or rival nation.

238 WAR AND MILITARY ESTABLISHMENTS.

There are two lessons of rational and sober policy,
which, if it were possible to inculcate them into the
councils of princes, would exclude many of the motives
of war, and allay that restless ambition which is con-
stantly stirring up one part of mankind against another.
The first of these lessons admonishes princes to " place
their glory and their emulation, not in the extent of
territory, but in raising the greatest quantity of hap-
piness out of a given territory." The enlargement of
territory by conquest is not only not a just object of
war, but, in the greater part of the instances in which
it is attempted, not even desirable. It is certainly not
desirable where it adds nothing to the numbers, the
enjoyments, or the security, of the conquerors. What
commonly is gained to a nation, by the annexing of
new dependencies, or the subjugation of other coun-
tries to its dominion, but a wider frontier to defend;
more interfering claims to vindicate; more quarrels,
more enemies, more rebellions to encounter; a greater
force to keep up by sea and land; more services to
provide for, and more establishments to pay ? And,
in order to draw from these acquisitions something
that may make up for the charge of keeping them, a
revenue is to be extorted, or a monopoly to be enforc-
ed and watched, at an expense which costs half their
produce. Thus the provinces are oppressed, in order
to pay for being ill governed; and the original state
is exhausted \n maintaining a feeble authority over dis-
contented subjects. No assignable portion of country
is benefited by the change; and if the sovereign ap-
pear to himself to be enriched or strengthened, when
every part of his dominion is made poorer and weaker
than it was, it is probable that he is deceived by ap-
pearances. Or were it true that the grandeur of the
prince is magnified by those exploits; the glory which
is purchased, and the ambition which is gratified, by
the distress of one country without adding to the hap-
piness of another, which at the same time enslaves the
new and impoverishes the ancient part of the empire,
by whatever names it may be known or flattered,
ought to be an object of universal execration; and
oftentimes not more so to the vanquished than to the

WAR AND MILITARY ESTABLISHMENTS. 239

very people whose armies or whose treasures have
achieved the victory.

There are, indeed, two cases in which the extension
of territory may be of real advantage, and to both
parties. The first is, where an empire thereby reaches
to the natural boundaries which divide it from the
rest of the world. Thus we account the British
Channel the natural boundary which separates the
nations of England and France; and if France pos-
sessed any countries on this, or England any cities or
provinces on that side of the sea, recovery of such
towns and districts to what may be called their natural
sovereign, though it may not be a just reason for
commencing war, would be a proper use to make of
victory. The other case is, where neighbouring
states, being severally too small and weak> to defend
themselves against the dangers that surround them,
can only be safe by a strict and constant junction of
their strength: here conquest will effect the purposes
of confederation and alliance; and the union which it
produces is often more close and permanent than that
which results from voluntary association. Thus, if
the heptarchy had continued in England, the different
kingdoms of it might have separately fallen a prey to
foreign invasion: and although the interest and dan-
ger of one part of the island were in truth common to
every other part, it might have been difficult to have
circulated this persuasion amongst independent na-
tions; or to have united them in any regular or steady
opposition to their continental enemies, had not the
valour and fortune of an enterprising prince incorpo-
rated the whole into a single monarchy. Here the
conquered gained as much by the revolution as the
conquerors. In like manner, and for the same rea-
son, when the two royal families of Spain were met
together in one race of princes, and the several pro-
vinces of France had devolved into the possession of
a single sovereign, it became unsafe for the inhabitants
of Great Britain any longer to remain under separate
governments. The union of England and Scotland,
which transformed two quarrelsome neighbours into
one powerful empire, and which was first brought

240 WAR AND MILITARY ESTABLISHMENTS.

about by the course of succession, and afterwards
completed by amicable convention, would have been
a fortunate conclusion of hostilities, had it been ef-
fected by the operations of war. These two cases
being admitted, namely, the obtaining of natural
boundaries and barriers, and the including under the
same government those who have a common danger
and a common enemy to guard against; I know not
whether a third can be thought of, in which the ex-
tension of empire by conquest is useful even to the
conquerors.

The second rule of prudence which ought to be
recommended to those who conduct the affairs of na-
tions is " never to pursue national honour as distinct
from national interest." This rule acknowledges that
it is often necessary to assert the honour of a nation
for the sake of its interest. The spirit and courage
of a people are supported by flattering their pride.
Concessions which betray too much of fear or weak-
ness, though they relate to points of mere ceremony,
invite demands and attacks of more serious import-
ance. Our rule allows all this; and only directs that,
when points of honour become subjects of contention
between sovereigns, or are likely to be made the oc-
casions of war, they be estimated with a reference to
utility, and not by themselves. " The dignity of his
crown, the honour of his flag, the glory of his arms,"
in the mouth of a prince, are stately and imposing
terms; but the ideas they inspire are insatiable. It
may be always glorious to conquer, whatever be the
justice of the war, or the price of the victory. The
dignity of a sovereign may not permit him to recede
from churns of homage and respect, at whatever ex-
pense of national peace and happiness they are to be
maintained; however unjust they may have been in
their original, or in their continuance however use-
less to the possessor, or mortifying and vexatious to
othei states. The pursuit of honour, when set loose
from the admonitions of prudence, becomes in kings
a wild and romantic passion: eager to engage, and
gathering fury in its progress, it is checked by no dif-
ficulties, repellod by no dangers; it forgets or despises

WAR AND MILITARY ESTABLISHMENTS. 241

those considerations of safety, ease, wealth, and
plenty, which, in the eye of true public wisdom, com-
pose the objects, to which the renown of arms, the
fame of victory, are only instrumental and subordi-
nate. The pursuit of interest, on the other hand, is
a sober principle; computes costs and consequences;
is cautious of entering into war; stops in time: when
regulated by those universal maxims of relative jus-
tice which belong to the affairs of communities as
well as of private persons, it is the right principle for
nations to proceed by; even when it trespasses upon
these regulations, it is much less dangerous, because
much more temperate than the other.

2. The conduct of war. — If the cause and end
of war be justifiable, all the means that appear ne-
cessary to the end are justifiable also. This is the
principle which defends those extremities to which
the violence of war usually proceeds; for since war
is a contest by force between parties who acknow-
ledge no common superior, and since it includes not
in its idea the supposition of any convention which
should place limits to the operation of force, it has
naturally no boundary but that in which force termi-
nates,— the destruction of the life against which the
force is directed. Let it be observed, however, that
the licence of war authorizes no acts of hostility but
what are necessary or conducive to the end and object
of the war. Gratuitous barbarities borrow no excuse
from this plea*, of which kind is every cruelty and
every insult that serves only to exasperate the suffer-
ings or to incense the hatred of an enemy, without
weakening his strength, or in any manner tending to
procure his submission, such as the slaughter of cap-
tives, the subjecting of them to indignities or torture,
the violation of women, the profanation of temples,
the demolition of public buildings, libraries, statues,
and in general the destruction or defacing of works
that conduce nothing to annoyance or defence. These
enormities are prohibited not only by the practice of
civilized nations, but by the law of nature itself; aa
having no proper tendency to accelerate the termi-
aation, or accomplish the object of the war: and a§

YOL. II. 21

242 WAR AND MILITARY ESTABLISHMENTS.

containing that which in peace and war is equally
unjustifiable, — ultimate and gratuitous mischief.

There are other restrictions imposed upon the con-
duct of war, not by the law of nature primarily, but
by the laws of war first, and by the law of nature as
seconding and ratifying the laws of war. The laws
of war are part of the law of nations; and founded,
as to their authority, upon the same principle with
the rest of that code, namely, upon the fact of their
being established, no matter when or by whom; upon
the expectation of their being mutually observed, in
consequence of that establishment ; and upon the
general utility which results from such observance.
The binding force of these rules is the greater, be-
cause the regard that is paid to them must be universal
or none. The breach of the rule can only be pun-
ished by the subversion of the rule itself: on which
account, the whole mischief that ensues from the loss
of those salutary restrictions which such rules pre-
scribe is justly chargeable upon the first aggressor.
To this consideration may be referred the duty of
refraining in war from poison and from assassination.
If the law of nature simply be consulted, it may be
difficult to distinguish between these and other me-
thods of destruction which are practised without scru-
ple by nations at war. If it be lawful to kill an
enemy at all, it seems lawful to do so by one mode
of death as well as by another; by a dose of poison,
as by the point of a sword; by the hand of an assassin,
as by the attack of an army: for if it be said that
one species of assault leaves to an enemy the power
of defending himself against it, and that the other
does not; it may be answered, that we possess at least
the same right to cut ofi an enemy's defence, that we
have to seek his destruction. In this manner might
the question be debated, if there existed no rule or law
of war upon the subject. But when we observe that
such practices are at present excluded by the usage
and opinions of civilized nations; that the first re-
course to them would be followed by irstant retalia-
tion; that the mutual licence which such attempts
must introduce would fill both sides with the misery

WAR AND MILITARY ESTABLISHMENTS. 243

of continual dread and suspicion, without adding to
the strength or success of either; that when the ex-
ample came to be more generally imitated, which it
soon would be, after the sentiment that condemns it
had been once broken in upon, it would greatly
aggravate the horrors and calamities of war, yet pro-
cure no superiority to any of the nations engaged in
it; — when we view these effects, we join in the public
reprobation of such fatal expedients, as of the admis-
sion amongst mankind of new and enormous evils
without necessity or advantage. The law of nature,
we see at length, forbids these innovations, as so
many transgressions of a beneficial general rule actu-
ally subsisting.

The licence of war then acknowledges two limita-
tions: it authorizes no hostilities, which have not. an
apparent tendency to effectuate the object of the war;
it respects those positive laws which the custom of
nations hath sanctified, and which, whilst they are
mutually conformed to, mitigate the calamities of
war, without weakening its operations, or diminishing
the power or safety of belligerent states.

Long and various experience seems to have con-
vinced the nations of Europe, that nothing but a
standing army can oppose a standing army, where
the numbers on each side bear any moderate propor-
tion to one another. The first standing army that
appeared in Europe after the fall of the Roman legion,
was that which was erected in France by Charles VII.
about the middle of the fifteenth century: and that
the institution hath since become general, can only
be attributed to the superiority and success which
are everywhere observed to attend it. The truth
is, the closeness, regularity, and quickness of their
movements; the unreserved, instantaneous, and almost
mechanical obedience to orders; the sense of personal
honour, and the familiarity with dvinger, which belong
to a disciplined, veteran, and embodied soldiery, give
such nrmness and intrepidity to their approach, such
weight and execution to their attack, as are not to be

244 WAR AND MILITARY ESTABLISHMENTS.

withstood by loose ranks of occasional and newly
levied troops, who are liable by their inexperience to
disorder and confusion, and in whom fear is constantly
augmented by novelty and surprise. It is possible
that a militia, with a great excess of numbers, and a
ready supply of recruits, may sustain a defensive or
a flying war against regular troops: it is also true
that any service, which keeps soldiers for a while
together, and inures them by little and little to the
habits of war and the danger of action, transforms
them in effect into a standing army. But upon this
plan it may be necessary for almost a whole nation
to go out to war to repel an invader; beside that a
people so unprepared must always have the seat, and
with it the miseries of war, at home, being utterly
incapable of carrying their operations into foreign
country.

From the acknowledged superiority of standing
armies, it follows, not only that it is unsafe for a na-
tion to disband its regular troops, whilst neighbouring
kingdoms retain theirs, but also that regular troops
provide for the public service at the least possible
expense. I suppose a certain quantity of military
strength to be necessary, and I say, that a standing
army costs the community less than any other esta-
blishment which presents to an enemy the same force.
The constant drudgery of low employments is not
only incompatible with any great degree of perfection
or expertness in the profession of a soldier, but the
profession of a soldier almost always unfits men for
the business of regular occupations. Of three inha-
bitants of a village, it is better that one should addict
himself entirely to arms, and the other two stay con-
stantly at home to cultivate the ground, than that all
the three should mix the avocations of a camp with
the business of husbandry. By the former arrange -
ment, the country gains one complete soldier and
two industrious husbandmen; from the latter, it re-
ceives three raw militiamen, who are at the same
time three idle and profligate peasants. It should be
considered also, that the emergencies of war wait not
for seasons. Where there is no standing army ready

WAR AND MILITARY ESTABLISHMENTS. 245

for immediate service, it may be necessary to call the
reaper from the fields in harvest, or the ploughman in
seed-time; and the provision of a whole year may
perish by the interruption of one month's labour. A
standing army, therefore, is not only a more effectual
but a cheaper method of providing for the public
safety than any other, because it adds more than any
other to the common strength, and takes less from
that which composes the wealth of a nation, — its
stock of productive industry.

There is yet another distinction between standing
armies and militias, which deserves a more attentive
consideration than any that has been mentioned.
When the state relies, for its defence, upon a militia,
it is necessary that arms be put into the hands of the
people at large. The militia itself must be numerous,
in proportion to the want or inferiority of its discipline,
and the imbecilities or defects of its constitution.
Moreover, as such a militia must be supplied by rota-
tion, allotment, or some mode of succession, whereby
they who have served a certain time are replaced by
fresh draughts from the country, a much greater
number will be instructed in the use of arms, and
will have been occasionally embodied together, than
are actually employed, or than are supposed to be
wanted at the same time. Now what effects, upon
the civil condition of the country, may be looked for
from this general diffusion of the military character,
becomes an inquiry of great importance and delicacy.
To me it appears doubtful whether any government
can be long tecure, where the people are acquainted
with the use of arms, and accustomed to resort to
them. Every faction will find itself at the head of
an army; every disgust will excite commotion, and
every commotion become a civil war. Nothing, per-
haps can govern a nation of armed citizens but that
which governs an army — despotism. I do not mean
that a regular government would become despotic by
training up its subjects to the knowledge and exercise
of arms, but that it would ere long be forced to give
way to despotism in some other shape; and that the
country would be liable to what is even worse than a

TOL. II. 21 *

246 WAR AND MILITARY ESTABLISHMENT*.

settled and constitutional despotism, — to perpetual
rebellions, and to perpetual revolutions; to short and
violent usurpations, to the successive tyranny of gov-
ernors, rendered cruel and jealous by the danger and
instability of their situation.

The same purposes of strength and efficacy which
make a standing army necessary at all, make it neces-
sary, in mixed governments, that this army be sub-
mitted to the management and direction of the prince:
for, however well a popular council may be qualified
for the offices of legislation, it is altogether unfit for
the conduct of war; in which success usually depends
upon vigour and enterprise; upon secrecy, despatch,
and unanimity; upon a quick perception of opportu-
nities, and the power of seizing every opportunity
immediately. It is likewise necessary that the obe-
dience of an army be as prompt and active as possible;
for which reason it ought to be made an obedience
of will and emulation. Upon this consideration is
founded the expediency of leaving to the prince not
only the government and destination of the army, but
the appointment and promotion of its officers: be-
cause a design is then alone likely to be executed
with zeal and fidelity, when the person who issues the
order chooses the instruments and rewards the ser-
vice. To which we may subjoin, that in governments
like ours, if the direction and officering of the army
were placed in the hands of the democratic part of
the constitution, this power, added to what they
already possess, would so overbalance all that would
be left of regal prerogative, that little would remain
of monarchy in the constitution, but the name arid
expense; nor would these probably remain long.

Whilst we describe, however, the advantages of
standing armies, we must not conceal the danger.
These properties of their constitution, — the soldiery
being separated in a great degree from the rest of
the community, their being closely linked amongst
themselves by habits of society and subordination,
and the dependency of the whole chain upon the will
and favour of the prince, — however essential they
may be to the purposes for which armies are kept up,

WAR AND MILITARY ESTABLISHMENTS. 247

give them an aspect in no wise favourable to public
liberty. The danger, however, is diminished by
maintaining, on all occasions, as much alliance of
interest, and as much intercourse of sentiment, be-
tween the military part of the nation and the other
orders of the people, as are consistent with the union
and discipline of an army. For which purpose, offi-
cers of the army, upon whose disposition towards the
commonwealth a great deal may depend, should be
taken from the principal families of the country, and
at the same time also be encouraged to establish in
it families of their own, as well as be admitted to seats
in the senate, to hereditary distinctions, and to all the
civil honours and privileges that are compatible with
their profession : which circumstances of connexion
and situation will give them such a share in the
general rights of the people, and so engage their in-
clinations on the side of public liberty, as to afford a
reasonable security that they cannot be brought, by
any promises of personal aggrandizement, to assist in
the execution of measures which might enslave thcil
posterity, their kindred, and their country.

FOR

THE EXAMINATION OP STUDENTS

IN

PALEY'S

MORAL AND POLITICAL

BY JOHN FROST,

PRINCIPAL OF THE MAYHE W GRAMMAR SCHOOL, BOSTOS

BOSTON:

BENJAMIN B. MUSSEY & CO.,

29 CORNHILL.

1852.

DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS, to wit i

District Clerk's Office.

BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the seventeenth day of October,
A. D. 1828, in the fifty-third year of the Independence of the United
States of America, Nathaniel H. Whitaker, of the said district, has
deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof he claims
as proprietor, in the words following, to wit :

" Questions for the Examination of Students in Paley's Moral
and Political Philosophy. By John Frost, Principal of the Mayhew
Grammar School, Boston."

In conformity to the act of the Congress of the United States, en-
titled, " An Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the
copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of
such copies, during the times therein mentioned j" and also to an
act, entitled, " An Act supplementary to an act, entitled, An Act
for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps,
charts, and hooks, to the authors and proprietors of such copies,
during the times therein mentioned ; and extending the benefits
thereof to the arts of designing, engraving and etching historical
and other prints."

JNO. W. DAVIS,
Clerk of the District of Massachusetts.

FOR THE EXAMINATION OF STUDENTS IN
PALEY'S PHILOSOPHY.

The figures on the margin refer to the pages of the Boston School Edition, on which th«
answers are to be found.

BOOK I.— CHAPTER I.

21. What is Moral Philosophy ? What is its use ?
What are the ordinary rules ot conduct among men ?

CHAPTER II.

What is the law of honour ?

22. What duties does it regulate 1 What does it omit ?
What crimes does it allow ?

CHAPTER III.

Why is not 'the law of the land a sufficient rule of conduct ?

23. What class of duties are left out of the statute book ?
What crimes does it allow ?

Why do not free states allow the magistrate discretionary
power ?

CHAPTER IV.

24. Do the Scriptures furnish a specific rule of every variety

of moral duty ? Why not ?
What kind of rules do the Scriptures furnish?
How are they illustrated ?

25. How are all practical sciences taught ?

What is the difference between the Scripture manner of
teaching moral science and the usual mode of teaching
other sciences ?

Do the Scriptures define crimes accurately in all cases?
Why not ?

Do these views imply any imperfection in the Scriptures 7

CHAPTER V.

26. Relate the anecdote of Caius Toranius.

What is the question; among moralists, with relation to
this story 1

27. Which party affirm that the uneducated savage would dis-

approve Toranius's conduct ?

4 QUESTIONS OJf [VOI.. I. B. I.

How is the affirmative supported ?

What is the first argument on the negative side ?

28. How is the general approbation of good actions account-

ed for ?

29. What other passion continues in the same mannei ?
How is the custom of approving good actions transmitted ?

30. What do children most readily imitate ?
Are there any maxims universally true ?

31. Does not the argument relating to instinct prove too

much ?

What is Paley's opinion concerning the moral sense?
What absurd position did Aristotle lay down as a maxim?
What would be the grand delect of a system of morality

founded on instincts ?

32. Is the question, concerning the moral sense one of much

practical importance ?

CHAPTER VI.

How is the word happy applied ?
What condition may be called happy ?

33. How do pleasures differ ?

34. (I. 1st.) Does nappiness consist in sensual indulgence ?

Why not ?

What is the common delusion attending the pursuit of
pleasure ?

35. What is the most common characteristic of the votaries

of pleasure ?

36. (2dl}r.) Does happiness consist in exemption from labour,

care, &c. ? Do retired men of business find it ?
Do not agitation and even pain sometimes afford relief?
(3dly.) Does happiness consist in rank ? Why not ?

37. What kind of superiority vields satisfaction ? Illustrate

this.

Are the pleasures of ambition common to all conditions ?
Why?

38. How aoes Paley prove that happiness does not consist in

Etness ?
the conduct of life, what should we know " before-
I ?"

39. Will any particular plan of life answer for all ?

(1.) What is the first requisite for happiness enumerated ?
What persons usually jx)ssess the best spirits ?
Is benevolence productive of happiness 1 [ness ?

(2.) Is the exercise of the faculties productive of nappi-
How does it appear that the exercise of hope is an im-
portant requisite for happiness ?

40. What makes the rich resort to gaming, &c. ?
Distinguish the two kinds of hope.

Which is conducive to happiness ?

VOL. i. B. ii.] PALEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 5

What pleasures are most valuable ?
What man has the greatest advantage in this respect ?
41 What sort of engagement or occupation is to be preferred ?
(3.) Does happiness depend on the prudent constitution

of the habits ?

What is the great art in which the secret of human happi-
ness consists ?

42. What advantage has the peasant over the epicure ? The

labourer over the card-player ?
Which enjoys Sunday most ?
What advantage has the man of retired habits over the

man of the world ?
What advantage has the reader of scientific books over

the novel reader ?

43. How is happiness affected by circumstances of fortune ?
Which conduces most to happiness, the spending or the

acquiring of property ?

(4.) Is heal in important to happiness ? [health ?

By what sacrifices should we be willing to purchase

44. What conclusions are drawn from this account of human

happiness ?

CHAPTER VII.

What is virtue ?

What are the subject, rule, and motive, of human virtue ?
How is it divided ?

45. What two branches is it divided into ?
What are the four cardinal virtues ?
What is the modern division of virtue ?

( 1 .) What is the common spring of action ?

46. Where is the exercise of virtue, the guilt of vice, or any

use of moral and religious knowledge ?
Are any actions to be performed solely for the sake of
habit? Illustrate this.

48. (2.) Has the Christian religion ascertained the precise

quantity of virtue necessary to salvation ?
Is this any objection to it ? Why not 1

49. (1 .) What description of persons may not expect a future

state of happiness ?
(2.) Is a state of happiness to be expected by those who

indulge any one sin habitually ? Why not?
60. (3 ) Will unprofitableness be punished ? How does this

appear ?
51. (4.) Jn questions of conduct, which side should we take

Give an instance.

BOOK II.— CHAPTER I.

62. Why am I obliged to keep my word ?
How do these reasons coincide ?

1 *

6 QUESTIONS ON [v. I., B. II.

53. How are they deficient ?

How should the inquiry be conducted ?

CHAPTER II.

When is a man obliged ?

Illustrate the necessity of the motive being a violent one.

54. Why must the motive result from the command of an-

other ?
What follows from this account of obligation T

CHAPTER III.

How are we obliged to keep our word ?

55. What are our motive and rule for moral conduct ?
Does moral obligation resemble other obligations ?
Illustrate the difference between an act of prudence and

an act of duty.

In what does this difference consist ?

jfi. What are the two great questions that principally con-
cern us as moral agents ?
Which is to be discussed in the present work ?

CHAPTER IV.

What are the two methods of ascertaining the will of

God?
.57 Should these be separated ? Illustrate this.

Are the sanctions of religion necessary to a perfect sys-
tem of morals?

CHAPTER V.

53. How might the Deity have insured our misery, if he had

desired it ?

What is the consequence of supposing the Deity indiffer-
ent to our happiness ?
59. If our happiness be not the result of accident, what is the

necessary inference ?

What appears to have been the design of the Deity in

the contrivance of the human frame ? Illustrate this.

Is evil the natural result of the contrivance of the human

frame ?

GO. Which affords the more convincing proof of the benevo-
lence of the Deity, the contemplation of universal na-
ture, or of some single example ?
What was Paley's favourite example ?
What is the rule resulting from tne fact, that God wills
and wishes the happiness of his creatures ?

CHAPTER VI.

61. How are actions to be estimated ?

What constitutes the obligation of a moral ru!e T

v, i., B. ii.] PALEY'S PHILOSOPHY. T

State the objection.

62. How is it refuted ?

How are the bad consequences of actions divided 1
What are the particular consequences ? The general t

Illustrate this.
Why, therefore, is a single unlawful act not useful ?

CHAPTER VII.

63. Why are general rules necessary ? Illustrate this.

Are these general rules equally necessary in the Divine
government ? Illustrate their necessity.

64. Why has secrecy been supposed, in any measure, to jus-

tify a wrong action ? Why does it not ?
What three points are proposed to the supporters of this
doctrine ?

CHAPTER VIII.

65. How may the general consequences of any action be esti-

mated ?

In how wide a sense must the expediency of actions be
considered ?

66. Illustrate the difference between the particular and the

general consequences of actions by the examples of
counterfeiting, forgery, sheep-stealing, house-breaking,
smuggling", breaking parole.

67. Why are crimes the same, whose particular consequences

are widely different?

Were the ancients aware of this distinction?
What did they mean by the term Jwnestum ?

CHAPTER IX.

68. How are right and obligation related ?

Upon what do moral obligation arid right depend ?

69. Describe right as a quality of persons. Of actions.

CHAPTER X.

How are the rights of persons divided ?

70. (1.) Define natural ngnts. Adventitious.
Enumerate some of the former. The latter.
How are adventitious rights created ?

71. (2.) Give an example of an alienable right. An unalieu-

able right.

Is the right *.o civil liberty alienable according to Paley t
(3.) What are perfect rights ? Imperfect ?
Give examples of perfect rights.

72. Of imperfect rights.

Why may not all our rights be enforced ? Illustrate thi«
bv the example of the worthy candidate for office.

73. By the example of the poor man.

8 QUESTIONS ON [V. I., B. III.

Is an obligation as imperfect as the corresponding right ?
Is it, therefore, less criminal to violate it ? Illustrate this
by the example of the corrupt voter.

74. What kinds of obligation are generally created by posi-

tive precepts ? By negative ones ?

CHAPTER XI.

What are general rights ?
(1.) Give an example.
On what is it founded ?

75. (2.) Give another example.

What reasons are alleged in vindication of this practice ?
Why are these reasons unsound ?
What is the real ground of the right ?

76. When was this permission granted ?

Why is wastefulness wrong ? Give an example.

77. What should not be made exclusive property? How

does this appear ]

78. How should a medicinal spring be disposed of?

Is the right to an inexhaustible fishery common to all na-
tions ?

How much of the sea has any nation an exclusive right

to?
79 Give another example of a general right.

How is the amount of restitution, in cases of destruction
by extreme necessity, to be determined ?

BOOK HI.— PART I.— CHAPTER I.

80. Illustrate the institution of property.

CHAPTER II.

81. (1.) How does the institution of property increase the

produce of the earth ?

Give an example of a population subsisting without prop-
erty in land.

82. (2.) What would be the effect of a community of right to

the fruits of the earth, in respect to their being allowed

to ripen ?

(3.) Does the institution of property prevent contests ?
(4.) Does it improve the conveniency of living ? How 7

How does it encourage the arts ?

83. Is the institution of property, on the whole, beneficial ?

CHAPTER III.

What were the first objects of property ? The next ?
What people have advanced no farther than this ?
What were subsequently important objects of property T

84. Give the history of landed property.
In immoveables.

v. I., B. in.] PALEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 9

CHAPTER IV.

G5, What difficulty occurs in explaining the origin of proper-
ty in land ?

How is it said to have originated in tacit consent ?
What is the objection to this ?
How is it said that labouring on land created ownership ?

86. To what kinds of property does this apply ?

What is Paley's account of the first right of ownership ?

87. How far does this reason justify property ? Illustrate this.
What is necessary to make the right of property, ac-
quired by the above-mentioned means, valid ?

What is the real foundation of the existing rights of pro-
perty ? Explain this.

88. What follows from this account of the origin of property ?
,Does the right depend upon the expediency of the law T

To what perversion is this principle liable ? Illustrate
this.

CHAPTER V.

90. {!.) Whence arises the obligation to perform promises?

Explain this.

Is confidence in each other necessary to enable men to
live in society ?

91. (2.) When the terms of the promise admit of more senses

than one, how is it to be interpreted ? Why not in
the sense in which the promiser actually intended it ?
Why not as the promisee received it ?
How did Temures conduct ?

92. Was this a breach of promise ?

Upon what does the obligation of promises depend ?
How far is an intention, expressed without an engage-
ment, binding ? How far with an engagement ?

93. (3. 1.) Is a promise binding, which it is impossible to per-

form 1 When is the maker of such a promise guilty 1
Give examples.

94. (2.) Are promises binding when the performance is un-

lawful ? State the first case of this.

Why are the panics not bound in this case ? Slate the
other case.

Why are not these promises valid ?
P5. Does this extend to imperfect obligations ? Why?

What is the caution given to the young with respect to
promises ?

Which of two contradictory obligations should prevail ?
96 Does a promise lose its obligation by proceeding from an
unlawful motive ? Illustrate this.

What is the single case in which the obligation of a pro-
mise will justify a conduct, which, unless it had been
promised, would be unjust ? Give examples.

10 QUESTIONS ON [v. I. , B.HI

97. (3.) Are promises binding1 when they contradict a former

promise ? Why not f

!4.| Are promises binding before acceptance ? Why not ?
5.) Are promises binding which are released by the

promisee ?

Why is not a promise always released by the death of
the promisee ?

98. (6. 1.) \Vhy is not an erroneous promise binding where

the error proceeds from the mistake or misrepresenta-
tion of the promisee ? Illustrate this.
(2.) Why not .n the case of a false supposition ? Explain
this by an example.

99. Do other species of errors annul the obligation of a pro-

mise ? Illustrate this.
Give an example of a promise extorted by violence.

100. Is it doubted whether such a promise be binding ?
State the plainer case where the promise is binding.
What are vows ? Why is the violation of them sinful ?
Are vows encouraged in the Christian Scriptures ?
Was Jephtha's vow binding 1

CHAPTER VI.

101. What is a contract 7 What is the rule for their construc-

tion?

CHAPTER VII.

Should the seller disclose the faults of his goods ?
1()2. Prove this. What is the exception to this rule ?

How do you prove the criminality of passing bad money ?

103. What is always a fair price, except in cases of monopoly

or combination ? Illustrate this.
How may one free himself from the tacit engagement to

sell at the market value ?
Give the rule in the case of goods damaged between

sale and delivery.

104. What determines questions of this sort ? Why? Give

an example.

CHAPTER VUI.

105. What are contracts of hazard ?

Should one side never be allowed any advantage over

the other ?
What is the proper restriction ? Why ?

106. Is it right to avail one's self of secrets of state, &c. m

speculations in trade 1
What is the rule for the conduct of the person insured ?

CHAPTER IX.

What is inconsumable property ?

v. i., BUI.] PALEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 11

107. Who should bear the Joss, when the thing lent is lost or

damaged ?

How are the two cases, proposed, distinguished ?
How should the increased value of the rent of a house or

estate be appropriated 1 Give examples of each case.

CHAPTER X.

108. Is the taking of interest justified by the law of nature ?

109. Whence arose the prejudice against it?

To whom did this prohibition probably apply 1 How is

this confirmed ?
Give a sketch of the history of the law of interest.

1 10. Is compound interest equitable ? Why ?

State the case and the rule for money borrowed in one

country to be repaid in another.
Suppose the value of coin to be altered.

111. Is a oorrovver bound to secure a lender against loss, so far

as lies in his power ?

Does Paley justify imprisonment for debt 1 On what
groiuid ?

112. What does he say is the only question about the law for

imprisoning debtors 1

Should imprisonment for debt be considered a punish-
ment ? What debtors should, therefore, in equity, be
exempted from it ? How would the poor suffer, by
mitigating this law.

CHAPTER XL

113. How far does the master's power over his servant extend ?
How should the treatment of servants be regulated ?
Why is not a servant bound to obey the unlawful com-
mand of his master ?

114. Does the master's authority justify the servant in doing

wrong ?

How should clerks and apprentices be employed ?
For what acts of his servant is the master responsible i
How far does the law oJ England hold the master re-
sponsible ?
How are recommendations to be estimated, according to

Doctor Johnson ?
115 How do some masters injure servants who wish to leave

them ?

Why should a master of a family restrain his household 1
What are the Scripture injunctioas in respect to the re-
ciprocal duties of master and servant.

CHAPTER XII.

116. Whot does an agent undertake and promise ?

117. What is the chief difficulty of an agent's situation 7

12 QUESTIONS ON [V. I., B.IJI.

Is an agent, who acts without pay, responsible for losses

by misfortune ?
In what cases is a hired agent responsible ?

118. What is the universal rule ?

Should the employer pay for unforeseen and unexpected
losses of the agent incurred in his service ? Should he
pay for foreseen losses ?

CHAPTER XIII.

1 19. Give the rule for dividing the profits of partnership, where

one partner contributes money and the other labour ?
Give an example ?

CHAPTER XIV.

120. With whom does the holder of an office, in a learned

seminary, contract ?

What do.es the contract with the founder enjoin ? With
the electors 1

121. When may an office not be discharged by a deputy ?

Which of these applies to parochial clergy employing
curates ? In what case does this objection lose its force ?

122. For whom is this indulgence particularly proper ?

CHAPTER XV.

123. Why is a lie a breach of promise ?

What is the other source of the obligation to veracity ?
Is a falsehood, which deceives no one, a lie 1 Why not T
In what other case is a falsehood no lie ?

124. Do the laws of war allow deception 1

Is the habit of fiction and exaggeration, in discourse,

particularly dangerous and unjustifiable ?
J25. What is the usual consequence of white lies ?
How are pious frauds to be regarded ?
Can a lie exist without literal falsehood ?

126. May a lie be acted ?

Give an example of a lie of omission.

CHAPTER XVI.

(1.) What is the form of oaths among the Jews and
Scotch ?

127. How did the Greeks and Romans make a private con

tract ? How did they do on more solemn occasions ?
What is the English form ?
J28 What bad effects have resulted from it ?

2. What is the signification of an oath ?

3. What Christians decline swearing ?

129. 1. How does it appear, that Christ did not intend to for-
bid judicial oaths?

(2.) How does it appear that the prohibition was not um
versal ?

v. i.,fi. in.] PALEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 13

130. (3.) Did Christ allow the adjuration of the high priest ?
Did St. Paul use expressions which contain the nature of

oaths ?
To what species of swearing1 does Christ's prohibition

apply ?
(IV.) On what does the proper force of the obligation of

an oath depend ?
(1.) Why is perjury a more deliberate sin than simple

lying ?

2.) How does it violate superior confidence ?
3.) How has God sanctioned oaths ?
V.) When are promissory oaths not binding 1
VI.) How should oaths be interpreted ?

CHAPTER XVII.

132. What does the witness swear ?

Is concealment a violation of this oath ? Why ?
What exceplion is there to this rule ? Why ?
To what is the exception confined ?

133. Is tenderness to the prisoner an excuse for concealment ?

Why not ?

How should the witness dispose of irrelevant or imper-
tinent questions ?

CHAPTER XVIII.

What is the English oath of allegiance ?

134. What was it intended to ascertain ?

(1.) Doe* this oath allow the juror to support the claims of

any pretender to the throne except the reigning prince ?

(2.) Does it allow an attempt to depose the reigtiing

Crince for any reason whatever ? Illustrate this from
islory.

(3.) Does the oath allow the taking up of arms against
the reigning prince from private motives ? Illustrate
this.

135. (1.) Does the oath permit resistance to the king when

such resistance would benefit the community ? Illus-
trate this from history.

(2.) Does the oath permit resistance to unlawful com-
mands ?

136. (3.) Does the oath require adherence to a sovereign after

he is deposed? Why not ?

CHAPTER XIX.

What is the oath against bribery ? Are evasions of this
oath criminal ?

CHAPTER XX.

137 Wh}' is simony so called 1

14 QUESTIONS OX [V. I., D. Ill,

Is the sale of advowsons allowable ?
What is the oath against simony ?

138. What does the law adjudge to be simony ?

CHAPTER XXI.

139. What kinds of observances do members of the English

universities swear to observe ?

How are unlawful directions disposed of? Impractica-
ble directions 1

140. What is the measure of the juror's duty with respect to

inconvenient observances ?

(1. 2. 3.) What three circumstances are requisite m or-
der to render inconveniency a valid excuse ? Enu-
merate some of these inconvenient observances.
WThy should they be dispensed with ?

CHAPTER XXII.

141. Why is subscription to articles of religion considered in

connexion with oaths?
Who imposes subscription ?
What absurdity follows from supposing a belief in every

proj)osition contained in the Thirty-nine Articles is

necessary to justify subscription ?
What did the authors of the law intend ?

142. Who should not subscribe ?

CHAPTER XXIII.

What kind of property is absolute ?

143. Is land so ? Why not ?

What absurdity would the absolute possession of land in-
volve ?

Does history confirm this account of property ?

What are the good effects of extending the owner's pow-
er over his property beyond his life ?

How long does the English law allow entails to operate ?

144. Are informal wills binding on the conscience ? Why

not?

145. From what does the regard due to kindred, in the dispo-

sal of fortune, arise f

When is a man disengaged from the force of these rea-
sons?

146. Why should poor relatives be provided for ?
When is the omission of a will culpable ?

How did wills first come under the cognizance of eccle-
siastical courts ?

147. How must succession to intestates be regulated ?
What is the English rule of distribution of personal estate ?

Is real estate so equitably disposed of? Is there no
remedy ?

Y.i.jB.iu.] PALEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 15

BOOK III.— PART II.— CHAPTER I.

148. How does Paley use the term charity in this connexion T
Of what is it the province ? Why ?

What are the principal methods of promoting the happi-
ness of our inferiors ?

CHAPTER II.

149. Illustrate the mode of treatment proper for dependants.
Who is under the greater obligation, the rich or the de-
pendant, such as a servant, tradesman, &c. ?

Is good usage thrown away on inferiors ?

150. What does morality forbid us to do with respect to de-

pendants ?

CHAPTER m.
What is slavery ? In what may it justly originate ?

151. Is the African slave trade excused upon these principles ?
What crimes attend the prosecution of this traffic 1 How

is it attempted to be justified 1 How may its fall be
accelerated ?

152. Did slavery exist when Christianity rose 1

Is it forbidden in the Christian Scriptures ? Why not ?
How should emancipation be effected 1

CHAPTER IV.

153. Who should afford professional assistance ?

(1.) Why should the care of the poor be the principal ob-
ject of all laws ?
How may a legislator render service to the poor in the

way of his profession 1
2.J A justice of the peace ?

154.

3.) A physician ?
4. A lawyer?
5.) A clergyman ?

CHAPTER V.

155. (1.) Is the existence of such an emotion as pity an evi-

dence of our obligation to assist the poor *

156. How is their claim proved to be founded in the law of

nature ? How is their claim made out from Scripture 1

157. What is there remarkable in St. Paul's direction on this

subject ?

158. Is the community of goods, among certain of the primi-

tive Christians, an example for imitation 1
How did the apostles proceed in relation to the trust thus

reposed in them ?
(1.) What does Paley consider to be the best mode of

charity ?

159. Illustrate this

16 QUESTIONS ON [v. I., B. HI.

(2.) What advantage attends charity granted by sub*

script ion ?
(3.) Why should beggars be relieved ? What effect has

such charity on the donor ?

160. What are the species of charity contrived to make the

money expended go far 1

How may the owners of large estates do good in a chari-
table way ?

161. When should our charity be private ?
What species of liberality is not charity ?

162. (3. 1.) What is generally meant by having nothing to

spare ?

(3.) What is the reply of St. James to those who say that
charity does not consist in giving money ?

(4.) Why does St. Paul omit giving to the poor in his de-
scription of charity?

(5.) Why is paying poor rates no excuse ?

(6.) Why is the employment of the poor no excuse for
the employer ?

163. (7.) What answer should be made to the excuse about

habit ?

(8.) About ingratitude ?
(9.) " •'

About imposition ?
About applying to the parishes 1
About encouraging idleness ?
About giving to strangers ?

CHAPTER VI.

164. How is revenge distinguished ?
What is anger ? Revenge ?

CHAPTER VII.

Is all anger sinful 1 When is anger sinful 7

165. Name some of the proper sedatives of anger.

166. What is the remedy proposed by the Gospel 1
What is the effect of habitual self-control *

CHAPTER VIII.

When does retribution become revenge ?

167. How may we distinguish between a disposition to do jus-

tice and a desire of revenge ?

Does the light of nature show the criminality of revenge?
Does the authority of Scripture condemn it ? Repeat
some of the passages in point.

168. What is evident from these passages ?

Do these passages interfere with the punishment of pub-
lic offenders ?

169. Is the punishment of vice, by withdrawing our company

and civility, lawful ?

V. I., B. in.] PALEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 17

Does charity require us to trust those who have defraud-
ed us, or confer favours on those who have offended
us?

170. Did Christ insist particularly on the practice of forgive-

ness ?

CHAPTER IX.
Why is duelling absurd 7
Why does the duellist fight ? .

171. Define murder.

What would be the consequence of allowing the law of

honour to create exceptions to Divine prohibitions ?
Does a sense of shame justify the duellist's conduct ?

172. Why does not the principle of forgiveness apply to the

case ?

Js any remedy likely to be found ?
Will not the law repair the injuries which occasion

duels?
What remedy does Paley propose for the army ?

CHAPTER X.

173. Is it possible to live always at peace ?

How are the instances in the fifth chapter of Matthew ex-
plained ?

What would be the effect of a rule which forbade all op-
position to injury ?

174. What does Christianity forbid ?

When is a lawsuit consistent with Christianity ?
How should it be conducted ?

175. How should criminal actions be conducted ?

In what degree is a private person, injured by a criminal

offence, bound to prosecute ?
Should the stigma, which may be fixed on an informer,

deter us from bringing1 criminals to justice ?
What species of prosecutions are wrong?

CHAPTER XI.

176. In what does the mischief of ingratitude consist ?
What reason for cultivating gratitude is drawn from re-
ligion ?

177. Can gratitude oblige us to do wrong ?

Is conscience sometimes insincerely pleaded to get rid of
obligations ?

CHAPTER XII.

How does it appear that speaking is acting 7
How is slander distinguished ?
What is malicious slander ?

178. Mav there exist malice in the circulation of truths t

18 QUESTIONS ON [v. II., B. IV.

How Is slander distinguished from fraud ?

What makes the difference between malicious and in
considerate slander ?

In what does its guilt consist ?

179. Is information, communicated for warning, to be regard-
ed as slander 1

How does Paley characterize indiscriminate praise ?

BOOK III.— PART III.— CHAPTER XI.

223. How are filial duties divided as it respects time ?
What species of obedience is required in early child-
hood?

What is the duty of persons who remain in their father's
family after arriving at mature age ? After leaving
the father's family ?

224. What is the parent's duly when the child's happiness evi-

dently depends on a certain attachment, or the rejec-
tion of a certain profession ?

What is usually the fact with respect to these attach-
ments and aversions ?

225. Have parents a right to insist on marriages to which their

children are averse ?

226. Is compliance with the parents' wish, in this case, wrong ?

Why?

What is the parent's duty in all contests with his chil-
dren ?

May parental authority interfere with the discharge of
a trust ?

What is the doctrine of Scripture in relation to filial
duty ? Of the law of England ?

VOL. ii. BOOK IV.

5. What does Paley consider as duties to ourselves 1

CHAPTER I.

6. May a right be defended at all hazards ? Why not ?
How is this right, if it ever existed, now suspended ?
When are all extremities justifiable ? Why ?

7. In what cases does the law of England justify homicide f

CHAPTER II.

8. What are some of the consequences of drunkenness ?
Is drunkenness a contagious vice ?

10 What are St. Paul's precepts with respect to this vice ?
What is the rule laid down for determining the guilt of

a drunken man's actions ?
11. What is the rule in case of partial privation of reason?

(iivo an example

V. II.,B.V.] PALEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 19

Can these rules be actually applied 1
Is the appetite for spirits an acquired one ?
12. How do habits of drunkenness usually originate ? How
are they continued ?

CHAPTER III.

14. What is the true question concerning the lawfulness of

suicide ?
Why is not supposing one's self to be useless a sufficient

reason for suicide ?
Is suicide lawful to those who leave none to lament their

death ?

15. What wo ild be the result of allowing suicide in any case ?
What virtues may be exercised in situations of great

wretchedness ?

16. What are some of the consequences of suicide to the sur-

viving friends 1

Is there an express prohibition of suicide in Scripture ?
(1.) In what passages is human life spoken of as a term

assigned to us ?

17. What is the inference from these 1

(2.) How do the exhortations to patience establish the
guilt of suicide 1

18. (3.) How does the conduct of the apostles prove it ?
What artificial and imposing argument is urged in favour

of suicide 1

19. How is it answered ?

BOOK V.— CHAPTER I.

20. What arc some of those duties styled duties towards God 1

How are they divided ? What is the difference be-
tween them ?

21. Of what is divine worship made up ?

CHAPTER II.

Is prayer a natural duty ? For what is it necessary •
On what does the duty of prayer depend ? Why ?
What objection is urged against the efficacy of prayer

22. What is 'the answer 1

What is the whole difficulty attending the subject ?

What considerations are offered towards solving this diffi-
culty ?

Is any thing further necessary than to remove the appa-
rent repugnancy between the success of prayer ana the
character of the Deity 1

23. What false notions of prayer are sometimes entertained ?
How does Paley illustrate his notion of prayer by the ex-
ample of a just prince and his subjects 1

24. Is a just prince necessarily inexorable ?

20 QUESTIONS ON [v. II., B.V.

25. What bad effects would result from the invariably appa-

rent success of prayer ?

26. Is there any impropriety in petitions for particular favours,

or in intercession for whole communities ?

CHAPTER III.

27. Is there any positive injunction to prayer to be drawn

from naiural religion ?

Does revealed religion enjoin it, and promise accept-
ance ?

Is the assurance of revelation the only proof of the effica-
cy of prayer ?

28. 1.) ISume some of the texts enjoining prayer in general.
2.) Give examples of prayer for particular favours.

3.) Give directions to pray for public blessings.

29. (4.) Give examples of intercession and exhortations to in-

tercede for others.

(5.) Name the texts which authorize the repetition of un-
successful prayers.

CHAPTER IV.

30. Does one description of prayer supersede the necessity of

others ?
What are some of the advantages of private prayer ?

31. What are the injunctions of Christ with respect to private

prayer ?
What are the peculiar uses of family prayer ?

32. Why is public worship a necessary institution 1 What are

its advantages ?
What excuse is sometimes offered for its neglect ?

33. Why is this excuse inadmissible ?

(1.) What advantages result from public worship which
wnv not designed in its institution ?

34. (2.) Doos public worship remind us strongly of the natural

equality of mankind ?

35. Is public worship expressly enjoined in the Scriptures 1

CHAPTER V.

36. What is the foundation of the reasons for the use of a lit-

urgy ?

What are the principal advantages of a liturgy ?
What is joint prayer 1

37. What inconveniences attend the use of a liturgy ?
Did Christ sanction the use of a set form of prayer ?
What are the properties required in a public liturgy ?
(1.) Are liturgies usually diffuse ?

88. Should a liturgy be very concise ? Why not 1

What are the disadvantages of prolixity in a church ser-
vice ?

r. ii., B v.] PALEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 21

How came the English liturgy to be so long ?

39. What changes does Paley propose to make in it ?
What are its excellences ?

Of what does the litany consist ?

Should a liturgy express just conceptions of the Divine at-
tributes ? Why is this important ?

40. Why is it important that a liturgy should recite such wants

as the congregation are likely to feel ?
Why are controverted points to be avoided in a liturgy ?

CHAPTER VI.

41. Why are set times for public worship most expedient ?

42. Of what advantage is the Sabbath to the labouring

classes ?

Is any thing lost by the intermission of labour one day in
seven ?

43. Is the rest afforded to brutes a recommendation of the in-

stitution ?

Would these reasons equally apply to setting apart one
day in eight or ten ?

CHAPTER VII.

What are the two important questions in relation to the
Christian Sabbath ?

44. Where is the Sabbath first mentioned; and how ?
When do we next hear of it ?

45. How was it, eventually, solemnly established ?

What reason is there for supposing the first institution to

have taken place in the wilderness ?
Is the passage in the 2d chapter of Genesis inconsistent

with this '/

46. Does the passage Ezek. xx. 10 — 12; and that in Nfeh. ix.

12, support this position ?

47 What duties were enjoined on the Jewish Sabbath ? Un-
der what penalties ?

48. Was it well observed ?

What is the main question with respect to ourselves ?
Why was it necessary first to examine the history of the

institution ?

What follows from the date fixed by Paley ?
What arguments confirm this belief?

49. Is the distinction of the Sabbath, in its nature, a ceremo-

nial institution ?

What conseauences would result from admitting its obliga-
tion on Christians ?

Did St. Paul consider it a part of the Jewish ritual ?

What objections arise ?

60. How is the first objection answered ?

61. The second?

22 QUESTIONS OX [v. II., B. VI.

52. Was the practice of assembling1 on the first day of the

week early and universal in the Christian church ?
Name some instances of it.

53. When does it appear to have obtained the name of the

Lord's day ?

Did Christ and his apostles insist on a cessation from la-
bour on that day I

Why would it have been inexpedient ?

54. What is the conclusion from the whole inquiry 7

CHAPTER VIII.

55. What are the uses proposed by the institution of the Sab-

bath ?

What was the peculiar distinction of the first day of the
week among1 the primitive Christians ?

56. How is the Sabbath violated ?

What questions are asked in relation to the different

modes of passing1 the day ?
How are they answered ?

CHAPTER DC.

57. How is a reverence for God impaired ?

58. What is taking the name, of God in vain ?
Is the prohibition recognised by Christ 1
How is the offence aggravated ?

59. Is ridicule of sacred things forbidden by the third com-

mandment ?

Is fanaticism more rational than levity and unconcern ?

What are the legitimate weapons of controversy ?
GO. In what temper, and with what views, should it be con-
ducted ?

Has this been the practice of controversial writers?

What wrong statements have been made by unbelievers ?

61. Is Christianity answerable for the character of its cler-

For 3ie wars that have been waged by those bearing the

Christian name ?
Have the succession and variety of popular religions been

urged as an argument against the truth of Christianity.

62. Is this fair? Why not ?

In what forms does infidelity present itself to the unthink-
ing many ?

63. How has Gibbon attacked Christianity ?

BOOK VI.— CHAPTER I.

C5. What were the earliest forms of government ?

How are men prepared for government ?
66. What are the first and second

stages in the progress of
dominion 1

v. ii., B.VI.] PALEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 23

What steps lead to adopting1 the government of a chief or
head of a clan?

67. How does a military leader naturally succeed to a patri-

arch 1
What is the origin of hereditary rank ?

68. Is this account of the origin of government confirmed by

history ?
How is the early existence of vast empires accounted for?

69. How does it appear that the earliest governments were

monarchies I

CHAPTER II.

70. Where does the physical strength of the community actu-

ally reside ?

How does Paley classify those who obey the government ?
(1.) Why do the first class obey ?

71. Enumerate certain acknowledged rights which are found-

ed upon prescription.
How are the religious feelings of the community made to

favour this prescriptive title ?
Illustrate this from history.

72. Is every opinion, not founded upon argument, a preju-

dice ?

(2.) By what considerations are those who obey from rea-
son restrained ?

(3.J Those who obey from self-interest ?

(1.) Why is it the interest of civil governors to respect
their subjects?

73. (2.) Why should they avoid innovation ?

74 (4.) Why are assemblies and conventions dangerous to

absolute governments ?
What rule o? caution results from this ?

CHAPTER III.

75. How do Locke and others attempt to prove civil obedi-

ence to be a moral duty ?
Describe the express social compact.

76. Describe the tacit compact.

What are the objections to this account of the subject ?
How is it opposed to fact ?

What is the nearest approach to a social comoact which
history furnishes ?

77. Is the original compact proposed as a fact ?

Is it referred to as having actually taken place ?

78. How are the successors of the original contracting parties

understood to promise allegiance ?
Is this sort of promise intelligible to them, or really binding ?

79. Is a right to the land necessary to the validity of the social

compact made by its possessors ?

24 QUESTIONS ON [V. II, B. YI

(1st.} What are called the fundamentals of the constitu-
tion ?

80 What use is made of them by the opposers of govern-
ment ?

(2dly.) How does it appear that the doctrine of tne social
compact is dangerous to civil liberty ?

81. (3dly.) How is it dangerous to the ruler ?

What is assigned as the only ground of the subject's obli-
gation ?

82. How is this proved ?

How is the justice of each case of resistance deter-
mined ?

Who shall be judge? Why?
(1.) When is it a duty to resist government ?

83. (2.) Upon what does the lawfulness of resistance depend?
(3.) Does irregularity in the first foundation of the state

justify resistance f
Blustrate this from bis ory.
(4.) Is every invasion of liberty to be resisted ?

84. (5.) Should any law whatever be changed when the pnb-

lic good requires it ?

(6.) How, and why, does the case of an Englishman and
that of a Frenchman differ ?

85. (7.) Is every member of the civil community bound by the

public interest ? Why ?

86. How does this apply to the case of Great Britain and her

late American colonies ?

CHAPTER IV.
37. Does Christianity ascertain the extent of OOT ciril rights

and obligations ?

What passages are referred to in the controversy ?
88. What questions are to be considered in reference to these

How should one, who doubts the moral obligation of civil
obedience, be reasoned with ?

89. How should one, who is debating the expediency of revolt,

be dealt with ?
Is there any inconsistency in this ?

90. How is this mode of proceeding applicable to the interpre-

tation of the passages aboTe quoted ?
Is the Scripture thus vindicated from the charge of incul-
cating passive obedience ?

91 . Did the apostles dispute the rigid of the rolers, at that pe-

riod, to the obedience of Christian disciples ?
Which of the above questions do they appear to have had

in view ?

92 What does the question, " Is it lawful to give tribute unto
Caesar T' imply?

T.H., B.VI.] PALEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 25

93. Does the phrase, " ordinance of God," authorize super-

stitious ideas of the regal character ?
Does it not apply to republican as well as despotic forms
of government ?

CHAFFER V.

94. What is civil liberty ?

Why is it preferable to natural liberty ?

What does this definition of civil liberty import ?

What is intimated by this ?

95. What follows from this account of civil liberty ?
Illustrate the distinction between civil and personal lib-
erty ?

96. What is the other idea of civil liberty ? Illustrate this.

97. Mention some of the definitions of civil liberty founded on

this idea.
What inaccuracy do they labour under 1

98. Which is the freest people, constitution, and government t

CHAPTER VI.

99. Define the sovereign power.
Define the three forms of government.
What are the advantages of monarchy I

100. What are the dangers ?

The advantages of aristocracy ?
The mischiefs?

The advantages of a republic ?
The evils?

101. What is a mixed government ?

By what rule are its advantages and evils determined f

How is the rule limited ?

Where is corruption to be feared ?

102. Whv is a hereditary monarchy preferable to an elective

one?
Is an hereditary monarchy favourable to permanence

and stability in the plans of the government 1
Describe the two kinds of aristocracy.

103. Which is the more tolerable? Why?
Is aristocracy worse than despotism ?
Illustrate tins from the history of Denmark.

104. Of Sweden. Of England.

What is the distinctive feature cf a democracy?

(1.) What advantage does it afford to education and

manners among the higher orders ?
106. J2.J Of what advantage is it to the common people ?

(3.) How does it furnish occupation to tne thoughts of all

classes?

106 What are the objections to a widely extended republic t
3

26 QUESTIONS ON [v.H.,B. VI.

107. How are they obviated 1

108. Where is the experiment about to be tried 1

CHAPTER VII.

What is the constitution of a country ?

What do the terms constitutumal and unconstitutional

mean in England 1
Of what is their system of jurisprudence made up ?

109. Can an act of parliament be unconstitutional ?

What mistake do writers on the British constitution
make ?

110. What is the difference between the theory and the actual

state of the British government ?

111. How are plans of reform to be laid ?

Are the direct or the incidental effects of innovation the

more important 1
Illustrate this from history.

112. What would be the effect of a protracted contest be-

tween the king and the parliament ?
Did those who gave the king the power to appoint his
servants foresee the important results of that act 1

113. What is the end peculiar to a good government ?
What is the end essential to a good government ?
Does this last afford an apology for some apparent abuses ?
How is the government of England formed ?

114. What is the perfection intended by this scheme 1
How does it provide for the interest of its subjects 1
How does each order become virtually represented ?

115. Wrhat security is afforded against the 'formation of juntos

am'^ng the iegisiaiors 1
How is the subject guarded from burthens 1
Are the debates of parliament public 1
How must a representative conduct to become popular ?

116. For what purposes is the executive authority given to the

king ?

In what points is the king intrusted with ample pe« er t
In what two points is his power cautiously limiteo {
Where do taxes originate '/

117. How is the application of them watched ?
How is the power of punishment limited 7
How is arbitrary connnfiment provided against ?
What is intact by a writ, of habeas corpus ?

113. How are persons, charged with treason, protected from

injustice in their trial ?
What is the balance of the constitution ?
119. How is the power of parliament checked?

How is the arbitrarv application of this negative check*
ed-

Y. XL, B. vi.] PALEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 27

What other checks does the British constitution provide ?

120. What is the balance of interest ?
Illustrate its operation.

121. What is the use of the house of lords ?

122. In what does the danger from popular fury consist ?

123. How are the clergy represented in parliament ?

Is there any sufficient reason for exempting members of
parliament from arrest for debt 1

124. Describe the irregularities of the popular representation.
Are all the people represented 1

What proportion of the house of commons buy their
seats 1

125. Notwithstanding this, are the fittest legislators generally

sent to parliament ?

126. Of what is the house of commons actually composed ?
Are these as worthy to be trusted as any that could be

elected in any mode 1
Are the members generally, rich ?

127. Are the representatives or boroughs, generally, men of

talents ?

How does this happen?
After all, is their present representation popular?

128. Is it easy to discover a proposal, among the plans of re-

form, which will render the house of commons more a
popular body than it now is ?
Is there any reason to doubt the necessity of reform ?

129. Is the government always opposed from principle ?
Why would an increase of power in the house of com-
mons be dangerous ?

Illustrate this from the English history.

130. From the American history.

Does Paley justify bribery or secret solicitation ?
What influence does he defend ?

131. What are subjects of indifference ?
Of apparent indifference ?

How are these cases detennined ?

CHAPTER VIII.

132. What is the first maxim of a free state 7
What are the reasons of it ?

133. Illustrate this.

Why is parliament less liable to the influence of partiali-
ty than the courts ?
How is the rule violated ?

134. How does the independency of the judges secure the im-

partial administration ofjustice?
Illustrate this from history.

135. Why should the number of judges be small ?
Illustrate the propriety of this from history.

28 QUEST-IONS ON [v. u., B. vx.

136. \Vhy should legal proceedings be had in open court ?
What is the advantage of having two or three courts of

concurrent jurisdiction ?
What are the uses of a supreme court of appeals ?

137. Describe the two kinds of judicature.
What are their separate advantages ?
How are these united by the English laws ?

138. How is this privilege of trial by jury infringed upon ?

Is it always adequate to the administration of equal jus

tice?
When does it fail in this respect ?

139. Is this a sufficient reason for its disuse ?
What is the local division of courts of justice ?
Describe the disadvantages of each kind.

How does the law of England remedy both objec
tions ?

140. What are the peculiar qualifications of a circuit judge ?
Why should the decisions of the courts be respected in

subsequent trials 1

141. What, besides the danger of partiality, furnishes a reason

for adhering to precedents ?

142. What is the duty of the court, besides rendering justice to

the parties ?

What two inconveniences anse from an adherence to
precedents ?

143. Are the maxims of natural justice few and evident ?
And is jurisprudence, nevertheless, an intricate science ?
(1st.) How may we account for so many sources of liti

gat ion ?

144. What is supposed by a treatise of morality, with respect

to motives and intentions ? Give an example.
Are these motives known in fact ?
WTiat, then, is the use of a treatise of morals ?
(2dly.) Does the law of nature furnish rules for all

cases ?
Where, then, must the rules, not furnished by it, be

sought ?

145. How are things, in their nature indeterminate, to be set-

tled ? Give examples.
Things arbitrary ? Give examples.

146. (3dly.) In contracts with many conditions, what should

guide the decision ?
Is this a source of uncertainty ?
(4thlv.) How are rights of remote and ancient origin to

Ire settled?

147. Whence arises the difficulty of applying natural law to

these cases ?

(5thly.) Does natural law so.ttle the amount of damages?
How must this be settled ?

V. II., B. vi.] PALEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 29

148. (6thly.) How does the interpretation of written laws

afford room for dispute ?

(7thly.) How are the deliberations of courts, on new
cases, rendered difficult ?

149. What is the greatest source of difficulty V
How is the contention of the bar carried on ?
Give an example in the case of literary property.

150. Are juries required to be unanimous in their decis-
Is this reasonable ? [ions ?

151. How does this provision operate ?

What is the highest court of appeal in England ?
Are the lords qualified for this office ?
Of what is the house of lords composed ?

152. How is this general incapacity of the lords remedied ?

CHAPTER IX.

153. What is the end of human punishment ?

In what proportion are crimes punished by human
governments ?

154. Should punishment be employed when the crime can

be otherwise prevented *
Give an example of its disuse.
Why does a violation of confidence meet with lenity

from the law ?

155. Does the facility of perpetrating a crime increase the

punishment ? Give examples.

Wiiy are they punished so severely ?
Why is a different mei

neasure of punishment expected
from God from that which is observed by man ?

157. What are the two methods of administering penal

justice ?
Which prevails in England ? Why ?

158. Upon what policy is the law of England constructed ?
What are its advantages ?

159. Should privately stealing from the person be capitally

punished ?

Who has the prerogative ?
How should it be exercised ?

160. What are the principal aggravations to be considered ?
Why should combination be considered an aggrava-
tion of crime ?

Which of a number should be singled out for severe
punishment ?

161. What sort of injuries should government first redress ?

Why?

What "circumstances add to the comparative malig-
nancy of crimes of violence ?

What are the most noxious kinds of fraud ?

162. Why?

3*

30 QUESTIONS ON [V. II., B. VI.

Do they affect property only ?
Do they ultimately affect life ?

163. Why should a distinction be made between the forg-

ery of bills of exchange and that of leases, bonc£,V
Why is perjury a heinous offence ? [&c. x

Is it equal to the worst of frauds ?

164. How is obtaining money by secret threats to be regard-
> ed ?

\A\Thy are frequent capital punishments necessary in
^ England?

yf How are crimes prevented in despotic countries ?
Would this be tolerated in England ?

165. How do great cities multiply crimes ?

Why does riot transportation furnish a sufficient renn
edy for capital offences ? /

166. What is the end of punishment ?

Why is the reformation of criminals nearly hopeless ? V
What species of punishment is best suited for reforma- ^

tion? Why?

What are the modes of overcoming aversion to la-
bour ?

167. What difficulty remains after reformation has been

effected ?

168. What is the proper definition of torture ?

To what exceptions is the question by torture liable ?
What is the effect of barbarous spectacles of suffering ?

169. How are infamous punishments mismanaged in Eng-

land ?

170. Why is the certainty of punishment more important

than its severity^

Is a strict police more effective than a severe code ?)(
Are juries too particular in respect to evidence ?

171. What maxims have occasioned this lenity ?

Is circumstantial evidence always weaker than direct
testimony ?

172. Does Paley think it better that ten guilty persons es-y

cape than that one innocent man should suffer ? A
Why not ?

CHAPTER X.

173. What remarkable difference is to be observed between

the Jewish and Christian institutions ?
Did not Christ lay down a precise form of church
government ?

174. For what reasons ?

On what is the authority of a church establishment

founded ?
What three things are necessary to a national religious

establishment?

v. ii., B. vi.] PALEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 81

175. How does Paley make it appear that a learned clergy-

is necessary to the preservation of Christianity in a
country ?

176. Are the English clergy all learned ?
Is it necessary for them to be so ?

Is it necessary that some of them should be learned

and industrious ?
Does he, therefore, infer that the clergy should be a

distinct order of men ?

177. Does the existence of the sect called Quakers, with-

out a clergy, disprove this ?

If the clergy be kept distinct, should they be support-
ed by the other orders ? N

Why not by their voluntary contributions ?

178. What would be the effect of this mode of support on

the preachers themselves ?

179. Supposing a legal provision for the clergy to be neces-

sary, what is the next question ?

180. What other question does this involve ?
Why is subscription necessary ?

181. Is a legal establishment of one particular religion a

necessary consequence of private patronage, or the
giving of ecclesiastical preferments ?

What would result from allowing the parish to choose ?

What is the plan pursued in this country ? [it ?

182. What inconveniences does Paley suppose must attend
State the argument for an ecclesiastical establishment.

183. Is a test necessary ?

Are there too many such tests ?
What is the consequence of this ?

184. What are articles of peace ?

What are the advantages of having a distinction of
. orders in the ministry ?

185. How does Paley endeavour to prove that the civil mag-

istrate has a right to interfere in matters of religion ?

186. Is the right of tne magistrate to ordain, and that of

the subject to obey, different ?
Does this often occur in civil matters ?

187. Is the magistrate always to be obeyed in spirituals ?
What alarming consequence is deduced from the law-
fulness of the magistrate's interference ?

188. How does Paley endeavour to refute it ?

190. Does Paley suppose it to be the duty of the magis-

trate to provide for teaching his own or the people's
religion ?

191. What are the two kinds of toleration ?

How is the subject's right to the first kind proved ?

192. What other auxiliary considerations prove the justice

and expediency of toleration ?

32 QUESTIONS ON [V. II., B. VI.

What degree of toleration is to be extended to books ?

193. What considerations are urged against a complete tol-

eration of dissenters ?

194. In what two cases may test-laws be applied with

propriety ?

195. Why may not the test be directed against political

principles ?

196. How should every interference of the civil govern-

ment, in matters of religion, be tried ?

CHAPTER XL

197. What is the final view of all politics ?

Of what does the happiness of a people consist ?
Is happiness, on the whole, cojnmensurate with popu-
lation V

198. What follows from these principles ?

Is the importance of population a first principle in
political economy ?

199. What is one of the first hinderances to the increase of

population ?

How much migh't the produce of the land, in Eng-
land, be increased ?

200. What is the fundamental proposition respecting pop-

ulation ?

201. What provision is necessary to the increase of the

people ?

202. What three causes regulate the procuring of the

means of subsistence ?
How do people subsist in China ? In Hindostan ?

203. Would the general use of meat diminish their num-
What makes Ireland populous ? [bers ?
How does luxury assist population ?

How does it hinder population ?

204. (1.) Which are the most innocent kinds of luxury ?

205. (2.) Why is the diffusion, rather than the degree of

luxury to be dreaded V

(3.) What is the condition most favorable to popula-
tion ?

Give a history of the modes of subsistence used in
different states of society. In the savage state.

206. In the next stage of advancement.
What was the last improvement ?

What has recently hindered population in England ?
Should tillage be more encouraged than pasturage ?

207. Upon what circumstances does the quantity of pro-

vision depend ? [try ?

Why is an indigent tenantry a misfortune to a coun-
What is the true reward of industry ?
What is the most important right of the occupier ?

V. ii., B. vi. J PALEY'S PHILOSOPHY. 33

Who is properly the occupier ?

208. How may the proprietor be considered the occupier ?
What inconvenience arises from the absence of the

proprietor ?

How can it be obviated ?
Why is the distribution of provision important to the

increase of population ? [plain this.

209. What are the only equivalents for provision ? Ex-
On what does the sale of provision depend ?

210. How does employment affect population directly ?

Indirectly ?

What public benefit is founded on this ?

What proportion of the tradesmen of Europe are em-
ployed on unnecessary articles ? Give examples.

211. Is it directly apparent how they favour population ?
Will the soil maintain more than it can employ ?

212. What would be the effect of having no employment

for those not engaged in agriculture ?
What must these persons do ?
WThat is the business of one half of mankind ?
How is human labour divided ?

213. Are both equally necessary ? Illustrate this.
Illustrate the origin and advantage of foreign com-
merce.

214. Is trade necessary for the encouragement of agricul-

ture ? Illustrate this.

What is the immediate source of human provision ?
How is the comparative utility of different branches

of national commerce to be estimated ?
What is first in this scale ?

215. The second ? The last ?

What branches of manufacture are most beneficial ?

216. Does the reasoning concerning provision apply to

those countries who import it ? Illustrate this.

217. (1.) In what cases is emigration no sign of political

decay ?

What are the usual causes of emigration ?
(2.) How does Paley consider colonization ?

218. Describe the state of a colony prosperous in itself and

beneficial to the parent country.

219. What is the error of the English with respect to their

colonies ? ^

(3.) Js abundance of money favourable to population ?
How does money flow into a country ? How is it re~

tained ? What is the consequence ?
1^, money or employment the cause of population ?

220. What treasures evince no national prosperity, and af-

ford no conclusion concerning the. state of popula-
tion ?

Aiowmay money become a cause 'of population ?
How is money first employed on being received into

a country ?

How does it come to market for provision ?
Where will its effects be felt first ?

221. When does its effect cease ?

Which produces the effect, the accession or the quan-
tity of money ?

What is the effect of a diminution of money ?

What is the balance of trade ?

(4.) Are taxes necessarily prejudicial to population ?
Why not ?

222. How may a tax become injurious ? Give examples.
What taxes are beneficial ?

223. Is the tendency of taxes, in most instances, noxious ?

Illustrate this.
How does a new tax operate ?

224. How is the proportion between the supply and expense

of substance, disturbed by taxation, to be restored V
How is the produce of taxe's usually expended ?

225. How should taxes be contrived ?

How should they be balanced and equalized ?

226. What sorts of persons should have certain exemptions?
(5.) Does the exportation of bread-corn appear to be

injurious to population ?
In what case may it be exported ?

227. In what other situation may it be exported ?

(6.) How do contrivances for abridging labour com-
pensate for the diminution of employment, which
is their immediate effect ?

229. How can laws encourage population ?

Is the attempt to force "trade of any use ?

230. Is the encouragement of agriculture a proper subject

of legislation ?

What rules are to be observed ?
Is it material in whose hands the fee of real estate is

vested ? [ity ?

What conditions of tenure condemn the land to steril-

231. How should the power of the owner be increased ?
What is the effect of tithes ?

232. How should tithes be commutfi^ >*

CHAPTER XII. \^

233. Is the profession of a soldier forbidden in Scripture ?
What said John the Baptist to the soldiers ?

What difficulty arises in considering the affairs^f na-
tions ? , Exemplify this. *\

234. Can m^bptttostptjy sofcre- these doubts ? Why not ?
What would be the effect ofTelaxing a rule ?

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