II. After they have attained to manhood, which relate to marriage, or to the choice of a but continue in their father's family.

III. After they have attained to manhood, and have left their father's family.

I. 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 children to many restraints, and direct their application to many employments, of the tendency and use of which they cannot judge; for which cause, the submission of children during this period must be ready and implicit, with an exception, however, of any manifest crime which may be commanded them.

II. After they have attained to manhood, but continue in their father's family.

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 individuals of different sexes, that the possession of a particular man or woman in marriage be really necessary 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 the case, ought not to urge their authority, and that the child is not bound to obey it.

The point is, to discover how far, in any particular instance, this is the case. Whether the fondness of lovers ever continues with such intensity, and so long, that the success of their desires constitutes, or the disappointment af. fects, any considerable portion of their happi.

If children, when they are grown up, volun-ness, compared with that of their whole life, tarily 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.

tinuance in the profession 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 sincerity, and not merely with a design of compassing his purpose at last, by means of a simulated and temporary compliance. It is the nature of love and hatred, and of all violent affections, to de

it is difficult to determine: but there can be no difficulty in pronouncing, that not one halı of those attachments, which young people con. ceive with so much haste and passion, are of this sort. I. believe it also to be true, 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 parents' III. After they have attained to manhood, judgment, and is, as he ought to be, tender of and have left their father's family. their happiness, owes, at least, so much deferIn this state of the relation, the duty to pa-ence to their will, as to try fairly and faithrents is simply the duty of gratitude; not dif- fully, in one case, whether time and absence ferent in kind, from that which we owe to any will not cool an affection which they disapother benefactor; in degreee, just so much ex-prove; and, in the other, whether a longer conceeding other obligations, by how much a parent has been a greater benefactor than any other friend. The services and attentions, by which filial gratitude may be testified, can be comprised within no enumeration. It will show itself in compliances with the will of the parents, however contrary to the child's own taste or judgment, provided it be neither criminal, nor totally inconsistent with his happi-lude the mind with a persuasion that we shall ness; in a constant endeavour to promote always continue to feel them as we feel them their enjoyments, prevent their wishes, and at present; we cannot conceive that they will soften their anxieties, in small matters as well either change or cease. Experience of similar as in great; in assisting them in their busi- or greater changes in ourselves, or a habit of ness; in contributing to their support, ease, giving credit to what our parents, or tutors, or better accommodation, when their circum- or books, teach us, may control this persuasion, stances require it; in affording them our com- otherwise it renders youth very untractable : pany, in preference to more amusing engage for they see clearly and truly that it is imposments; in waiting upon their sickness or de-sible they should be happy under the circumcrepitude; in bearing with the infirmities of their health or temper, with the peevishness and complaints, the unfashionable, negligent, 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

stances proposed to them, in their present state of mind. After a sincere but ineffectual 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.

By the Jewish law, disobedience to parents was in some extreme cases capital: Deut. xxi. 18.

Parents have no right to urge their children | rents in the Lord, for this is right;" and to upon marriages to which they are averse: nor the Colossians: "Children, obey your parents ought, in any shape, to resent the children's in all things, for this is well-pleasing unto the disobedience to such commands. This is a Lord"." different case from opposing 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 reluctant party promises an affection, which neither exists, nor is expected to take place and parental, like all human authority, ceases at the point where obedience becomes criminal.

:

In the above-mentioned, and in all contests between parents and children, it is the parent's duty to represent to the child the consequences of his conduct; and it will be found his best policy to represent them with fidelity. It is usual for parents to exaggerate these descriptions beyond probability, and by exaggeration 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, consequently, the son was expected, and by virtue of that expectation is obliged, to pursue his own judgment, and not that of any other: as is the case with judicial magistrates in the execution of their office; with members of the legislature in their votes; with electors where preference is to be given to certain prescribed qualifications. The son may assist his own judgement by the advice of his father, or of any one whom he chooses to consult: but his own judgement, 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 Commandments; and, as such, is recognised by Christ, together with the rest of the moral precepts of the Decalogue, in various places of the Gospel.

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 strictness, there are few duties or crimes which terminate in a man's self; and so far as others are af. fected by their operation, they have been treat. ed of in some article of the preceding book, We have reserved, however, to this head, the rights of self-defence; also the consideration of drunkenness and suicide, as offences against that care of our faculties, and preservation of our persons, which we account duties, and call duties to ourselves.

CHAPTER I.

THE RIGHTS OF SELF-DEFENCE.

IT has been asserted, that in a state of aThe same divine Teacher's sentiments con- ture we might lawfully defend the most insignicerning the relief of indigent parents, appear ficant right, provided it were a perfect determisufficiently from that manly and deserved indig- nate right, by any extremities which the ob nation with which he reprehended the wretched stinacy of the aggressor rendered necessary. casuistry of the Jewish expositors, who, under Of this I doubt; because I doubt whether the the name of a tradition, had contrived a me-general rule be worth sustaining at such an thod of evading this duty, by converting, or expense; and because, apart from the general pretending to convert, to the treasury of the consequence of yielding to the attempt, it cantemple, so much of their property as their dis-not be contended to be for the augmentation tressed parent might be entitled by their law

to demand.

Agreeably to this law of Nature and Christianity, children are, by the law of England, bound to support, as well their immediate parents, as their grandfather and grandmother, or remoter ancestors, who stand in need of support.

of human happiness, 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 vio

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 rectitude, and conformity to the Divine will, were

Obedience to parents is enjoined by St. Paul to the Ephesians "Children obey your pa-in his apprehension the same.

lence begins. The person attacked, must ba- tinction, by a consent of legislation that is relance, as well as he can, between the general markable, obtained also in the Jewish law, as consequence of yielding, and the particular ef- well as in the laws both of Greece and Rome. fect of resistance.

2. In necessary endeavours to carry the law However, this right, if it exist in a state of into execution, as in suppressing riots, apprenature, is suspended by the establishment of hending malefactors, preventing escapes, &c. civil society: because thereby other remedies I do not know that the law holds forth its are provided against attacks upon our property, authority to any cases besides those which fall and because it is necessary to the peace and within one or other of the above descriptions; safety of the community, that the prevention, or, that, after the exception of immediate danpunishment, and redress of injuries, be adjust-ger to life or chastity, the destruction of a hued by public laws. Moreover, as the indivi- man being can be innocent without that audual is assisted in the recovery of his right, or thority. of a compensation for his right, by the public strength, it is no less equitable than expedient, the account. that he should submit to public arbitration the kind, as well as the measure, of the satisfaction which he is to obtain.

The rights of war are not here taken into

CHAPTER 11.

DRUNKENNESS.

There is one case in which all extremities are justifiable; namely, when our life is assaulted, and it becomes necessary for our preservation to kill the assailant. This is evident in a state of nature; unless it can be shown, that we are DRUNKENNESS is either actual or habitubound to prefer the aggressor's life to our own, al; just as it is one thing to be drunk, and that is to say, to love our enemy better than another to be a drunkard. What we shall deourselves, which can never be a debt of justice, liver upon the subject must principally be unnor any where appears to be a duty of charity. derstood of a habit of intemperance; although Nor is the case altered by our living in civil part of the guilt and danger described, may be society; because, by the supposition, the laws applicable to casual excesses; and all of it in of society cannot interpose to protect us, nor, a certain degree, forasmuch as every habit is by the nature of the case, compel restitution. only a repetition of single instances. This liberty is restrained to cases in which no The mischief of drunkenness, from which other probable means of preserving our life re-we are to compute the guilt of it, consists in main, as flight, calling for assistance, disarm-following the bad effects:

ing the adversary, &c. The rule holds, whe- 1. It betrays most constitutions either to ex ther the danger proceed from a voluntary at-travagances of anger, or sins of lewdness. tack, as by an enemy, robber, or assassin; or 2. It disqualifies men for the duties of their from an involuntary one, as by a madman, or station, both by the temporary disorder of their person sinking in the water, and dragging us faculties, and at length by a constant incapaafter him; or where two persons are reduced city and stupefaction. 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 To these consequences of drunkenness must scarcely worth mentioning, much less discuss-be added the peculiar danger and mischief of ing 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 Loconsider the taking away of life as authorised 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 justifiable :

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 attempting to break into a house by night; but not so if the attempt be made in the day-time: which particular dis

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.

the example. Drunkenness is a social festive vice; apt, beyond any vice that can be mentioned, to draw in others by the example. The drinker collects his circle; the circle naturally 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 emulating the rest, till a whole neighbourhood be infected 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

drunkenness is an excuse for the crimes which the drunken person commits.

In the solution of this question, we will first suppose the drunken person to be altogether deprived of moral agency, that is to say, of all

the several evil effects above recited. The consequences of a vice, like the symptoms of a disease, though they be all enumerated in the de. scription, seldom all meet in the same subject. In the instance under consideration, the age and temperature of one drunkard may have lit-reflection and foresight. In this condition, it tle to fear from inflammations of lust or anger; is evident that he is no more capable of guilt the fortune of a second may not be injured by than a madman; although, like him, he may the expense; a third may have no family to be be extremely mischievous. The only guilt with disquieted by his irregularities; and a fourth which he is chargeable, was incurred at the may possess a constitution fortified against the time when he voluntarily brought himself inpoison of strong liquors. But if, as we always to this situation. And as every man is respon. ought to do, we comprehend within the conse. sible for the consequences which he foresaw, or quences of our conduct the mischief and ten-might have foreseen, and for no other, this dency of the example, the above circumstances, guilt will be in proportion to the probability however fortunate for the individual, will be of such consequences ensuing. From which found to vary the guilt of his intemperance | principle results the following rule, viz. that less, probably, than he supposes. The moralist the guilt of any action in a drunken man bears may expostulate with him thus: Although the the same proportion to the guilt of the like waste of time and of money be of small impor- action in a sober man, that the probability of tance to you, it may be of the utmost to some its being the consequence of drunkenness, one or other whom your society corrupts. Re- bears to absolute certainty. By virtue of this peated or long-continued excesses, which hurt rule, those vices which are the known effects not your health, may be fatal to your compan- of drunkenness, either in general, or upon ion. Although you have neither wife or child, particular constitutions, are in all, or in men nor parent, to lament your absence from home, of such constitutions, nearly as criminal as if or expect your return to it with terror; other committed with all their faculties and senses families, in which husbands and fathers have about them. been invited to share in your ebriety, or encouraged to imitate it, may justly lay their mi. sery or ruin at your door. This will hold good whether the person seduced be seduced immediately by you, or the vice be propagated from you to him through several intermediate examples. All these considerations it is necessary to assemble, to judge truly of a vice which usually meets with milder names and more in-ted it, the whole guilt. A person in the condidulgence 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.

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 responsible 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 commit.

tion we describe, incurs part of this at the in. stant of perpetration; and by bringing himself into such a condition, he incurred that fraction of the remaining part, which 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 drunkenness; 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 certainty, that this crime would follow his getting drunk. This makes him chargeable with half of the remainder; so that altogether, he is responsible in three-fourths of the guilt which a sober man would have incurred by the same action.

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 fornicators, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God." Ephes. v. 18; Romans xiii. 13; 1 Cor. vi. 9, 10. The same apostle Jikewise condemns drunkenness, as peculiarly I do not mean that any real case can be re inconsistent with the Christian profession :-duced to numbers, or the calculation be ever "They that be drunken, are drunken in the night: but let us, who are of the day, be sober." 1 Thess. v. 7, 8. We are not concerned with the argument; the words amount to a prohibition of drunkenness, and the authority is conclusive.

It is a question of some importance, how far

made with arithmetical 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 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 loosened from the associations which held him fast, sometimes 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.

break his rule, who would not easily be brought to exercise the same mortification from higher motives. Not to mention, that when our rule is once known, we are provided with an answer to every 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 faculties and dignity of human nature can be reduced.

CHAPTER III.

SUICIDE.

the general rule, and governed by their own particular consequences alone, it would be no easy undertaking to prove criminal.

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.

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 irresistible invitation to take a share THERE is no subject in morality in which in the indulgences which those about us are the consideration of general consequences is enjoying with so much apparent relish and de- more necessary than in this of Suicide. Parlight; or from want of regular employment, ticular and extreme cases of suicide may be which is sure to let in many superfluous crav- imagined, and may arise, of which it would ings and customs, and often this among the be difficult to assign the particular mischief, or rest; or, lastly, from grief, or fatigue, both from that consideration alone to demonstrate which strongly solicit that relief which ine- the guilt; and these cases have been the chief briating liquors administer, and also furnish a occasion of confusion and doubtfulness in the specious excuse for complying with the inclina- question: albeit, this is no more than what is tion. But the habit, when once set in, is con- sometimes true of the most acknowledged vices. tinued by different motives from those to which I could propose many possible cases even of it owes its origin. Persons addicted to exces-murder, which, if they were detached from sive drinking suffer, in the intervals of sobriety, and near the return of their accustomed indulgence, a faintness and oppression circa præcordia, which it exceeds the ordinary 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 experienced it, are urged For, shall we say, that we are then at liber almost beyond the power of resistance. This ty to commit suicide when we find our contiis not all as the liquor loses its stimulus, the nuance in life become useless to mankind? dose must be increased, to reach the same pitch Any one who pleases, may make himself useof elevation or ease; which increase propor-less; and melancholy minds are prone to think tionably accelerates the progress of all the ma- themselves useless, when they really are not ladies that drunkenness brings on. Whoever so. Suppose a law were promulgated, allowing reflects upon the violence of the craving in the each private person to destroy every man he advanced stages of the habit, and the fatal ter- met, whose longer continuance in the world mination to which the gratification of it leads, he judged to be useless; who would not conwill, the moment he perceives in himself the demn the latitude of such a rule? who does first symptoms of a growing inclination to in- not perceive that it amounts to a permission temperance, collect his resolution to this point; to commit murder at pleasure? A similar rule, or (what perhaps, he will find his best securi-regulating the right over our own lives, would ty,) arm himself with some peremptory rule, be capable of the same extension. Beside as to the times and quantity of his indulgences. which, no one is useless for the purpose of this I own myself a friend to the laying down of plea, but he who has lost every capacity and rules to ourselves of this sort, and rigidly abid-opportunity of being useful, together with the ing by them. They may be exclaimed against possibility of recovering any degree of either; as stiff, but they are often salutary. Indefinite which is a state of such complete destitution resolutions of abstemiousness are apt to yield and despair, as cannot, I believe, be predicated to extraordinary occasions; and extraordinary of any man living. accasions to occur perpetually. Whereas, the stricter the rule is, the more tenacious we grow of it; and many a man will abstain rather than

Or rather, shall we say that to depart voluntarily out of life, is lawful for those alone who leave none to lament their death? If this