sufficient virtue to refuse to be the agents of a vicious government-but they are few. If they were numerous, especially if they were as numerous as they ought to be, history, even very modern history, would have had a far other record to frame than that which now devolves to her. Can it be needful to argue upon such things? Can it be needful to prove that, neither the commands of ministers, nor "systems of policy," nor any other circumstance, exempts a public man from the obligations of the Moral Law? Public men often act as if they thought that to be a public man was to be brought under the jurisdiction of a new and a relaxed morality. They often act as if they thought that not to be the prime mover in political misdeeds, was to be exempt from all moral responsibility for those deeds. A dagger, if it could think, would think it was not responsible for the assassination of which it was the agent. A public man may be a political dagger, but he cannot, like the dagger, be irresponsible.

These illustrations of Immoral Agency and of the obligation to avoid it might be multiplied, if enough had not been offered to make our sentiments, and the reasons upon which they are founded, obvious to the reader. Undoubtedly, in the present state of society, it is no easy task, upon these subjects, to wash our hands in innocency. But if we cannot avoid all agency, direct or indirect, in evil things, we can avoid much: and it will be sufficiently early to complain of the difficulty of com.. plete purity, when we have dismissed from our conduct as much impurity as we can.

Opinion appears to be inaccurate, and upon the consequent obligation upon individuals not to perpetuate that inaccuracy and its attendant evils by their conduct or their language. Of the positive part of the obligation-that which respects the active correction of common opinions, little will be said. He who does not promote the evil can scarcely fail of promoting the good. A man often must deliver his sentiments respecting the principles and actions of others, and if he delivers them, so as not to encourage what is wrong, he will practically encourage what is right.

It might have been presumed of a people who assent to the authority of the Moral Law, that their notions of the merit or turpitude of actions would have been conformable with the doctrines which that law delivers. Far other is the fact. The estimates of the Moral Law and of public opinion are discordant to excess. Men have practised a sort of transposition with the moral precepts, and have assigned to them arbitrary and capricious, and therefore new and mischievous, stations on the moral scale. The order both of the vices and the virtues is greatly deranged.

Suppose, with respect to vices, the highest degree of reprobation in the Moral Law to be indicated by 20, and to descend by units, as the reprobation became less severe, and suppose, in the same manner, we put 20 for the highest offence according to popular opinion, and diminish the number as it accounts less of the offence, we should probably be presented with some such graduation as this:

Moral Public Law. Opinion.

Public notions of morality-Errors of public opinion: their effects-Duelling-Scottish Bench-Glory-Military virtues -Military talent-Bravery-Courage-Patriotism not the soldier's motive-Military fame-Public opinion of unchastity: In women: In men-Power of character-Character in Legal men-Fame-Faults of Great men-The PressNewspapers-History: Its defects: Its power.

THAT the influence of Public Opinion upon the practice of virtue is very great, needs no proof. Of this influence the reader has seen some remarkable illustrations in the discussion of the Efficacy of Oaths in binding to veracity. * There is, indeed, almost no action and no institution which Public Opinion does not affect, In moral affairs it makes men call one mode of human destruction murderous and one honourable; it makes the same action abominable in one individual and venial in another: in public institutions, from a village workhouse to the constitution of a state, it is powerful alike for evil or for good. If it be misdirected, it will strengthen and perpetuate corruption and abuse: if it be directed aright, it will eventually remove corruptions and correct abuses with a power which no power can withstand.

In proportion to the greatness of its power is the necessity of rectifying Public Opinion itself. To contribute to its rectitude is to exercise exalted philanthropy-to contribute to its incorrectness is to spread wickedness and misery in the world. The purpose of the present chapter is to remark upon some of those subjects on which the Public

Essay 2, chap. 7.

How, it may reasonably be asked, do these strange incongruities arise? First, men practise a sort o. voluntary deception on themselves: they persuade themselves to think that an offence which they desire to commit, is not so vicious as the Moral Law indicates, or as others to which they have little temptation. They persuade themselves again, that a virtue which is easily practised, is of great worth, because they thus flatter themselves with complacent notions of their excellences at a cheap rate. Virtues which are difficult they, for the same reason, depreciate. This is the dictate of interest. It is manifestly good policy to think lightly of the value of a quality which we do not choose to be at the cost of possessing; and who would willingly think there

was much evil in a vice which he practised every lay? That which a man thus persuades himself to hink a trivial vice or an unimportant virtue, he of course speaks of as such amongst his neighbours. They perhaps are as much interested in propagating he delusion as he: they listen with willing ears, and cherish and proclaim the grateful falsehood. By hese and by other means the public notions become nfluenced; a long continuance of the general chianery at length actually confounds the Public Opiion; and when once an opinion has become a public >pinion, there is no difficulty in accounting for the perpetuation of the fallacy.

If sometimes the mind of an individual recurs to the purer standard, a multitude of obstacles present themselves to its practical adoption. He hopes that under the present circumstances of society an exact obedience to the Moral Law is not required; he tries to think that the notions of a kingdom or a continent cannot be so erroneous; and at any rate trusts that as he deviates with millions, millions will hardly be held guilty at the bar of God. The misdirection of Public Opinion is an obstacle to the virtue even of good men. He who looks beyond the notions of others, and founds his moral principles upon the Moral Law, yet feels that it is more difficult to conform to that law when he is discountenanced by the general notions than if those notions supported and encouraged him. What then must the effect of such misdirection be upon those to whom acceptance in the world is the principle concern, and who, if others applaud or smile, seem to be indifferent whether their own hearts condemn them?

Now, with a participation in the evils which the misdirection of public opinion occasions, every one is chargeable who speaks of moral actions according to a standard that varies from that which Christianity has exhibited. Here is the cause of the evil, and here must be its remedy. "It is an important maxim in morals as well as in education to call things by their right names." "To bestow good names on bad things, is to give them a passport in the world under a delusive disguise."† "The soft names and plausible colours under which deceit, sensuality, and revenge are presented to us in common discourse, weaken by degrees our natural sense of the distinction between good and evil." Public notions of morality constitute a sort of line of demarcation, which is regarded by most men in their practice as a boundary between right and wrong. He who contributes to fix this boundary in the wrong place, who places evil on the side of virtue, or goodness on the side of vice, offends more deeply against the morality and the welfare of the world, than multitudes who are punished by the arm of law. If moral offences are to be estimated by their consequences, few will be found so deep as that of habitually giving good names to bad things. It is well indeed for the responsibility of individuals that their contribution to the aggregate mischief is commonly smail. Yet every man should remember that it is by the contribution of individuals that the aggre.

Dr Carpenter insists upon similar truths upon somewhat different subjects. "If children hear us express as much approbation, and in the same terms, of the skill of a gentlemen coach-driver, of the abilities of a philosophical lecturer, and of an individual who has just performed an elevated act of disinterested virtue, is it possible that they should not feel great confusion of ideas? If each is termed a noble fellow, and with the, same emphasis and animation, how can the youthful understanding calculate with sufficient accuracy so as to appreciate the import of the expression in the same way that we should do?" Principles of Education-Conscience.

gate is formed; and that it can only be by the deductions of individuals that it will be done away. DUELLING.-If two boys who disagreed about a game of marbles or a penny tart, should therefore walk out by the river side, quietly take off their clothes, and when they had got into the water, each try to keep the other's head down until one of them was drowned, we should doubtless think that these two boys were mad. If, when the survivor returned to his school fellows, they patted him on the shoulder, told him he was a spirited fellow, and that, if he had not tried the feat in the water, they would never have played at marbles or any other game with him again, we should doubtless think that these boys were infected with a most revolting and disgusting depravity and ferociousness. We should instantly exert ourselves to correct their principles, and should feel assured that nothing could ever induce us to tolerate, much less to encourage, such abandoned depravity. And yet we do both tolerate and encourage such depravity every day. Change the penny tart for some other trifle; instead of boys put men, and instead of a river, a pistol-and we encourage it all. We virtually pat the survivor's shoulder, tell him he is a man of honour, and that, if he had not shot at his acquaintance, we would never have dined with him again. Revolting and disgusting depravity" are at once excluded from our vocabulary. We substitute such phrases as "the course which a gentleman is obliged to pursue""it was necessary to his honour"-" one could not have associated with him if he had not fought." We are the schoolboys, grown up; and by the absurdity, and more than absurdity of our phrases and actions, shooting or drowning (it matters not which) becomes the practice of the national school.

66

It is not a trifling question that a man puts to himself when he asks, What is the amount of my contribution to this detestable practice? It is by individual contributions to the public notions respecting it that the practice is kept up. Men do not fire at one another because they are fond of risking their own lives or other men's, but because public notions are such as they are. Nor do I think any deduction can be more manifestly just, than that he who contributes to the misdirection of these notions is responsible for a share of the evil and the guilt. When some offence has given probability to a duel, every man acts immorally who evinces any disposition to coolness with either party until he has resolved to fight; and if eventually one of them falls, he is a party to his destruction. Every word of unfriendliness, every look of indifference, is positive guilt; for it is such words and such looks that drive men to their pistols. It is the same after a victim has fallen. "I pity his family, but they have the consolation of knowing that he vindicated his honour," is equivalent to urging another and another to fight. Every heedless gossip who asks, "Have you heard of this affair of honour?" and every reporter of news who relates it as a proper and necessary procedure, participates in the general crime.

If they who hear of an intended meeting amongst their friends hasten to manifest that they will continue their intercourse with the parties though they do not fight if none talks of vindicating honour by demanding satisfaction-if he who speaks and he who writes of this atrocity, speaks and writes as reason and morals dictate, duelling will soon disappear from the world. To contribute to the suppression of the custom is therefore easy, and let no man, and let no woman, who does not, as occasion offers, express reprobation of the custom, think that their hands are clear of blood. They especially are responsible for its continuance whose station or general charac

ter gives peculiar influence to their opinions in its favour. What then are we to think of the conduct of a British Judge who encourages it from the bench? A short time ago a person was tried on the Perth circuit for murder, having killed another in a duel. The evidence of the fact was undisputed. Before the verdict was pronounced, the judge is said to have used these words in his address to the jury: "The character you have heard testified by so many respectable and intelligent gentleman this day, is as high as is possible for man to receive, and I consider that throughout this affair the panel has acted up to it." So that it is laid down from the bench that the man who shoots another through the heart for striking him with an umbrella, acts up to the highest possible character of man! The prisoner, although every one knew he had killed the deceased, was acquitted, and the judge is reported to have addressed him thus: "You must be aware that the only duty I have to perform is to dismiss you from that bar with a character unsullied."* If the judge's language be true, Christianity is an idle fiction. Who will wonder at the continuance of duelling, who will wonder that upon this subject the Moral Law is disregarded, if we are to be told that "unsullied character"-nay, that "the highest possible character of man," is compatible with trampling Christianity under our feet?

How happy would it be for our country and for the world, how truly glorious for himself, if the king would act towards the duellist as his mother acted towards women who had lost their reputation. She rigidly excluded them from her presence. If the British Monarch refused to allow the man who had fought a duel to approach him, it is probable that erelong duelling would be abolished, not merely in this country but in the Christian world. Nor will true Christian respect be violated by the addition, that in proportion to the power of doing good is the responsibility for omitting it.

GLORY: MILITARY VIRTUES.--To prove that war is an evil were much the same as to prove that the light of the sun is a good. And yet, though no one will dispute the truth, there are few who consider, and few who know how great the evil is. The practice is encircled with so many glittering fictions, that most men are content with but a vague and inadequate idea of the calamities, moral, physical, and political, which it inflicts upon our species. But if few men consider how prodigious its mischiefs are, they see enough to agree in the conclusion, that the less frequently it happens the better for the common interests of man. Supposing then that some wars are lawful and unavoidable, it is nevertheless manifest, that whatever tends to make them more frequent than necessity requires, must be very pernicious to mankind. Now, in consequence of a misdirection of public notions, this needless frequency exists. Public opinion is favourable, not so much to war in the abstract or in practice, as to the profession of arms; and the inevitable consequence is this, that war itself is greatly promoted without reference to the causes for which it may be undertaken. By attaching notions of honour to the military profession, and of glory to military achievements, three wars probably have been occasioned where there otherwise would have been but one. To talk of the "splendours of conquest," and the "glories of victory," to extol those who "fall covered with honour in their country's cause,' occasion the recurrence of wars, not because they are necessary, but because they are desired. It is in

" is to

The Trial is reported in the Caledonian Mercury of September 25, 1826.

fact contributing, according to the speaker's power, to desolate provinces and set villages in flames, to ruin thousands and destroy thousands-to inflict, in brief, all the evils and the miseries which war inflicts. "Splendours,"—" Glories,"—" Honours !"the listening soldier wants to signalize himself like the heroes who are departed; he wants to thrust his sickle into the fields of fame and reap undying laurels-How shall he signalize himself without a war, and on what field can he reap glory but in the field of battle? The consequence is inevitable: Multitudes desire war ;-they are fond of war-and it requires no sagacity to discover, that to desire and to love it is to make it likely to happen. Thus a perpetual motive to human destruction is created, of which the tendency is as inevitable as the tendency of a stone to fall to the earth. The present state of public opinion manifestly promotes the recurrence of wars of all kinds, necessary (if such there are) and unnecessary. It promotes wars of pure aggression, of the most unmingled wickedness; it promoted the wars of the departed Louises and Napoleons. awards" glory to the soldier wherever be his achievements and in whatever cause.

It

Now, waiving the after consideration as to the nature of Glory itself, the individual may judge of his duties with respect to public opinion by its effects. To minister to the popular notions of glory is to encourage needless wars; it is therefore his duty not to minister to those notions. Common talk by a man's fireside contributes its little to the universal evil, and shares in the universal offence. Of the writers of some books it is not too much to suppose, that they have occasioned more murders than all the clubs and pistols of assassins for ages have effected. Is there no responsibility for this?

But perhaps it will afford to some men new ideas if we enquire what the real nature of the military virtues is. They receive more of applause than virtues of any other kind. How does this happen? We must seek a solution in the seeming paradox, that their pretensions to the characters of Virtues are few and small. They receive much applause because they merit little. They could not subsist without it; and if men resolve to practise war, and consequently to require the conduct which gives success to war, they must decorate that conduct with glittering fietions, and extol the military virtues though they be neither good nor great. Of every species of real excellence it is the general characteristic that it is not anxious for applause. The more elevated the virtue the less the desire, and the less is the public voice a motive to action. What should we say of that man's benevolence who would not relieve a neighbour in distress unless the donation would be praised in a newspaper? What should we say of that man's piety who prayed only when he was " seen of men?" But the military virtues live upon applause; it is their vital element and their food, their great pervading motive and reward. Are there, then, amongst the respective virtues such discordances of character-such total contrariety of nature and essence? No, No. But how, then, do you account for the fact, that whilst all other great virtues are independent of public praise and stand aloof from it, the military virtues can scarcely exist without it?

It is again a characteristic of exalted Virtue, that it tends to produce exalted virtues of other kinds. He that is distinguished by diffusive benevolence, is rarely chargeable with profaneness or debauchery. The man of piety is not seen drunk. The man of candour and humility is not vindictive or unchaste. Can the same thing be predicated of the tendency of military virtues? Do they tend powerfully to the production of all other virtues? Is the brave man

poacher being a coward. They all make good soldiers; and military men are well aware that two or three men in each troop or company, of bold and enterprising spirits, are not without their effect on their comrades." The same may of course be said of smugglers and highwaymen. If these are the characters in whom we are peculiarly to seek for bravery, what are the moral qualities of bravery itself! All just, all rational, and I will venture to affirm all permanent reputation refers to the mind or to virtue; and what connexion has animal power or animal hardihood with intellect or goodness? I do not decry courage he who was better acquainted than we are with the nature and worth of human actions, attached much value to courage, but he attached none to bravery.* Courage he recommended by his precepts and enforced by his example: bravery he never recommended at all. The wisdom of this distinction and its accordancy with the principles of his religion are plain. Bravery requires the existence of many of those dispositions which he disa!lowed. Animosity, the desire of retaliation, the disposition to injure and destroy--all this is necessary to the existence of bravery, but all this is incompatible with Christianity. The courage which Christianity requires is to bravery what fortitude is to daring --an effort of the mental principles rather than of the spirits. It is a calm steady determinateness of purpose, that will not be diverted by solicitation or awed by fear. "Behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there; save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide

me.

But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself." What resemblance has bravery to courage like this? This courage is a virtue, and a virtue which it is difficult to acquire or to practise; and we have heedlessly or ingeniously transferred its praise to another quality which is inferior in its nature and easier to acquire, in order that we may obtain the reputation of virtue at a cheap rate.

Of those who thus extol the lower qualities of our nature, few perhaps are conscious to what a degree they are deluded. In exhibiting this delusion let us not forget the purpose for which it is done. The popular notion respecting bravery does not terminate in an innoxious mistake. The consequences are practically and greatly evil. He that has placed his hopes upon the praises of valour, desires of course an opportunity of acquiring them, and this opportunity he cannot find but in the destruction of men. That such powerful motives will lead to this destruction when even ambition can scarcely find a pretext, we need not the testimony of experience to assure us. It is enough that we consider the principles which actuate mankind.

And if we turn from actions to motives, from bravery to patriotism, we are presented with similar delusions, and with similar mischiefs as their consequence, To "fight nobly for our country," to "fall covered with glory in our country's cause," to 66 sacrifice our lives for the liberties and laws and religion of our country," are phrases in the mouth of multitudes. What do they mean, and to whom do they apply? We contend, that to say generally of those who perish in war that "they have died for their country," is simply untrue: and for this simple reason, that they did not fight for it. It is not true that patriotism is their motive. Why is a boy destined from school for the army? Is it that his

"Whatever merit valour may have assumed among Pagans, with Christians it can pretend to none." Soame Jenyns: Internal Evid. of Christianity, Prop. 3.

† Acts xx. 22.

father is more patriotic than his neighbour, who destines his son for the bar ? Or if the boy himself begs his father to buy an ensigncy, is it because he loves his country, or is it because he dreams of glory, and admires scarlet and plumes and swords? The officer enters the service in order that he may obtain an income, not in order to benefit his fellow citizens, The private enters it because he prefers a soldier's life to another, or because he has no wish but the wish for change. And having entered the army, what is the motive that induces the private or his superiors to fight? It is that fighting is part of their business; that it is one of the conditions upon which they were hired. Patriotism is not the mo tive. Of those who fall in battle, is there one in hundred who even thinks of his country's good f He thinks perhaps of glory and of the fame of his regi ment-he hopes perhaps that "Salamanca" or "Aus terlitz" will henceforth be inscribed on its colours; but rational views of his country's welfare are foreign to his mind. He has scarcely a thought about the matter. He fights in battle as a horse draws in a carriage, because he is compelled to do it, or because he has done it before; but he probably thinks no more of his country's good than the same horse, if he were carrying corn to a granary, would think he was providing for the comforts of his master. The truth therefore is, that we give to the soldier that of which we are wont to be sufficiently sparing-a gratuitous concession of merit. If he but "fights bravely," he is a patriot and secure of his praise.

To sacrifice our lives for the liberties and laws and religion of our native land, are undoubtedly high-sounding words; but who are they that will do it? Who is it that will sacrifice his life for his country? Will the senator who supports a war? Will the writer who declaims upon patriotism? Will the minister of religion who recommends the sacrifice? Take away war and its fictions, and there is not a man of them who will do it. Will he sacrifice his life at home? If the loss of his life in London or at York would procure just so much benefit to his country as the loss of one soldier's in the field, would he be willing to lay his head upon the block! Is he willing, for such a contribution to his country's good, to resign himself without notice and without remembrance to the executioner? Alas for the fictions of war! where is such a man? Men will not sacrifice their lives at all unless it be in war; and they do not sacrifice them in war from motives of patriotism. In no rational use of language, therefore, can it be said that the soldier "dies for his country."

Not that there may not be or that there have not been persons who fight from motives of patriotism. But the occurrence is comparatively rare. There may be physicians who qualify themselves for practice from motives of benevolence to the sick; or lawyers who assume the gown in order to plead for the injured and oppressed; but it is an unusual motive, and so is patriotism to the soldier.

And after all, even if all soldiers fought out of zeal for their country, what is the merit of Patriotism itself? I do not say that it possesses no virtue, but I affirm and hope hereafter to show, that its virtue is extravagantly overrated, and that if every one who fought did fight for his country, he would often be actuated only by a mode of selfishness-of selfishness which sacrifices the general interests of the species to the interests of a part.

Such and so low are the qualities which have obtained from deluded and deluding millions, fame, honours, glories. A prodigious structure, and almost

• Essay 3, c. 17.