mention of you always in my prayers." That the Almighty was witness to the subject of his prayers is most true; but to state this truth is not to swear. Neither this language nor that which is indicated below, contains the characteristics of an oath accor nication," fixes the meaning to apply to the ordinary intercourse of life. But to this there is a fatal objection the whole prohibition sets out with a reference not to conversational language but to solemn declarations on solemn occasions. "Oaths, Oaths "to the Lord," are placed at the head of the pas-ding to the definitions even of those who urge the sage; and it is too manifest to be insisted upon that solemn declarations, and not every-day talk, were the subject of the prohibition. "Whatsoever is more than these, cometh of evil." This is indeed most accurately true. Evil is the foundation of oaths: it is because men are bad that it is supposed oaths are needed: take away the wickedness of mankind, and we shall still have occasion for No and Yes, but we shall need nothing more than these." And this consideration furnishes a distinct motive to a good man to decline to swear. To take an oath is tacitly to acknowledge that this "evil" exists in his own mind- that with him Christianity has not effected its destined objects. From this investigation of the passage, it appears manifest that all swearing upon all occasions is prohibited. Yet the ordinary opinion, or rather perhaps the ordinary defence is, that the passage has no reference to judicial oaths. "We explain our Saviour's words to relate not to judicial oaths but to the practice of vain, wanton, and unauthorized swearing in common discourse." To this we have just seen that there is one conclusive answer: our Saviour distinctly and specifically mentions, as the subject of his instructions, solemn oaths. But there is another conclusive answer even upon our opponents' own showing. They say first, that Christ described particular forms of oaths which might be employed, and next, that his precepts referred to wanton swearing; that is to say, that Christ described what particular forms of wanton swearing he allowed and what he disallowed! You cannot avoid this monstrous conclusion. If Christ spoke only of vain and wanton swearing, and if he described the modes that were lawful, he sanctioned wanton swearing provided we swear in the prescribed form, With such distinctness of evidence as to the uni versality of the prohibition of oaths by Jesus Christ, it is not in strictness necessary to refer to those passages in the Christian Scriptures which some persons adduce in favour of their employment. If Christ have prohibited them, nothing else can prove them to be right. Our reference to these passages will accordingly be short. "I adjure thee by the living God that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God." To those who allege that Christ, in answering to this "Thou hast said," took an oath, a sufficient answer has already been intimated. If Christ then took an oath, he swore by the Deity, and this is precisely the very kind of oath which it is acknowledged he himself forbade. But what imaginable reason could there be for examining him upon oath? Who ever heard of calling upon a prisoner to swear that he was guilty? Nothing was wanted but a simple declaration that he was the Son of God. With this view the proceeding was extremely natural. Finding that to the less urgent solicitation he made no reply, the high priest proceeded to the more urgent. Schleusner expressly remarks upon the passage that the words, I adjure, do not here mean, " I make to swear or put upon oath," but I solemnly and in the name of God exhort and enjoin." This is evidently the natural and the only natural meaning; just as it was the natural meaning when the evil spirit said, "I adjure thee by the living God that thou torment me not." The evil spirit surely did not administer an oath. "God is my witness that without ceasing I make expressions. None of them contain, according to Milton's definition," a curse upon ourselves;" nor according to Paley's, "an invocation of God's vengeance." Similar language, but in a more emphatic form isemployed in writing to the Corinthian converts. It appears from 2 Cor. ii. that Paul had resolved not again to go to Corinth in heaviness, lest he should make them sorry. And to assure them why he had made this resolution he says, "I call God for a record upon my soul that to spare you I came not as yet unto Corinth." In order to show this to be an oath, it will be necessary to show that the apostle imprecated the vengeance of God if he did not speak the truth. Who can show this?-The expression appears to me to be only an emphatical mode of saying, God is witness; or as the expression is sometimes employed in the present day, God knows that such was my endeavour or desire. The next and the last argument is of a very exceptionable class: it is founded upon silence. "For men verily swear by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife."† Respecting this it is said that it "speaks of the custom of swearing judicially without any mark of censure or disapprobation." Will it then be contended that whatever an apostle mentions without reprobating, he approves? The same apostle speaks just in the same manner of the pagan games; of running a race for prizes and of "striving for the mastery. who would admit the argument, that because Paul did not then censure the games, he thought them right! The existing customs both of swearing and of the games, are adduced merely by way of illustration of the writer's subject. Yet Respecting the lawfulness of oaths, then, as determined by the Christian Scriptures, how does the balance of evidence stand? On the one side, we have plain emphatical prohibitions-prohibitions, of which the distinctness is more fully proved the more they are investigated; on the other we have-counter precepts? No; it is not even pretended; but we have examples of the use of language, of which it is saying much to say, that it is doubtful whether they are oaths or not. How, then, would the man of reason and of philosophy decide?" Many of the Christian fathers," says Grotius, "condemned all oaths without exception." Grotius was himself an advocate of oaths. "I say nothing of perjury," says Tertullian," since swearing itself is unlawful to Christians."§ Chrysostom says, “Do not say to me, I swear for a just purpose; it is no longer lawful for thee to swear either justly or unjustly." "He who," says Gregory of Nysse," has precluded murder by taking away anger, and who has driven away the pollution of adultery by subduing desire, has expelled from our life the curse of perjury by forbidding us to swear; for where there is no oath, there can be no infringement of it." Such is the conviction which the language of Christ conveyed to the early converts to his pure religion; and such is the conviction which I think it would convey to us if custom had not familiarized us with the evil, and if we did not read the New Testament rather to find justifications of our practice than to discover the truth and to apply it to our conduct. Rom. i. 9. See also 1. Thess. ii. 5 and Gal. i. 20. EFFICACY OF OATHS AS SECURITIES FOR VERACITY. Men naturally speak the truth unless they have some inducements to falsehood. When they have such inducements, what is it that overcomes them and still prompts them to speak the truth? Considerations of duty, founded upon religion : The apprehension of the ill opinion of other men: The fear of legal penalties. I. It is obvious that the intervention of an oath is designed to strengthen only the first of these motives-that is, the religious sanction. I say to strengthen the religious sanction. No one supposes it creates that sanction; because people know that the sanction is felt to apply to falsehood as well as to perjury. The advantage of an oath, then, if advantage there be, is in the increased power which it gives to sentiments of duty founded upon religion. Now, it will be our endeavour to show that this increased power is small; that, in fact, the oath, as such, adds very little to the motives to veracity. What class of men will the reader select in order to illustrate its greatest power? Good men? They will speak the truth whether without an oath or with it. They know that God has appended to falsehood as to perjury the threat of his displeasure and of punishment in futurity. Upon them religion possesses its rightful influence without the intervention of an oath. Bad men? Men who care nothing for religion? They will care nothing for it though they take an oath. Men of ambiguous character? Men on whom the sanctions of religion are sometimes operative and sometimes not? Perhaps it will be said that to these the solemnity of an oath is necessary to rouse their latent apprehensions, and to bind them to veracity. But these persons do not go before a legal officer or into a court of justice as they go into a parlour or meet an acquaintance in the street. Recollection of mind is forced upon them by the circumstances of their situation. The court, and the forms of law, and the audience, and the after publicity of the evidence, fix the attention even of the careless. The man of only occasional seriousness is serious then; and if in their hours of seriousness, such persons regard the sanctions of religion, they will regard them in a court of justice though without an oath. Yet it may be supposed by the reader that the solemnity of a specific imprecation of the Divine vengeance would, nevertheless, frequently add stronger motives to adhere to truth. But what is the evidence of experience? After testimony has been given on affirmation, the parties are sometimes examined on the same subject upon oath. Now Pothier says, "In forty years of practice I have only met two instances where the parties, in the case of an oath offered after evidence, have been prevented by a sense of religion from persisting in their testi. monies." Two instances in forty years; and even with respect to these it is to be remembered, that one great reason why simple affirmations do not bind men is, that their obligation is artificially diminished (as we shall presently see) by the employment of oaths. To the evidence resulting from these truths I know of but one limitary consideration; and to this the reader must attach such weight as he thinks it deserves-that a man on whom an oath had been originally imposed might then have been bound to veracity, who would not incur the shame of having lied by refusing afterwards to confirm his falsehoods with an oath. II. The next inducement to adhere to truth is the apprehension of the ill opinion of others. And this inducement, either in its direct or indirect opera tion, will be found to be incomparably more powerful than that religious inducement which is applied by an oath as such. Not so much because religious sanctions are less operative than public opinion, as because public opinion applies or detaches the religious sanction. Upon this subject a serious mistake has been made; for it has been contended that the influence of religious motives is comparatively nothing that unless men are impelled to speak the truth by fear of disgrace or of legal penalties, they care very little for the sanctions of religion. But the truth is, that the sanctions of religion are, in a great degree, either brought into operation, or prevented from operating, by these secondary motives. Religious sanctions necessarily follow the judgments of the mind; if a man by any means becomes convinced that a given action is wrong, the religious obligation to refrain from it follows. Now, the judgments of men respecting right and wrong are very powerfully affected by public opinion. It commonly happens that that which a man has been habitually taught to think wrong, he does think wrong. Men are thus taught by public opinion. So that if the public attach disgrace to any species of mendacity or perjury, the religious sanction will commonly apply to that species. If there are instances of mendacity or perjury to which public disapprobation does not attach-to those instances the religious sanction will commonly not apply, or apply but weakly. The power of public opinion in binding to veracity is therefore twofold. It has its direct influence arising from the fear which all men feel of the disapprobation of others, and the indirect influence arising from the fact that public opinion applies the sanctions of religion. III. Of the influence of legal penalties in binding to veracity, little needs to be said. It is obvious that if they induce men to refrain from theft and violence, they will induce men to refrain from perjury. But it may be remarked, that the legal penalty tends to give vigour and efficiency to public opinion. He whom the law punishes as a criminal, is generally regarded as a criminal by the world. * And Now that which we affirm is this-that unless public opinion or legal penalties enforce veracity, very little will be added by an oath to the motives to veracity more than would subsist in the case of simple affirmation. The observance of the Oxford statutes is promised by the members on oath-yet no one observes them. They swear to observe them, they imprecate the Divine vengeance if they do not observe them, and yet they disregard them every day. The oath then is of no avail. An oath, as such, does not here bind men's consciences. why? Because those sanctions by which men's consciences are bound, are not applied. The law applies none: public opinion applies none: and therefore the religious sanction is weak; too weak with most men to avail. Not that no motives founded upon religion present themselves to the mind; for I doubt not there are good men who would refuse to take these oaths simply in consequence of religious motives: but constant experience shows that these men are comparatively few; and if any one should say that upon them an oath is influential, we answer, that they are precisely the very persons who would be bound by their simple promises without an oath. The oaths of Jurymen afford another instance. Jurymen swear that they will give a verdict according to the evidence, and yet it is perfectly well known that they often assent to a verdict which they believe to be contrary to that evidence. They do not all coincide in the verdict which the foreman pronoun • See p. 106. ces, it is indeed often impossible that they should coincide. This perjury is committed by multitudes; yet what juryman cares for it, or refuses, in consequence of his oath, to deliver a verdict which he believes to be improper? The reason that they do not care is, that the oath, as such, does not bind their consciences. It stands alone. The public do not often reprobate the violation of such oaths; the law does not punish it; jurymen learn to think that it is no harm to violate them; and the resulting conclusion is, that the form of an oath cannot and does not supply the deficiency;--It cannot and does not apply the religious sanction. gion would remain; and we have just shown how little a mere oath avails. But we have artificially diminished the public reprobation of lying by establishing oaths. The tendency of instituting oaths is manifestly to diffuse the sentiment that there is a difference in the degree of obligation not to lie, and not to swear falsely. This difference is made, not so much by adding stronger motives to veracity by an oath, as by deducting from the motives to veracity in simple affirmations. Let the public opinion take its own healthful and unobstructed course, and falsehood in evidence will quickly be regarded as a flagrant offence. Take away oaths, and the public reprobation of falsehood will immediately increase in power, and will bring with its increase an increasing efficiency in the religious sanction. The present accurate standard by which to judge of the efficiency of oaths. We have artificially reduced the abhorrence of lying, and then say that that abhorrence is not great enough to bind men to the truth. Step a few yards from the jury box to the witnessbox, and you see the difference. There public opinion interposes its power-there the punishment of perjury impends-there the religious sanction is ap-relative estimate of lying and perjury is a very inplied and there, consequently, men regard the truth. If the simple intervention of an oath was that which bound men to veracity, they would be bound in the jury-box as much as at ten feet off; but it is not. A custom-house oath is nugatory even to a proverb. Yet it is an oath: yet the swearer does stake his salvation upon his veracity; and still his veracity is not secured. Why? Because an oath, as such, applies to the minds of most men little or no motive to veracity. They do not in fact think that their salvation is staked, necessarily, by oaths. They think it is either staked or not, according to certain other circumstances quite independent of the oath itself. These circumstances are not associated with custom-house oaths, and therefore they do not avail. Churchwardens' oaths are of the same kind. Upon these, Gisborne remarks-"In the successive execution of the office of churchwarden, almost every man above the rank of a day labourer, in every parish in the kingdom, learns to consider the strongest sanction of truth as a nugatory form." This is not quite accurate. They do not learn to consider the strongest sanction of truth as a nugatory form, but they learn to consider oaths as a nugatory form. The reality is, that the sanctions of truth are not brought into operation, and that oaths, as such, do not bring them into operation. We return then to our proposition-Unless public opinion or legal penalties enforce veracity, very little is added by an oath to the motives to veracity, more than would subsist in the case of simple affirmation. It is obvious that the legislature might, if it pleased, attach the same penalties to falsehood as it now attaches to perjury; and therefore all the motives to veracity which are furnished by the law in the case of oaths, might be equally furnished in the case of affirmation. This is in fact done by the legislature in the case of the Society of Friends. Our reasoning then proceeds by these steps. Oaths are designed to apply a strong religious sanction: they however do not apply it unless they are seconded by the apprehension of penalties or disgrace. The apprehension of penalties and disgrace may be attached to falsehood, and with this apprehension the religious sanction will also be attached to it. Therefore, all those motives which bind men to veracity may be applied to falsehood as well as to oaths. In other words, oaths are needless. But in reality we have evidence of this needlessness from every day experience. In some of the most important of temporal affairs, an oath is never used. The Houses of Parliament in their examinations of witnesses, employ no oaths. They are convinced (and therefore they have proved) that the truth can be discovered without them. But if affirmation is thus a sufficient security for veracity in the great questions of a legislature, how can it be insufficient in the little questions of private life? There is a strange inconsistency here. That same Parliament which declares, by its every-day practice, that oaths are needless, continues, by its every-day practice, to impose them! Even more: those very men who themselves take oaths as a necessary qualification for their duties as legislators, proceed to the exercise of these duties upon the mere testimony of other men!-Peers are never required to take oaths in delivering their testimony, yet no one thinks that a peer's evidence in a court of justice may not be as much depended upon as that of him who swears. Why are peers in fact bound to veracity though without an oath? Will you say that the religious sanction is more powerful upon lords than upon other men? The supposition were ridiculous. How then does it happen? You the same as to say that public opinion binds them. But then, he who says that honour, or any thing else besides pure religious sanctions, binds men to veracity, impugns the very grounds upon which oaths are defended. It is also obvious that public opinion might be ap-reply, Their honour binds them: Very well; that is plied to affirmation much more powerfully than it is now. The simple circumstance of disusing oaths would effect this. Even now, when the public disapprobation is excited against a man who has given false evidence in a court of justice, by what is it excited by his having broken his oath, or by his having given false testimony? It is the falsehood which excites the disapprobation, much more than the circumstance that the falsehood was in spite of an oath. This public disapprobation is founded upon the general perception of the guilt of false testimony and of its perniciousness. Now if affirmation only was employed, this public disapprobation would follow the lying witness, as it now follows, or nearly as it now follows, the perjured witness. Every thing but the mere oath would be the same-the fear of penalties, the fear of disgrace, the motives of reli Oath evidence again is not required by courtsmartial. But can any man assign a reason why a person who would speak the truth on affirmation before military officers, would not speak it on affirmation before a judge? Arbitrations too proceed often, perhaps generally, upon evidence of parole. Yet do not arbitrators discover the truth as well as courts of justice? and if they did not, it would be little in favour of oaths, because a part of the sanction of veracity is, in the case of arbitrations, withdrawn. But we have even tried the experiment of affirmations in our own courts of justice, and tried it for some ages past. The Society of Friends uniformly give their evidence in courts of law on their words alone. No man imagines that their words do not bind them. No legal court would listen with more suspicion to a witness because he was a Quaker. Here all the motives to veracity are applied: there is the religious motive, which in such cases all but desperately bad men feel there is the motive of public opinion: and there is the motive arising from the penalties of the law. If the same motives were applied to other men, why should they not be as effectual in securing veracity as they are upon the Quakers? We have an example even yet more extensive. In all the courts of the United States of America, no one is obliged to take an oath. What are we to conclude? Are the Americans so foolish a people that they persist in accepting affirmations knowing that they do not bind witnesses to truth? Or, do the Americans really find that affirmations are sufficient? But one answer can be given:-They find that affirmations are sufficient: they prove undeniably that oaths are needless. No one will imagine that virtue on the other side the Atlantic is so much greater than on this, that while an affirmation is sufficient for an American an oath is necessary here. So that whether we enquire into the moral lawfulness of oaths, they are not lawful; or into their practical utility, they are of little use or of none. EFFECTS OF OATHS. THERE is a power and efficacy in our religion which elevates those who heartily accept it above that low moral state in which alone an oath can even be supposed to be of advantage. The man who takes an oath, virtually declares that his word would not bind him; and this is an admission which no good man should make for the sake both of his own moral character and of the credit of religion itself. It is the testimony even of infidelity, that "wherever men of uncommon energy and dignity of mind have existed, they have felt the degradation of binding their assertions with an oath."* This degradation, this descent from the proper ground on which a man of integrity should stand, illustrates the proposition that whatever exceeds affirmation "cometh of evil." The evil origin is so palpable that you cannot comply with the custom without feeling that you sacrifice the dignity of virtue. It is related of Solon that he said, "A good man ought to be in that estimation that he needs not an oath; because it is to be reputed a lessening of his honour if he be forced to swear."* If to take an oath, lessened a pagan's honour, what must be its effect upon a Christian's purity. Oaths, at least the system of oaths which obtains in this country, tends powerfully to deprave the moral character. We have seen that they are continually violated-that men are continually referring to the most tremendous sanctions of religion with the habitual belief that those sanctions impose no practical obligation. Can this have any other tendency than to diminish the influence of religious sanctions upon other things? If a man sets light by the divine vengeance in the jury box to-day, is he likely to give full weight to that vengeance before a magistrate to-morrow? We cannot prevent the effects of habit. Such things will infallibly deteriorate the moral character, because they infallibly diminish the power of those principles upon which the moral character is founded. Oaths encourage falsehood. We have already Godwin: Political Justice, ▾ + Stobœus: Serm. 3. 633. seen that the effect of instituting oaths is to diminish the practical obligation of simple affirmation. The law says, You must speak the truth when you are upon your oath; which is the same thing as to say that it is less harm to violate truth when you are not on your oath. The court sometimes reminds a witness that he is upon oath, which is equivalent to saying, If you were not, we should think less of your mendacity. The same lesson is inculcated by the assignation of penalties to perjury and not to falsehood. What is a man to conclude, but that the law thinks light of the crime which it does not punish; and that since he may lie with impunity, it is not much harm to lie? Common language bears testimony to the effect. The vulgar phrase I will take my oath to it, clearly evinces the prevalent notion that a man may lie with less guilt when he does not take his oath. No answer can be made to this remark, unless any one can show that the extra sanction of an oath is so much added to the obligation which would otherwise attach to simple affirmation. And who can show this? Experience proves the contrary: "Experience bears ample testimony to the fact, that the prevalence of oaths among men (Christians not excepted) has produced a very material and very general effect in reducing their estimate of the obligation of plain truth, in its natural and simple forms."*" There is no cause of insincerity, prevarication, and falsehood, more powerful than the practice of administering oaths in a court of justice."+ Upon this subject the legislator plays a desperate game against the morality of a people. He wishes to make them speak the truth when they undertake an office or deliver evidence. Even supposing him to succeed, what is the cost? That of diminishing the motives to veracity in all the affairs of life. A man may not be called upon to take an oath above two or three times in his life, but he is called upon to speak the truth every day. A few, but a few serious, words remain. The investigations of this chapter are not matters to employ speculation but to influence our practice. If it be indeed true that Jesus Christ has imperatively forbidden us to employ an oath, a duty, an imperative duty is imposed upon us. It is worse than merely vain to hear his laws unless we obey them. Of him therefore who is assured of the prohibition, it is indispensably required that he should refuse an oath. There is no other means of maintaining our allegiance to God. Our pretensions to Christianity are at stake: for he who, knowing the Christian law, will not conform to it, is certainly not a Christian. How then does it happen, that although persons frequently acknowledge they think oaths are forbidden, so few, when they are called upon to swear, decline to do it? Alas, this offers one evidence amongst the many, of the want of uncompromising moral principles in the world-of such principles as it has been the endeavour of these pages to enforce of such principles as would prompt us and enable us to sacrifice every thing to Christian fidelity. By what means do the persons of whom we speak suppose that the will of God respecting oaths is to be effected? To whose practice do they look for an exemplification of the Christian standard? Do they await some miracle by which the whole world shall be convinced and oaths shall be abolished without the agency of man? Such are not the means by which it is the pleasure of the Universal Lord to act. He effects his moral purposes by the instrumentality of faithful men. Where are these faithful men?-But let it be if those who are called to this fidelity refuse, Gurney: Observations, &c. c. x. Godwin: v. 2. p. 634. theirs will be the dishonour and the offence. But the work will eventually be done. Other and better men will assuredly arise to acquire the Christian honour and to receive the Christian reward. CHAPTER VIII. THE MORAL CHARACTER, OBLIGATIONS, AND EFFECTS SUBSCRIPTION TO ARTICLES OF RELIGION. Oath of Allegiance-Oath in Evidence-Perjury-Military oath Yet bound to veracity more than he was before he made it. It is no greater lie to speak falsely after an affirmation than before. What OATH OF ALLEGIANCE. "I do sincerely promise and swear that I will be faithful, and bear true allegiance, to his Majesty king George."-On the propriety of exacting these political oaths, we shall offer some observations in the next Essay.* At present we ask, What does the oath of allegiance mean? Set a hundred men each to write an exact account of what the party here promises to do, and I will undertake to affirm that not one in the hundred will agree with any other individual. "I will be faithful: " What is meant by being faithful? What is the extent of the obligation, and what are its limits? "I will bear true allegiance :" does allegiance mean? Is it synonymous with fidelity? Or does it embrace a wider extent of obligation, or a narrower? And if either, how is the extent ascertained?—The oath was, I believe, made In reading the paragraphs which follow respecting purposely indefinite: the old oath of allegiance was several of the specific oaths which are imposed in more discriminative. But no form can discriminate this country, the reader should remember, that the the duty of a citizen to his rulers-unless you make evils with which they are attended would almost it consist of a political treatise; and no man can equally attend affirmations in similar circumstances. write a treatise with definitions to which all would Our object therefore is less to illustrate their nature subscribe. The truth is, that no one knows what the as oaths, than as improper and vicious engagements. oath of allegiance requires. Paley attempts, in six With respect to the interpretation of a particular separate articles, to define its meaning: one of which oath, it is obviously to be determined by the same definitions is, that "the oath excludes all design, rule as that of promises. A man must fulfil his oath at the time, of attempting to depose the reigning in that sense in which he knows the imposer designs prince." At the time! Why the oath is couched and expects him to fulfil it. And he must endeavour in the future tense. Its express purpose is to obto ascertain what the imposer's expectation is. To tain a security for future conduct. The swearer take an oath in voluntary ignorance of the obliga- declares, not what he then designs, but what, in tions which it is intended to impose, and to excuse time to come, he will do.-Another definition is ourselves for disregarding them because we do not "it permits resistance to the king when his ill beknow what they are, cannot surely be right. haviour or imbecility is such as to make resistance it is often difficult, sometimes impossible, to discover beneficial to the community." But how or in what what an oath requires. The absence of precision in manner "fidelity and true allegiance" means the meaning of terms, the alteration of general sistance," casuistry only can tell. We may rest usages whilst the forms of oaths remain the same, assured, that after all attempts at explanation, the and the original want of explicitness of the forms meaning of the oath will be, at the least, as doubtful themselves, throw sometimes insuperable obstacles as before. Nor is there any remedy. The fault is in the way of discovering, when a man takes an oath, not in the form, for no form can be good; but in what it is that he binds himself to do. This is mani- the imposition of any oath of allegiance. The only festly a great evil: and it is chargeable primarily means of avoiding the evil is by abolishing the oath. upon the custom of exacting oaths at all. It is in Besides, what do oaths of allegiance avail in those general a very difficult thing to frame an unobjec- periods of disturbance in which princes are commonly tionable oath-an oath which shall neither be so lax displaced? What revolution has been prevented by as to become nugatory by easiness of evasion and oaths of allegiance? uncertainty of meaning, nor so rigid as to demand in words more than the imposer wishes to exact, and thus to ensnare the consciences of those who take it. The same objections would apply to forms of affirmation. The only effectual remedy is to diminish, or, if it were possible, to abolish, the custom of requiring men to promise beforehand to pursue a certain course of action. How is non-fulfilment of these engagements punished? By fine, or imprisonment, or some other mode of penalty? Let the penalty, let the sanction remain, without the promise or the oath. A man swears allegiance to a prince : if he becomes a traitor he is punished, not for the breach of his oath but for his treason. Can you not punish his treason without the oath ? A man swears he has not received a bribe at an election. If he does receive one, you send him to prison. You could as easily send him thither if he had not sworn. You reply-But, by imposing the oath we bind the swearer's conscience. Alas! we have seen and we shall presently again see, that this plan of binding men is of little effect. There is one kind of affirmation that appears to involve absurdity. I mean that by which a man affirms that he will speak the truth. Of what use is the affirmation? The affirmant is not re Yet if the oath does no good, it does harm. It is always doing harm to exact promises from men, who cannot know beforehand whether they will fulfil them. And as to the ambiguity, it is always doing harm to require men to stake their salvation upon doing-they know not what. OATH IN EVIDENCE." The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, touching the matter in question." Is the witness to understand by this that if he truly answers all questions that are put to him, he conforms to the requisitions of the oath! If he is, the terms of the oath are very exceptionable; for many a witness may give true answers to a counsel and yet not tell "the whole truth." Or does the oath bind him to give an exact narrative of every particular connected with the matter in question whether asked or not? If it does, multitudes commit perjury. How then shall a witness act? Shall he commit perjury by withholding all information but that which is asked? Or shall he be ridiculed and perhaps silenced in court for attempting to narrate all that he has sworn to disclose? Here again the morality of the people is Essay III., ch. 5. + Mor. and Pol. Phil. b. 3, p. 1, c. 18. Ib. |