If this remark be just, it suggests an important practical rule in the business of education:-Not to attempt the cure of lying and deceit by general rules concerning the duty of veracity, or by punishments inflicted upon every single violation of it, but by studying to discover and remove the radical evil from which it springs, whether it be cowardice, or vanity, or mischief, or selfishness, or sensuality. Either of these, if allowed to operate, will in time unhinge the natural constitution of the mind, and produce a disregard to truth upon all occasions where a temporary convenience can be gained by the breach of it.

From these imperfect hints, it would appear that every breach of veracity indicates some latent vice or some criminal intention, which an individual is ashamed to avow. And hence the peculiar beauty of openness or sincerity, uniting in some degree in itself the graces of all the other moral qualities of which it attests the existence.

Fidelity to promises, which is commonly regarded as a branch of veracity, is perhaps more properly a branch of justice; but this is merely a question of arrangement, and of little consequence to our present purpose. If a person gives his promise, intending to perform, but fails in the execution, his fault is strictly speaking a breach of justice. As there is a natural faith in testimony, so there is a natural expectation excited by a promise. When I exite this expectation, and lead other men to act accordingly, I convey a right to the performance of my promise, and I act unjustly if I fail in performing it.

If a person promises, not intending to perform, he is guilty of a complication of injustice and falsehood; for although a declaration of present intention does not amount to a promise, every promise involves a declaration of present intention.

These observations may suffice with respect to the duties which have our fellow creatures for their objects. I have by no means attempted a complete enumeration,

which would have unavoidably engaged me in an illustration of the hackneyed topics of practical morality. What I had chiefly in view was to show, that, even among those duties which have a reference to mankind, there are several which cannot be resolved into that of benevolence.

The duties which I have mentioned are all independent of any particular relation between us and other men. But there are a great variety of other duties resulting from such relations; the duties (for example) of Friendship and of Patriotism, besides those relative duties which moralists have distinguished by the titles of Economical and Political. To attempt an enumeration of these, would lead into the details of practical Ethics.

CHAPTER FOURTH.

OF THE DUTIES WHICH RESPECT OURSELVES.

General Remarks on this Class of our Duties.

PRUDENCE, temperance, and fortitude, are no less requisite for enabling us to discharge our social duties, than for securing our own private happiness: * But as they do not necessarily imply any reference to our fellow creatures, they seem to belong most properly to this third branch of virtue.

An illustration of the nature and tendency of these qualities, and of the means by which they are to be improved and confirmed, although a most important article of ethics, does not lead to any discussions of so abstract a kind, as to require particular attention in a work of which brevity is a principal object. It is sufficient here to remark, that, independently of all considerations of utility, either to ourselves or to others, these qualities are approved of as right and becoming. Their utility, at the same time, or rather necessity, for securing the discharge of our other duties, adds greatly to the respect they command, and is certainly the chief ground of the obligation we lie under, to cultivate the habits by which they are formed.

A steady regard, in the conduct of life, to the happiness and perfection of our own nature, and a diligent study of the means by which these ends may be attained, is another duty belonging to this branch of virtue. It is a duty so important and comprehensive, that it leads to the practice of all the rest, and is therefore entitled to a very full and particular examination in a system of Moral Philosophy. Such an examination, while it leads

"He who is qualified to promote the welfare of mankind," says Dr. Ferguson, "is neither a sot, a fool, nor a coward."-Essay on the History of Civil Society, Part i. Sect. vi.

our thoughts "to the end and aim of our being," will again bring under our review the various duties already considered; and by showing how they all conspire in recommending the same dispositions, will illustrate the unity of design in the human constitution, and the benevolent wisdom displayed in its formation. Other subordinate duties, besides, which it would be tedious to enumerate under separate titles, may thus be placed in a light more interesting and agreeable.

SECTION I.

Of the Duty of employing the Means we possess to secure our own Happiness. ACCORDING to Dr. Hutcheson, our conduct, so far as it is influenced by self-love, is never the object of moral approbation. Even a regard to the pleasures of a good conscience he considered as detracting from the merit of those actions which it encourages us to perform.

That the principle of self-love (or, in other words, the desire of happiness) is neither an object of approbation nor of blame, is sufficiently obvious. It is inseparable from the nature of man as a rational and a sensitive being. It is, however, no less obvious, on the other hand, that this desire, considered as a principle of action, has by no means an uniform influence on the conduct. Our animal appetites, our affections, and the other inferior principles of our nature, interfere as often with self-love as with benevolence, and mislead us from our own happiness as much as from the duties we owe to others.

In these cases every spectator pronounces, that we deserve to suffer for our folly and indiscretion; and we ourselves, as soon as the tumult of passion is over, feel in the same manner. Nor is this remorse merely a sentiment of regret for having missed that happiness which we might have enjoyed. We are dissatisfied, not only with our condition, but with our conduct;-with our having forfeited by our own imprudence what we might have attained.*

*See Butler's Dissertation on the Nature of Virtue.

It is true that we do not feel so warm an indignation against the neglect of private good, as against perfidy, cruelty, and injustice. The reason probably is, that imprudence commonly carries its own punishment along with it; and our resentment is disarmed by pity. Indeed, as that habitual regard to his own happiness, which every man feels, except when under the influence of some violent appetite, is a powerful check on imprudence, it was less necessary to provide an additional punishment for this vice in the indignation of the world.

From the principles now stated, it follows, that, in a person who believes in a future state, the criminality of every bad action is aggravated by the imprudence with which it is accompanied.

It follows, also, that the punishments annexed by the civil magistrate to particular actions render the commission of them more criminal than it would otherwise be; insomuch, that if an action, in itself perfectly indifferent, were prohibited by some arbitrary law, under a severe penalty, the commission of that action (unless we were called to it by some urgent consideration of duty) would be criminal, not merely on account of the obedience which a subject owes to established authority, but on account of the regard which every man ought to feel for his life and reputation. To forge the hand-writing of another with a fraudulent intention is undoubtedly a crime, independently of positive institutions; and it becomes still more criminal in a commercial country like ours, on account of the extensive mischiefs which may arise from it. It is a crime, however, not of greater magnitude than many other kinds of commercial fraud that might be mentioned. If the King, for example, grants his patent to a subject for a particular invention, and another counterfeits it, and makes use of his name, stamp, and coat of arms, he not only injures an individual, but imposes on the public. Abstracting, therefore, from positive law, the criminality of the latter act is fully as great as that of the former. As the law, however, has made the one act capital, and the other not, but only subjected the person who commits it to pecuniary damages to the individual he has injured, the forgery of a