SECTION VII.

OF THE ARGUMENT AS AFFECTED BY THE PARTICULAR WORKER OF THE MIRACLES.

This is the last 'moment,' to use the language of Mechanics, which

we shall notice in this discussion. And here there is a remarkable

_petitio principii_ in Hume's management of his argument.

He says, roundly, that it makes no difference at all if God were

connected with the question as the author of the supposed miracles.

And why? Because, says he, we know God only by experience--meaning

as involved in nature--and, therefore, that in so far as miracles

transcend our experience of nature, they transcend by implication

our experience of God. But the very question under discussion

is--whether God did, or did not, manifest himself to human experience

in the miracles of the New Testament. But at all events, the idea

of God in itself already includes the notion of a _power_ to

work miracles, whether that power were over exercised or not; and

as Sir Isaac Newton thought that space might be the sensorium of

God, so may we (and with much more philosophical propriety) affirm

that the miraculous and the transcendent is the very nature of God.

God being assumed, it is as easy to believe in a miracle issuing

from him as in any operation according to the laws of nature (which,

after all, is possibly in many points only the nature of our planet):

it is as easy, because either mode of action is indifferent to

him. Doubtless this argument, when addressed to an Atheist, loses

its force; because he refuses to assume a God. But then, on the

other hand, it must be remembered that Hume's argument itself does

not stand on the footing of Atheism. He supposes it binding on a

Theist. Now a Theist, in starting from the idea of God, grants, of

necessity, the plenary power of miracles as greater and more awful

than man could even comprehend. All he wants is a sufficient motive

for such transcendent agencies; but this is supplied in excess

(as regards what we have called the _constituent_ miracles of

Christianity) by the case of a religion that was to revolutionize

the moral nature of man. The moral nature--the kingdom of the

will--is esentially opposed to the kingdom of nature even by the

confession of irreligious philosophers; and, therefore, being itself

a supersensual field, it seems more reasonably adapted to agencies

supernatural than such as are natural.

GENERAL RECAPITULATION.

In Hume's argument,--_x_, which expresses the resistance to

credibility in a miracle, is valued as of necessity equal to the

veiy maximum or ideal of human testimony; which, under the very

best circumstances, might be equal to +_x,_ in no case more,

and in all known cases less. We, on the other hand, have endeavored

to show--

1. That, because Hume contemplates only the case of a single

witness, it will happen that the case _Beta_ [of Sect. II.]

where a multitude of witnesses exist, may greatly exceed +_x;_

and with a sufficient multitude must exceed _x_.

2. That in the case of internal miracles--operations of divine agency

within the mind and conscience of the individual--Hume's argument

is necessarily set aside: the evidence, the +_x_, is perfect

for the individual, and the miraculous agency is meant for him

only.

3. That, in the case of one primary miracle, viz. the first

organization of man on this planet, the evidence greatly transcends

_x:_ because here it is an evidence not derived from experience

at all, but from the reflecting reason: and the miracle has the

same advantage over facts of experience, that a mathematical truth

has over the truths which rest on induction. It is the difference

between _must be_ and _is_--between the inevitable and the merely

actual.

4. That, in the case of another order of miracles, viz. prophecies,

Hume's argument is again overruled; because the +_x_ in this

case, the affirmative evidence, is not derived froms human testimony.

Some prophecies are obscure; they may be fulfilled possibly without

men's being aware of the fulfilment. But others, as that about

the fate of Babylon--about the fate of the Arabs (the children of

Ishmael)--about the fate of the Jews--are not of a nature to be

misunderstood; and the evidence which attends them is not alien,

but is intrinsic, and developed by themselves in successive stages

from age to age.

5. That, because the primary miracle in No. 3, argues at least a

_power_ competent to the working of a miracle, for any after

miracle we have only to seek a sufficient _motive_. Now, the

objects of the Christian revelation were equal at the least to those

of the original creation. In fact, Christianity may be considered

as a second creation; and the justifying cause for the _constituent_

miracles of Christianity is even to us as apparent as any which

could have operated at the primary creation. The _epigenesis_

was, at least, as grand an occasion as the _genesis_. Indeed,

it is evident, for example, that Christianity itself could not

have existed without the constituent miracle of the Resurrection;

because without that there would have been no conquest over death.

And here, as in No. 3, +_x_ is derived--not from any experience,

and therefore cannot be controlled by that sort of hostile experience

which Hume's argument relies on; but is derived from the reason

which transcends all experience.

CASUISTRY.

[1839.]

PART I.

It is remarkable, in the sense of being noticeable and interesting,

but not in the sense of being surprising, that Casuistry has fallen

into disrepute throughout all Protestant lands. This disrepute is

a result partly due to the upright morality which usually follows

in the train of the Protestant faith. So far it is honorable, and

an evidence of superior illumination. But, in the excess to which

it has been pushed, we may trace also a blind and somewhat bigoted

reaction of the horror inspired by the abuses of the Popish

Confessional. Unfortunately for the interests of scientific ethics,

the first cultivators of casuistry had been those who kept in view

the professional service of auricular confession. Their purpose

was--to assist the reverend confessor in appraising the quality of

doubtful actions, in order that he might properly adjust his scale

of counsel, of warning, of reproof, and of penance. Some, therefore,

in pure simplicity and conscientious discharge of the duty they had

assumed, but others, from lubricity of morals or the irritations

of curiosity, pushed their investigations into unhallowed paths of

speculation. They held aloft a torch for exploring guilty recesses-of

human life, which it is far better for us all to leave in their

original darkness. Crimes that were often all but imaginary,

extravagances of erring passion that would never have been known

as possibilities to the young and the innocent, were thus published

in their most odious details. At first, it is true, the decent

draperies of a dead language were suspended before these abominations:

but sooner or later some knave was found, on mercenary motives,

to tear away this partial veil; and thus the vernacular literature

of most nations in Southern Europe, was gradually polluted with

revelations that had been originally made in the avowed service of

religion. Indeed, there was one aspect of such books which proved

even more extensively disgusting. Speculations pointed to monstrous

offences, bore upon their very face and frontispiece the intimation

that they related to cases rare and anomalous. But sometimes casuistry

pressed into the most hallowed recesses of common domestic life.

The delicacy of youthful wives, for example, was often not less

grievously shocked than the manliness of husbands, by refinements

of monkish subtlety applied to cases never meant for religious

cognisance--but far better left to the decision of good feeling,

of nature, and of pure household morality. Even this revolting use

of casuistry, however, did less to injure its name and pretensions

than a persuasion, pretty generally diffused, that the main purpose

and drift of this science was a sort of hair-splitting process, by

which doubts might be applied to the plainest duties of life, or

questions raised on the extent of their obligations, for the single

benefit of those who sought to evade them. A casuist was viewed,

in short, as a kind of lawyer or special pleader in morals, such

as those who, in London, are known as Old Bailey practitioners,

called in to manage desperate cases--to suggest all available

advantages--to raise doubts or distinctions where simple morality

saw no room for either--and generally to teach the art, in nautical

phrase, of sailing as near the wind as possible, without fear of

absolutely foundering.

Meantime it is certain that casuistry, when soberly applied, is not

only a beneficial as well as a very interesting study; but that, by

whatever title, it is absolutely indispensable to the _practical_

treatment of morals. We may reject the name; the thing we cannot

reject. And accordingly the custom has been, in all English

treatises on ethics, to introduce a good deal of casuistry under

the idea of special illustration, but without any reference to

casuistry as a formal branch of research. Indeed, as society grows

complex, the uses of casuistry become more urgent. Even Cicero

could not pursue his theme through such barren generalizations as

entirely to evade all notice of special cases: and Paley has given

the chief interest to his very loose investigations of morality,

by scattering a selection of such cases over the whole field of

his discussion.

The necessity of casuistry might, in fact, be deduced from the

very origin, and genesis of the word. First came the general law

or rule of action. This was like the major proposition of a syllogism.

But next came a special instance or _case_, so stated as to

indicate whether it did or did not fall under the general rule.

This, again, was exactly the minor proposition in a syllogism. For

example, in logic we say, as the major proposition in a syllogism,

_Man is mortal_. This is the rule. And then 'subsuming' (such

is the technical phrase--_subsuming_) Socrates under the

rule by a minor proposition--viz. Socrates is a man--we are able

mediately to connect him with the predicate of that rule, viz,

_ergo_, Socrates is mortal.[Footnote: The ludicrous blunder

of Reid (as first published by Lord Kames in his _Sketches_),

and of countless others, through the last seventy or eighty years,

in their critiques on the logic of Aristotle, has been to imagine

that such illustrations of syllogism as these were meant for specimens

of what syllogism could perform. What an elaborate machinery, it

was said, for bringing out the merest self-evident truisms! But

just as reasonably it might have been objected, when a mathematician

illustrated the process of addition by saying 3+4=7, Behold what pompous

nothings! These Aristotelian illustrations were _purposely_

drawn from cases not open to dispute, and simply as exemplifications

of the meaning: they were intentionally self-evident.] Precisely upon

this model arose casuistry. A general rule, or major proposition,

was laid down--suppose that he who killed any human being, except

under the palliations X, Y, Z, was a murderer. Then in a minor

proposition, the special case of the suicide was considered. It

was affirmed, or it was denied, that his case fell under some one

of the palliations assigned. And then, finally, accordingly to

the negative or affirmative shape of this minor proposition, it

was argued, in the conclusion, that the suicide was or was not, a

murderer. Out of these _cases_, i.e. oblique deflexions from

the universal rule (which is also the grammarian's sense of the

word _case_) arose _casuistry_.

After morality has done its very utmost in clearing up the grounds

upon which it rests its decisions--after it has multiplied its

rules to any possible point of circumstantiality--there will always

continue to arise cases without end, in the shifting combinations

of human action, about which a question will remain whether they

do or do not fall under any of these rules. And the best way for

seeing this truth illustrated on a broad scale, the shortest way

and the most decisive is--to point our attention to one striking

fact, viz. that all law, as it exists in every civilized land, is

nothing but casuistry. Simply because new cases are for ever arising

to raise new doubts whether they do or do not fall under the rule

of law, therefore it is that law is so inexhaustible. The law

terminates a dispute for the present by a decision of a court,

(which constitutes our '_common law_,') or by an express act

of the legislature, (which constitutes our '_statute law_.')

For a month or two matters flow on smoothly. But then comes a new

case, not contemplated or not verbally provided for in the previous

rule. It is varied by some feature of difference. The feature, it

is suspected, makes no _essential_ difference: substantially

it may be the old case. Ay--but that is the very point to be

decided. And so arises a fresh suit at law, and a fresh decision.

For example, after many a decision and many a statute, (all arising

out of cases supervening upon cases,) suppose that great subdivision

of jurisprudence called the Bankrupt Laws to have been gradually

matured. It has been settled, suppose, that he who exercises a

trade, and no other whatsoever, shall be entitled to the benefit

of the bankrupt laws. So far is fixed: and people vainly imagine

that at length a station of rest is reached, and that in this

direction at least, the onward march of law is barred. Not at all.

Suddenly a schoolmaster becomes insolvent, and attempts to avail

himself of privileges as a technical bankrupt. But then arises a

resistance on the part of those who are interested in resisting:

and the question is raised--Whether the calling of a schoolmaster

can be legally considered a trade? This also is settled: it is

solemnly determined that a schoolmaster is a tradesman. But next

arises a case, in which, from peculiar variation of the circumstances,

it is doubtful whether the teacher can technically be considered

a schoolmaster. Suppose that case settled: a schoolmaster,

sub-distinguished as an X Y schoolmaster, is adjudged to come within

the meaning of the law. But scarcely is this sub-variety disposed

of, than up rises some decomplex case, which is a sub-variety of

this sub-variety: and so on for ever.

Hence, therefore, we may see the shortsightedness of Paley in

quoting with approbation, and as if it implied a reproach, that

the Mussulman religious code contains 'not less than seventy-five

thousand traditional precepts.' True: but if this statement shows

an excess of circumstantiality in the moral systems of Mussulmans,

that result expresses a fact which Paley overlooks--viz. that their

moral code is in reality their legal code. It is by aggregation

of _cases_, by the everlasting depullulation of fresh sprouts

and shoots from old boughs, that this enormous accumulation takes

place; and, therefore, the apparent anomaly is exactly paralleled

in our unmanageable superstructure of law, and in the French

supplements to their code, which have already far overbuilt the

code itself. If names were disregarded, we and the Mahometans are

in the very same circumstances.

Casuistry, therefore, is the science of cases, or of those special

varieties which are forever changing the face of actions as

contemplated in general rules. The tendency of such variations is,

in all states of complex civilization, to absolute infinity.[Footnote:

We have noticed our own vast pile of law, and that of the French.

But neither of us has yet reached the alarming amount of the Roman

law, under which the very powers of social movement threatened to

break down. Courts could not decide, advocates could not counsel,

so interminable was becoming the task of investigation. This led

to the great digest of Justinian. But, had Roman society advanced

in wealth, extent, and social development, instead of retrograding,

the same result would have returned in a worse shape. The same

result now menaces England, and will soon menace her much more.]

It is our present purpose to state a few of such cases, in order to

fix attention upon the interest and the importance which surround

them. No modern book of ethics can be worth notice, unless in

so far as it selects and argues the more prominent of such cases,

as they offer themselves in the economy of daily life. For we

repeat--that the name, the word casuistry, may be evaded, but the

thing cannot; nor _is_ it evaded in our daily conversations.

I. _The Case of the Jaffa Massacre,_--No case in the whole

compass of casuistry has been so much argued to and fro--none has

been argued with so little profit; for, in fact, the main elements

of the moral decision have been left out of view. Let us state the

circumstances:--On the 11th of February, 1799, Napoleon, then and

for seven months before in military possession of Egypt, began

his march towards Syria. His object was to break the force of any

Turkish invasion, by taking it in fractions. It had become notorious

to every person in Egypt, that the Porte rejected the French pretence

of having come for the purpose of quelling Mameluke rebellion--the

absurdity of which, apart from its ludicrous Quixotism, was evident

in the most practical way, viz. by the fact, that the whole revenues

of Egypt were more than swallowed up by the pay and maintenance of

the French army. What could the Mamelukes have done worse? Hence

it had become certain that the Turks would send an expedition to

Egypt; and Napoleon viewing the garrisons in Syria as the advanced

guard of such an expedition, saw the best chance for general victory

in meeting these troops beforehand, and destroying them in detail.

About nineteen days brought him within view of the Syrian fields.

On the last day of February he slept at the Arimathea of the Gospel.

In a day or two after his army was before Jaffa, (the Joppa of the

Crusaders,)--a weak place, but of some military interest,[Footnote:

It is singular that some peculiar interest has always settled upon

Jaffa, no matter who was the military leader of the time, or what

the object of the struggle. From Julius Caesar, Joppa enjoyed

some special privileges and immunities--about a century after, in

the latter years of Nero, a most tragical catastrophe happened at

Joppa to the Syrian pirates, by which the very same number perished

as in the Napoleon massacre, viz. something about 4000. In the 200

years of the Crusades, Joppa revived again into military verdure.

The fact is, that the shore of Syria is pre-eminently deficient

in natural harbors, or facilities for harbors--those which exist

have been formed by art and severe contest with the opposition of

nature. Hence their extreme paucity, and hence their disproportionate

importance in every possible war.] from the accident of being the

very first fortified town to those entering Palestine from the side

of Egypt. On the 4th of March this place was invested; on the 6th,

barely forty-eight hours after, it was taken by storm. This fact

is in itself important; because it puts an end to the pretence so

often brought forward, that the French army had been irritated by

a long resistance. Yet, supposing the fact to have been so, how

often in the history of war must every reader have met with cases

where honorable terms were granted to an enemy merely on account of

his obstinate resistance? But then here, it is said, the resistance

was wilfully pushed to the arbitration of a storm. Even that might

be otherwise stated; but, suppose it true, a storm in military law

confers some rights upon the assailants which else they would not

have had--rights, however, which cease with the day of storming.

Nobody denies that the French army might have massacred all whom

they me't in arms at the time and during the agony of storming. But

the question is, Whether a resistance of forty-eight hours could

create the right, or in the least degree palliate the atrocity,

of putting prisoners to death in cold blood? Four days after the

storming, when all things had settled back into the quiet routine

of ordinary life, men going about their affairs as usual, confidence

restored, and, above all things, after the faith of a Christian

army had been pledged to these prisoners that not a hair of their

heads should be touched, the imagination is appalled by this

wholesale butchery--even the apologists of Napoleon are shocked by

the amount of murder, though justifying its principle. They admit

that there were two divisions of the prisoners--one of fifteen

hundred, the other of two thousand five hundred. Their combined

amount is equal to a little army; in fact, just about that army

with which we fought and won the battle of Maida in Calabria. They

composed a force equal to about six English regiments of infantry

on the common establishment. Every man of these four thousand

soldiers, chiefly brave Albanians--every man of this little army

was basely, brutally, in the very spirit of abject poltroonery,

murdered--murdered as foully as the infants of Bethlehem; resistance

being quite hopeless, not only because they had surrendered their

arms, but also because, in reliance on Christian honor, they had

quietly submitted to have their hands confined with ropes behind

their backs. If this blood did not lie heavy on Napoleon's heart in

his dying hours, it must have been because a conscience originally

callous had been seared by the very number of his atrocities.

Now, having stated the case, let us review the casuistical apologies

put forward. What was to be done with these prisoners? There lay

the difficulty. Could they be retained according to the common

usage with regard to prisoners? No; for there was a scarcity of

provisions, barely sufficient for the French army itself. Could they

be transported to Egypt by sea? No; for two English line-of-battle

ships, the Theseus and the Tiger, were cruising in the offing, and

watching the interjacent seas of Egypt and Syria. Could they be

transported to Egypt by land? No; for it was not possible to spare

a sufficient escort; besides, this plan would have included the

separate difficulty as to food. Finally, then, as the sole resource

left, could they be turned adrift? No; for this was but another

mode of saying, 'Let us fight the matter over again; reinstate

yourselves as our enemies; let us leave Jaffa _re infectâ_,

and let all begin again _de novo_'--since, assuredly, say the

French apologists, in a fortnight from that date, the prisoners

would have been found swelling the ranks of those Turkish forces

whom Napoleon had reason to expect in front.

Before we take one step in replying to these arguments, let

us cite two parallel cases from history: they are interesting for

themselves, and they show how other armies, not Christian, have

treated the self-same difficulty in practice. The first shall be

a leaf taken from the great book of Pagan experience; the second

from Mahometan: and both were cases in which the parties called on

to cut the knot had been irritated to madness by the parties lying

at their disposal.

1. The Pagan Decision.--In that Jewish war of more than three

years' duration, which terminated in the destruction of Jerusalem,

two cities on the lake of Gennesaret were besieged by Vespasian. One

of these was Tiberias: the other Tarichæ. Both had been defended

with desperation; and from their peculiar situation upon water,

and amongst profound precipices, the Roman battering apparatus had

not been found applicable to their walls. Consequently the resistance

and the loss to the Romans had been unexampled. At the latter

siege Vespasian was present in person. Six thousand five hundred

had perished of the enemy. A number of prisoners remained, amounting

to about forty thousand. What was to be done with them? A great

council was held, at which the commander-in-chief presided, assisted

(as Napoleon) by his whole staff. Many of the officers were strongly

for having the whole put to death: they used the very arguments of

the French--'that, being people now destitute of habitations, they

would infallibly urge any cities which received them into a war:'

fighting, in fact, henceforward upon a double impulse--viz. the

original one of insurrection, and a new one of revenge. Vespasian

was sensible of all this; and he himself remarked, that, if they

had any indulgence of flight conceded, they would assuredly use

it against the authors of that indulgence. But still, as an answer

to all objections, he insisted on the solitary fact, that he had

pledged the Roman faith for the security of their lives; 'and to

offer violence, after he had given them his right hand, was what he

could not bear to think of.' Such are the simple words of Josephus.

In the end, overpowered by his council, Vespasian made a sort of

compromise. Twelve hundred, as persons who could not have faced

the hardships of captivity and travel, he gave up to the sword.

Six thousand select young men were transported as laborers into

Greece, with a view to Nero's scheme, then in agitation, for cutting

through the isthmus of Corinth; the main body, amounting to thirty

thousand, were sold for slaves; and all the rest, who happened to

be subjects of Agrippa, as a mark of courtesy to that prince, were

placed at his disposal. Now, in this case, it will be alleged that

perhaps the main feature of Napoleon's case was not realized, viz.

the want of provisions. Every Roman soldier carried on his shoulders

a load of seventeen days' provisions, expressly in preparation for

such dilemmas; and Palestine was then rank with population gathered

into towns. This objection will be noticed immediately: but, meantime,

let it be remembered that the prisoners personally appeared before

their conquerors in far worse circumstances than the garrison of

Jaffa, except as to the one circumstance (in which both parties

stood on equal ground) of having had their lives guaranteed. For

the prisoners of Gennesaret were chiefly aliens and fugitives from

justice, who had no national or local interest in the cities which

they had tempted or forced into insurrection; they were clothed with

no military character whatever; in short, they were pure vagrant

incendiaries. And the populous condition of Palestine availed little

towards the execution of Vespasian's sentence: nobody in that land

would have bought such prisoners; nor, if they would, were there

any means available, in the agitated state of the Jewish people,

for maintaining their purchase. It would, therefore, be necessary

to escort them to Caesarea, as the nearest Roman port for shipping

them: thence perhaps to Alexandria, in order to benefit by the corn

vessels: and from Alexandria the voyage to remoter places would

be pursued at great cost and labor--all so many objections exactly

corresponding to those of Napoleon, and yet all overruled by the

single consideration of a Roman (viz. a Pagan) right hand pledged

to the fulfilment of a promise. As to the twelve hundred old and

helpless people massacred in cold blood, as regarded themselves it

was a merciful doom, and one which many of the Jerusalem captives

afterwards eagerly courted. But still it was a shocking case. It

was felt to be so by many Romans themselves: Vespasian was overruled

in that instance: and the horror which settled upon the mind of

Titus, his eldest son, from that very case amongst others, made

_him_ tender of human life, and anxiously merciful, through

the great tragedies which were now beginning to unrol themselves.

2. _The Mahometan Decision_.--The Emperor Charles V., at

different periods, twice invaded the piratical states in the north

of Africa. The last of these invasions, directed against Algiers,

failed miserably, covering the Emperor with shame, and strewing both

land and sea with the wrecks of his great armament. But six years

before, he had conducted a most splendid and successful expedition

against Tunis, then occupied by Heyradin Barbarossa, a valiant

corsair and a prosperous usurper. Barbarossa had an irregular

force of fifty thousand men; the Emperor had a veteran army, but

not acclimatized, and not much above one half as numerous. Things

tended, therefore, strongly to an equilibrium. Such were the

circumstances--such was the position on each side: Barbarossa, with

his usual adventurous courage, was drawing out of Tunis in order to

fight the invader: precisely at that moment occurred the question

of what should be done with the Christian slaves. A stronger case

cannot be imagined: they were ten thousand fighting men; and the

more horrible it seemed to murder so many defenceless people, the

more dreadfully did the danger strike upon the imagination. It was

their number which appalled the conscience of those who speculated

on their murder; but precisely that it was, when pressed upon the

recollection, which appalled the prudence of their Moorish masters.

Barbarossa himself, familiar with bloody actions, never hesitated

about the proper course: 'massacre without mercy' was _his_

proposal. But his officers thought otherwise: they were brave men;

'and,' says Robertson, 'they all approved warmly of his intention

to fight. But, inured as they were to scenes of bloodshed, the

barbarity of his proposal filled them with horror; and Barbarossa,

from the dread of irritating them, consented to spare the lives of

the slaves.' Now, in this case, the penalty attached to mercy, in

case it should turn out unhappily for those who so nobly determined

to stand the risk, cannot be more tragically expressed, than by

saying that it _did_ turn out unhappily. We need not doubt

that the merciful officers were otherwise rewarded; but for this

world and the successes of this world the ruin was total. Barbarossa

was defeated in the battle which ensued; flying pell-mell to Tunis

with the wrecks of his army, he found these very ten thousand

Christians in possession of the fort and town: they turned his

own artillery upon himself: and his overthrow was sealed by that

one act of mercy--so unwelcome from the very first to his own

Napoleonish temper.

Thus we see how this very case of Jaffa had been Settled by Pagan

and Mahometan casuists, where courage and generosity happened to

be habitually prevalent. Now, turning back ta the pseudo-Christian

army, let us very briefly review the arguments for _them_.

First, there were no provisions. But how happened that? or how is

it proved? Feeding the prisoners from the 6th to the 10th inclusively

of March, proves that there was no instant want. And how was it,

then, that Napoleon had run his calculations so narrowly! The

prisoners were just 33 per cent, on the total French army, as

originally detached from Cairo. Some had already perished of that

army: and in a few weeks more, one half of that army had perished,

or six thousand men, whose rations were hourly becoming disposable

for the prisoners. Secondly, a most important point, resources must

have been found in Jaffa.

But thirdly, if not, if Jaffa were so ill-provisioned, how had it

ever dreamed of standing a siege? And knowing its condition, as

Napoleon must have done from deserters and otherwise, how came he

to adopt so needless a measure as that of storming the place? Three

days must have compelled it to surrender upon any terms, if it could

be really true that, after losing vast numbers of its population

in the assault (for it was the bloodshed of the assault which

originally suggested the interference of the aides-de-camp,) Jaffa

was not able to allow half-rations even to a _part_ of its

garrison for a few weeks. What was it meant that the whole should

have done, had Napoleon simply blockaded it? Through all these

contradictions we see the truth looming as from behind a mist:

it was not because provisions failed that Napoleon butchered four

thousand young men in cold blood; it was because he wished to

signalize his entrance into Palestine by a sanguinary act, such

as might strike terror far and wide, resound through Syria as well

as Egypt, and paralyze the nerves of his enemies. Fourthly, it is

urged that, if he had turned the prisoners loose, they would have

faced him again in his next battle. How so? Prisoners without arms?

But then, perhaps, they could have retreated upon Acre, where it

is known that Djezzar, the Turkish pacha, had a great magazine of

arms. That might have been dangerous, if any such retreat had been

open. But surely the French army, itself under orders for Acre,

could at least have intercepted the Acre route from the prisoners.

No other remained but that through the defiles of Naplous. In this

direction, however, there was no want of men. Beyond the mountains

cavalry only were in use: and the prisoners had no horses, nor

habits of acting as cavalry. In the defiles it was riflemen who

were wanted, and the prisoners had no rifles; besides that, the

line of the French operations never came near to that route. Then,

again, if provisions were so scarce, how were the unarmed prisoners

to obtain them on the simple allegation that they had fought

unsuccessfully against the French!

But, finally, one conclusive argument there is against this damnable

atrocity of Napoleon's, which, in all future Lives of Napoleon,

one may expect to see-noticed, viz., that if the circumstances of

Palestine were such as to forbid the ordinary usages of war, if (which

we are far from believing) want of provisions made it indispensable

to murder prisoners in cold blood--in that case a _Syrian war_

became impossible to a man of honor; and the guilt commences from

a higher point than Jaffa. Already at Cairo, and in the elder stages

of the expedition, planned in face of such afflicting necessities,

we read the counsels of a murderer; of one rightly carrying such a

style of warfare towards the ancient country of the assassins; of

one not an apostate merely from Christian humanity, but from the

lowest standard of soldierly honor. He and his friends abuse Sir

Hudson Lowe as a jailer. But far better to be a jailer, and faithful

to one's trust, than to be the cut-throat of unarmed men.

One consideration remains, which we reserve to the end; because

it has been universally overlooked, and because it is conclusive

against Napoleon, even on his own hypothesis of an absolute necessity.

In Vespasian's case it does not appear that he had gained anything

for himself, or for his army, by his promise of safety to the enemy:

he had simply gratified his own feelings by holding out prospects

of final escape. But Napoleon had absolutely seduced the four

thousand men from a situation of power, from vantage-ground, by his

treacherous promise. And when the French apologists plead--'If we

had dismissed the prisoners we should soon have had to fight the

battle over again'--they totally forget the state of the facts:

they had not fought the battle at all: they had evaded the battle

as to these prisoners: as many enemies as could have faced them

_de novo_, so many had they bought off from fighting. Forty

centuries of armed men, brave and despairing, and firing from windows,

must have made prodigious havoc: and this havoc the French evaded

by a trick, by a perfidy, perhaps unexampled in the annals of

military men.

II. _Piracy._-It is interesting to trace the revolutions of

moral feeling. In the early stages of history we find piracy in

high esteem. Thucydides tells us that ληστεια, or robbery,

when conducted _at sea_, (_i. e._ robbery on non-Grecian

people,) was held in the greatest honor by his countrymen in elder

ages. And this, in fact, is the true station, this point of feeling

for primitive man, from which we ought to view the robberies and

larcenies of savages. Captain Cook, though a good and often a wise

man, erred in this point. He took a plain Old Bailey view of the

case; and very sincerely believed, (as all sea-captains ever have

done,) that a savage must be a bad man, who would purloin anything

that was not his. Yet it is evident that the poor child of uncultured

nature, who saw strangers descending, as it were from the moon,

upon his aboriginal forests and lawns, must have viewed them under

the same angle as the Greeks of old. They were no part of any system

to which he belonged; and why should he not plunder them? By force

if he could: but, where that was out of the question, why should he

not take the same credit for an undetected theft that the Spartan

gloried in taking? To be detected was both shame and loss; but he

was certainly entitled to any glory which might seem to settle upon

success, not at all less than the more pretending citizen of Sparta.

Besides all which, amongst us civilized men the rule obtains

universally--that the state and duties of peace are to be presumed

until war is proclaimed. Whereas, amongst rude nations, war is

understood to be the rule--war, open or covert, until suspended by

express contract. _Bellum inter omnes_ is the natural state

of things for all, except those who view themselves as brothers

by natural affinity, by local neighborhood, by common descent, or

who make themselves brothers by artificial contracts. Captain Cook,

who overlooked all this, should have begun by arranging a solemn

treaty with the savages amongst whom he meant to reside for any

length of time. This would have prevented many an angry broil then,

and since then: it would also have prevented his own tragical fate.

Meantime the savage is calumniated and misrepresented, for want of

being understood.

There is, however, amongst civilized nations a mode of piracy still

tolerated, or which _was_ tolerated in the last war, but is

now ripe for extinction. It is that war of private men upon private

men, which goes on under the name of privateering. Great changes

have taken place in our modes of thinking within the last twenty-five

years; and the greatest change of all lies in the thoughtful spirit

which we now bring to the investigation of all public questions.

We have no doubt at all that, when next a war arises at sea, the

whole system of privateering will be condemned by the public voice.

And the next step after that will be, to explode all war whatsoever,

public or private, upon commerce. War will be conducted _by_

belligerents and _upon_ belligerents exclusively. To imagine

the extinction of war itself, in the present stage of human advance,

is, we fear, idle. Higher modes of civilization--an earth more

universally colonized--the _homo sapiens_ of Linnaeus more

humanized, and other improvements must pave the way for _that_:

but amongst the earliest of those improvements, will be the abolition

of war carried into quarters where the spirit of war never ought

to penetrate. Privateering will be abolished. War, on a national

scale, is often ennobling, and one great instrument of pioneering

for civilization; but war of private citizen upon his fellow, in

another land, is always demoralizing.

III. _Usury._--This ancient subject of casuistry we place next

to _piracy_, for a significant reason: the two practices have

both changed their public reputation as civilization has advanced,

but inversely--they have interchanged characters. Piracy, beginning

in honor, has ended in infamy: and at this moment it happens to be

the sole offence against society in which _all_ the accomplices,

without pity or intercession, let them be ever so numerous, are

punished capitally. Elsewhere, we decimate, or even centesimate:

here, we are all children of Rhadamanthus. Usury, on the other hand,

beginning in utter infamy, has travelled upwards into considerable

esteem; and Mr. '10 _per shent_' stands a very fair chance of

being pricked for sheriff next year; and, in one generation more,

of passing for a great patriot. Charles Lamb complained that, by

gradual changes, not on his part, but in the spirit of refinement,

he found himself growing insensibly into 'an indecent character.'

The same changes which carry some downwards, carry others up; and

Shylock himself will soon be viewed as an eminent martyr or confessor

for the truth as it is in the Alley. Seriously, however, there is

nothing more remarkable in the history of casuistical ethics, than

the utter revolution in human estimates of usury. In this one point

the Hebrew legislator agreed with the Roman--Deuteronomy with the

Twelve Tables. Cicero mentions that the elder Cato being questioned

on various actions, and how he ranked them in his esteem, was

at length asked, _Quid fœnerari?_--how did he rank usury?

His indignant answer was, by a retorted question--_Quid hominem

occidere?_--what do I think of murder? In this particular case,

as in some others, we must allow that our worthy ancestors and

forerunners upon this terraqueous planet were enormous blockheads.

And their 'exquisite reason' for this opinion on usury, was quite

worthy of Sir Andrew Aguecheek:--'money,' they argued, 'could not

breed money: one guinea was neither father nor mother to another

guinea: and where could be the justice of making a man pay for the

use of a thing which that thing could never produce?' But, venerable

blockheads, that argument applies to the case of him who locks up

his borrowed guinea. Suppose him _not_ to lock it up, but to

buy a hen, and the hen to lay a dozen eggs; one of those eggs will

be so much per cent.; and the thing borrowed has then produced

its own _foenus_. A still greater inconsistency was this: Our

ancestors would have rejoined--that many people did not borrow in

order to produce, _i. e._ to use the money as capital, but in

order to spend, _i. e._ to use it as income. In that case, at

least, the borrowers must derive the _foenus_ from some other

fund than the thing borrowed: for, by the supposition, the thing

borrowed has been spent. True; but on the same principle these

ancestors ought to have forbidden every man to sell any article

whatsoever to him who paid for it out of other funds than those

produced by the article sold. Mere logical consistency required

this: it happens, indeed, to be impossible: but that only argues

their entire non-comprehension of their own doctrines.

The whole history of usury teems with instruction: 1st, comes the

monstrous absurdity in which the proscription of usury anchored;

2d, the absolute compulsion and pressure of realities in forcing

men into a timid abandonment of their own doctrines; 3d, the

unconquerable power of sympathy, which humbled all minds to one

level, and forced the strongest no less than the feeblest intellects

into the same infatuation of stupidity. The casuistry of ancient

moralists on this question, especially of the scholastic moralists,

such as Suarrez, &c.--the oscillations by which they ultimately

relaxed and tied up the law, just as their erring conscience, or

the necessities of social life prevailed, would compose one of the

interesting chapters in this science. But the Jewish relaxation

is the most amusing: it coincides altogether with the theory of

savages as to property, which we have already noticed under the

head of Piracy. All men on earth, except Jews, were held to be

fair subjects for usury; not as though usury were a just or humane

thing: no--it was a belligerent act: but then all foreigners in the

Jewish eye were enemies for the same reason that the elder Romans

had a common term for an enemy and a stranger. And it is probable that

many Jews at this day, in exercising usury, conceive themselves to

be seriously making war, in a privateering fashion, upon Christendom,

and practising reprisals on the Gentiles for ruined Jerusalem.

IV. _Bishop Gibson's Chronicon Preciosum_.--Many people are

aware that this book is a record of prices, as far as they were

recoverable, pursued through six centuries of English History. But

they are not aware that this whole inquiry is simply the machinery

for determining a casuistical question. The question was this:--An

English College, but we cannot say in which of our universities,

had been founded in the reign of Henry VI., and between 1440 and

1460--probably it might be King's College, Cambridge. Now, the

statutes of this college make it imperative upon every candidate

for a fellowship to swear that he does not possess an estate in

land of inheritance, nor a perpetual pension amounting to _five

pounds per annum_, It is certain, however, that the founder did

not mean superstitiously so much gold or silver as made _nominally_

the sum of five pounds, but so much as virtually represented the

five pounds of Henry VI.'s time--so much as would buy the same

quantity of ordinary comfort. Upon this, therefore, arose two

questions for the casuist: (1.) What sum did substantially represent,

in 1706, (the year of publishing the _Chron. Preciosum_,) that

nominal £5 of 1440? (2.) Supposing this ascertained, might a man

with safe conscience retain his fellowship by swearing that he had

not £5 a-year, when perhaps he had £20, provided that £20 were

proved to be less in efficacy than the £5 of the elder period?

Verbally this was perjury: was it such in reality and to the

conscience?

The _Chronicle_ is not, as by its title the reader might

suppose, a large folio: on the contrary, it is a small octavo of

less than 200 pages. But it is exceedingly interesting, very ably

reasoned, and as circumstantial in its illustrations as the good

bishop's opportunities allowed him to make it. In one thing he

was more liberal than Sir William Petty, Dr. Davenant, &c., or any

elder economists of the preceding century; he would have statistics

treated as a classical or scholar-like study; and he shows a most

laudable curiosity in all the questions arising out of his main

one. His answer to _that_ is as follows: 1st, that £5 in

Henry VI.'s time contained forty ounces of silver, whereas in Queen

Anne's it contained only nineteen ounces and one-third; so that, in

reality, the £5 of 1440, was, even as to weight of silver, rather

more than £10 of 1706. 2d, as to the efficacy of £10 in Henry

VI.'s reign: upon reviewing the main items of common household

(and therefore of common academic) expenditure, and pursuing this

review through bad years and good years, the bishop decides that it

is about equal to £25 or £30 of Queen Anne's reign. Sir George

Shuckburgh has since treated this casuistical problem more elaborately:

but Bishop Gibson it was, who, in his _Chronicon Preciosum_,

first broke the ice.

After this, he adds an ingenious question upon the apparently

parallel case of a freeholder swearing himself worth 40s. per annum

as a qualification for an electoral vote: ought not he to hold

himself perjured in voting upon an estate often so much below the

original 40s. contemplated by Parliament, for the very same reason

that a collegian is _not_ perjured in holding a fellowship,

whilst, in fact, he may have four or five times the nominal

sum privileged by the founder? The bishop says _no_; and

he distinguishes the case thus: the college £5 must always mean

a virtual £5--a £5 in efficacy, and not merely in name. But

the freeholder's 40s. is not so restricted; and for the following

reason--that this sum is constantly coming under the review of

Parliament. It is clear, therefore, from the fact of not having

altered it, that Parliament is satisfied with a merely nominal

40s., and sees no reason to alter it. True, it was a rule enacted

by the Parliament of 1430; at which time 40s. was even in weight of

silver equal to 80s. of 1706; and in virtue or power of purchasing

equal to £12 at the least. The qualification of a freeholder is,

therefore, much lower in Queen Anne's days than in those of Henry

VI. But what of that? Parliament, it must be presumed, sees good

reason why it _should_ be lower. And at all events, till the

law operates amiss, there can be no reason to alter it.

A case of the same kind with those argued by Bishop Gibson arose

often in trials for larceny--we mean as to that enactment which

fixed the minimum for a capital offence. This case is noticed by

the bishop, and juries of late years often took the casuistry into

their own hands. They were generally thought to act with no more

than a proper humanity to the prisoner; but still people thought

such juries incorrect. Whereas, if Bishop Gibson is right, who

allows a man to swear positively that he has not £5 a-year, when

nominally he has much more, such juries were even technically right.

However, this point is now altered by Sir Robert Peel's reforms.

But there are other cases, and especially those which arise not

between different times but between different places, which will

often require the same kind of casuistry as that which is so ably

applied by the good and learned bishop.

V. _Suicide_.--It seems passing strange that the main argument

upon which Pagan moralists relied in their unconditional condemnation

of suicide, viz. the supposed analogy of our situation in life to

that of a sentinel mounting guard, who cannot, without a capital

offence, quit his station until called off by his commanding

officer, is dismissed with contempt by a Christian moralist, viz.

Paley. But a stranger thing still is--that the only man who ever

wrote a book in palliation of suicide, should have been not only

a Christian--not only an official minister and dignitary of a

metropolitan Christian church--but also a scrupulously pious man.

We allude, as the reader will suppose, to Dr. Donne, Dean of St.

Paul's. His opinion is worthy of consideration. Not that we would

willingly diminish, by one hair's weight, the reasons against suicide;

but it is never well to rely upon ignorance or inconsideration

for the defence of any principle whatever. Donne's notion was, (a

notion, however, adopted in his earlier years,) that as we do not

instantly pronounce a man a murderer upon hearing that he has killed

a fellow-creature, but, according to the circumstances of the case,

pronounce his act either murder, or manslaughter, or justifiable

homicide; so by parity of reason, suicide is open to distinctions

of the same or corresponding kinds; that there may be such a thing

as self-homicide not less than self-murder--culpable self-homicide

--justifiable self-homicide. Donne called his Essay by the Greek

name _Biathanatos,_[Footnote: This word, however, which occurs

nowhere that we remember, except in Lampridius, one of the Augustan

historians, is here applied to Heliogabalus; and means, not the

act of suicide, but a suicidal person. And possibly Donne, who was

a good scholar, may so mean it to be understood in his title-page.

Heliogabalus, says Lampridius, had been told by the Syrian priests

that he should be _Biathanatos_, _i. e._ should commit suicide. He

provided, therefore, ropes of purple and of gold intertwisted, that

he might hang himself imperatorially. He provided golden swords,

that he might run himself through as became Caesar. He had poisons

inclosed in jewels, that he might drink his farewell heeltaps, if

drink he must, in a princely style. Other modes of august death he

had prepared. Unfortunately all were unavailing, for he was murdered

and dragged through the common sewers by ropes, without either

purple or gold in their base composition. The poor fellow has been

sadly abused in history; but, after all, he was a mere boy, and as

mad as a March hare.] meaning _violent death._ But a thing equally

strange and a blasphemy almost unaccountable, is the fancy of a

Prussian or Saxon baron, who wrote a book to prove that Christ

committed suicide, for which he had no other argument than that,

in fact, he had surrendered himself unresistingly into the hands

of his enemies, and had in a manner caused his own death.

This, however, describes the case of every martyr that ever was

or can be. It is the very merit and grandeur of the martyr, that

he proclaims the truth with his eyes open to the consequences of

proclaiming it. Those consequences are connected with the truth, but

not by a natural link: the connection is by means of false views,

which it is the very business of the martyr to destroy. And, if a

man founds my death upon an act which my conscience enjoys, even

though I am aware and fully warned that he will found my death upon

it, I am not, therefore, guilty of suicide. For, by the supposition,

I was obliged to the act in question by the highest of all obligations,

viz. moral obligation, which far transcends all physical obligation;

so that, whatever excuse attaches to a physical necessity, attaches,

_a fortiori_, to the moral necessity. The case is, therefore,

precisely the same as if he had said,--'I will put you to death if

the frost benumbs your feet.' The answer is--'I cannot help this

effect of frost.' Far less can I help revealing a celestial truth.

I have no power, no liberty, to forbear. And, in killing me, he

punishes me for a mere necessity of my situation and my knowledge.

It is urged that brutes never commit suicide--except, indeed, the

salamander, who has been suspected of loose principles in this

point; and we ourselves know a man who constantly affirmed that a

horse of his had committed suicide, by violently throwing himself

from the summit of a precipice. 'But why,'--as we still asked him--'why

should the horse have committed felony on himself? Were oats rising

in the market?--or was he in love?--or vexed by politics?--or could

a horse, and a young one rising four, be supposed to suffer from

_taedium vitae_?' Meantime, as respects the general question

of brute suicides, two points must be regarded,--1st, That brutes

are cut off from the vast world of moral and imaginative sufferings

entailed upon man; 2dly, That this very immunity presupposes another

immunity--

'A cool suspense from pleasure and from pain,'

in the far coarser and less irritable animal organization which

must be the basis of an insulated physical sensibility. Brutes

can neither suffer from intellectual passions, nor, probably, from

very complex derangements of the animal system; so that in them the

motives to suicide, the temptations to suicide, are prodigiously

diminished. Nor are they ever alive to 'the sublime attractions

of the grave.' It is, however, a humiliating reflection, that, if

any brutes can feel such aspirations, it must be those which are

under the care of man. Doubtless the happiness of brutes is sometimes

extended by man; but also, too palpably, their misery.

Why suicide is not noticed in the _New Testament_ is a problem

yet open to the profound investigator.

VI. _Duelling_.--No one case, in the vast volume of casuistry,

is so difficult to treat with justice and reasonable adaptation to

the spirit of modern times, as this of duelling. For, as to those

who reason all upon one side, and never hearken in good faith to

objections or difficulties, such people convince nobody but those

who were already convinced before they began. At present, (1839,)

society has for some years been taking a lurch to one side

_against_ duelling: but inevitably a reaction will succeed;

for, after all, be it as much opposed as it may to Christianity,

duelling performs such important functions in society as now

constituted--we mean by the sense of instant personal accountability

which it diffuses universally amongst gentlemen, and all who have

much sensibility to the point of honor--that, for one life which

it takes away as an occasional sacrifice, it saves myriads from

outrage and affronts--millions from the anxiety attached to inferior

bodily strength. However, it is no part of our present purpose

to plead the cause of duelling, though pleaded it must be, more

fairly than it ever has been, before any progress will be made in

suppressing it.

But the point which we wish to notice at present, is the universal

blunder about the Romans and Greeks. They, it is alleged, fought

no duels; and occasion is thence taken to make very disadvantageous

reflections upon us, the men of this Christian era, who, in defiance

of our greater light, _do_ fight duels. Lord Bacon himself is

duped by this enormous blunder, and founds upon it a long speech

in the Star-Chamber.

Now, in the first place, who does not see that, if the Pagans really

_were_ enabled by their religion to master their movements of

personal anger and hatred, the inevitable inference will be to the

disadvantage of Christianity. It would be a clear case. Christianity

and Paganism have been separately tried as means of self-control;

Christianity has flagrantly failed; Paganism succeeded universally;

not having been found unequal to the task in any one known instance.

But this is not so. A profounder error never existed. No religious

influence whatever restrained the Greek or the Roman from fighting

a duel. It was purely a civic influence, and it was sustained

by this remarkable usage--in itself a standing opprobrium to both

Greek and Roman--viz. the unlimited license of tongue allowed to

anger in the ancient assemblies and senates. This liberty of foul

language operated in two ways: 1st, Being universal, it took away

all ground for feeling the words of an antagonist as any personal

insult; so he had rarely a motive for a duel. 2dly, the anger was

thus less acute; yet, if it _were_ acute, then this Billingsgate

resource furnished an instantaneous vehicle for expectorating the

wrath. Look, for example, at Cicero's orations against Mark Antony,

or Catiline, or against Piso. This last person was a senator of

the very highest rank, family, connections; yet, in the course of a

few pages, does Cicero, a man of letters, polished to the extreme

standard of Rome, address him by the elegant appellations of 'filth,'

'mud,' 'carrion,' (_projectum cadaver_.) How could Piso have

complained? It would have been said-'Oh, there's an end of republican

simplicity, if plain speaking is to be put down.' And then it would

have been added invidiously--'Better men than ever stood in your

shoes have borne worse language. Will you complain of what was

tolerated by Africanus, by Paulus Aemilius, by Marius, by Sylla?'

Who could reply to that? And why should Piso have even wished to

_call out_ his foul-mouthed antagonist? On the contrary, a far

more genial revenge awaited him than any sword could have furnished.

Pass but an hour, and you will hear Piso speaking--it will then be

his turn--every dog has his day; and, though not quite so eloquent

as his brilliant enemy, he is yet eloquent enough for the purposes

of revenge--he is eloquent enough to call Cicero 'filth,' 'mud,'

carrion.'

No: the reason of our modern duelling lies deeper than is supposed:

it lies in the principle of _honor_--a direct product of

chivalry--as that was in part a product of Christianity. The sense

of honor did not exist in Pagan times. Natural equity, and the

equity of civil laws--those were the two moral forces under which

men acted. Honor applies to cases where both those forces are

silent. And precisely because they had no such sense, and because

their revenge emptied itself by the basest of all channels, viz.

foul speaking and license of tongue, was it that the Greeks and

Romans had no duelling. It was no glory to them that they had not,

but the foulest blot on their moral grandeur.

How it was that Christianity was able, mediately, to generate the

principle of honor, is a separate problem. But this is the true

solution of that common casuistical question about duelling.

PART II.

--'Celebrare domestlca facta.'--HOR.

In a former notice of Casuistry, we touched on such cases only

as were of public bearings, or such as (if private) were of rare

occurrence and of a tragical standard. But ordinary life, in its

most domestic paths, teems with cases of difficult decision; or if

not always difficult in the decision of the abstract question at

issue, difficult in the accommodation of that decision to immediate

practice. A few of these more homely cases, intermixed with more

public ones, we shall here select and review; for, according to a

remark in our first paper, as social economy grows more elaborate,

the demand grows more intense for such circumstantial morality. As

man advances, casuistry advances. Principles are the same: but the

abstraction of principles from accidents and circumstances becomes

a work of more effort. Aristotle, in his _Nicomachean Ethics_,

has not one case; Cicero, three hundred years after, has a few;

Paley, eighteen hundred years after Cicero, has many.

There is also something in place as well as in time--in the people

as well as the century--which determines the amount of interest

in casuistry. We once heard an eminent person delivering it as an

opinion, derived from a good deal of personal experience--_that

of all European nations, the British was that which suffered most

from remorse_; and that, if internal struggles during temptation,

or sufferings of mind after yielding to temptation, were of a nature

to be measured upon a scale, or could express themselves sensibly

to human knowledge, the annual report from Great Britain, its annual

balance-sheet, by comparison with those from continental Europe,

would show a large excess. At the time of hearing this remarkable

opinion, we, the hearers, were young; and we had little other ground

for assent or dissent, than such general impressions of national

differences as we might happen to have gathered from the several

literatures of Christian nations. These were of a nature to confirm

the stranger's verdict; and it will not be denied that much of

national character comes forward in literature: but these were not

sufficient. Since then, we have had occasion to think closely on

that question. We have had occasion to review the public records

of Christendom; and beyond all doubt the public conscience, the

international conscience, of a people, is the reverberation of its

private conscience. History is but the converging into a focus of

what is moving in the domestic life below; a set of great circles

expressing and summing up, on the dial-plate, the motions of many

little circles in the machinery within. Now History, what may be

called the Comparative History of Modern Europe, countersigns the

traveller's opinion.

'So, then,' says a foreigner, or an Englishman with foreign sympathies,

'the upshot and amount of this doctrine is, that England is more

moral than other nations.' 'Well,' we answer, 'and what of that?'

Observe, however, that the doctrine went no farther than as to

conscientiousness; the principle out of which comes sorrow for all

violation of duty; out of which comes a high standard of duty.

Meantime both the 'sorrow' and the 'high standard' are very compatible

with a lax performance. But suppose we _had_ gone as far as

the objector supposes, and had ascribed a moral superiority every

way to England, what is there in _that_ to shock probability?

Whether the general probability from analogy, or the special

probability from the circumstances of this particular case? We

all know that there is no general improbability in supposing one

nation, or one race, to outrun another. The modern Italians have

excelled all nations in musical sensibility, and in genius for

painting. They have produced far better music than all the rest of

the world put together. And four of their great painters have not

been approached hitherto by the painters of _any_ nation. That

facial structure, again, which is called the Caucasian, and which,

through the ancient Greeks, has travelled westward to the nations

of Christendom, and from them (chiefly ourselves) has become the

Transatlantic face, is, past all disputing, the finest type of the

human countenance divine on this planet. And most other nations,

Asiatic or African, have hitherto put up with this insult; except,

indeed, the Kalmuck Tartars, who are highly indignant at our European

vanity in this matter; and some of them, says Bergmann, the German

traveller, absolutely howl with rage, whilst others only laugh

hysterically, at any man's having the insanity to prefer the Grecian

features to the Kalmuck. Again, amongst the old pagan nations,

the Romans seem to have had 'the call' for going ahead; and they

fulfilled their destiny in spite of all that the rest of the world

could do to prevent them. So that, far from it being an improbable

or unreasonable assumption, superiority (of one kind or other) has

been the indefeasible inheritance of this and that nation, at all

periods of history.

Still less is the notion tenable of any special improbability

applying to this particular pretension. For centuries has England

enjoyed--1st, civil liberty; 2d, the Protestant faith. Now in those

two advantages are laid the grounds, the very necessities, _a

priori_, of a superior morality. But watch the inconsistency

of men: ask one of these men who dispute this English pretension

_mordicus_; ask him, or bid an Austrian serf ask him, what are

the benefits of Protestantism, and what the benefits of liberty,

that he should risk anything to obtain either. Hear how eloquently

he insists upon their beneficial results, severally and jointly;

and notice that he places foremost among those results a pure

morality. Is he wrong? No: the man speaks bare truth. But what brute

oblivion he manifests of his own doctrine, in taxing with arrogance

any people for claiming one of those results _in esse_, which

he himself could see so clearly _in posse!_ Talk no more of

freedom, or of a pure religion, as fountains of a moral pre-eminence,

if those who have possessed them in combination for the longest

space of time may not, without arrogance, claim the vanward place

amongst the nations of Europe.

So far as to the presumptions, general or special; so far as to the

probabilities, analogous or direct, in countenance of this British

claim. Finally, when we come to the proofs, from fact and historical

experience, we might appeal to a singular case in the records of

our Exchequer; viz., that for much more than a century back, our

_Gazette_ and other public advertisers, have acknowledged

a series of anonymous remittances from those who, at some time

or other, had appropriated public money. We understand that no

corresponding fact can be cited from foreign records. Now, this is

a direct instance of that compunction which our travelled friend

insisted on. But we choose rather to throw ourselves upon the general

history of Great Britain, upon the spirit of her policy, domestic

or foreign, and upon the universal principles of her public morality.

Take the case of public debts, and the fulfilment of contracts to

those who could not have compelled the fulfilment; we first set

this precedent. All nations have now learned that honesty in such

cases is eventually the best policy; but this they learned from our

experience, and not till nearly all of them had tried the other

policy. We it was, who, under the most trying circumstances of war,

maintained the sanctity from taxation of all foreign investments in

our funds. Our conduct with regard to slaves, whether in the case

of slavery or of the slave-trade--how prudent it may always have

been, we need not inquire; as to its moral principles, they went so

far ahead of European standards, that we were neither comprehended

nor believed. The perfection of romance was ascribed to us by all

who did not reproach us with the perfection of Jesuitical knavery;

by many our motto was supposed to be no longer the old one

of '_divide et impera_,' but '_annihila et appropria_.'

Finally, looking back to our dreadful conflicts with the three

conquering despots of modern history, Philip II. of Spain, Louis

XIV., and Napoleon, we may incontestably boast of having been

single in maintaining the general equities of Europe by war upon

a colossal scale, and by our councils in the general congresses of

Christendom.

Such a review would amply justify the traveller's remarkable _dictum_

upon the principle of remorse, and therefore of conscientiousness,

as existing in greater strength amongst the people of Great Britain.

In the same proportion we may assume, in such a people, a keener

sensibility to moral distinctions; more attention to shades of

difference in the modes of action; more anxiety as to the grounds

of action. In the same proportion we may assume a growing and more

direct regard to casuistry; which is precisely the part of ethics

that will be continually expanding, and continually throwing up

fresh doubts. Not as though a moral principle could ever be doubtful.

But that the growing complexity of the circumstances will make it

more and more difficult in judgment to detach the principle from

the case; or, in practice, to determine the application of the

principle to the facts. It will happen, therefore, as Mr. Coleridge

used to say happened in all cases of importance, that extremes

meet: for casuistical ethics will be most consulted by two classes

the most opposite to each other--by those who seek excuses for

evading their duties, and by those who seek a special fulness of

light for fulfilling them.

CASE I.

HEALTH.

Strange it is, that moral treatises, when professing to lay open the

great edifice of human duties, and to expose its very foundations,

should not have begun with, nay, should not have noticed at all,

those duties which a man owes to himself, and, foremost amongst

them, the duty of cultivating his own health. For it is evident,

that, from mere neglect of that one personal duty, with the very

best intentions possible, all other duties whatever may become

impossible; for good intentions exist in all stages of efficiency,

from the fugitive impulse to the realizing self-determination. In

this life, the elementary blessing is health. What! do we presume

to place it before peace of mind? Far from it; but we speak of the

_genesis_; of the succession in which all blessings descend;

not as to time, but the order of dependency. All morality implies

free agency: it presumes beyond all other conditions an agent who

is in perfect possession of his own volitions. Now, it is certain

that a man without health is not uniformly master of his own

purposes. Often he cannot be said either to be _in_ the path

of duty or _out_ of it; so incoherent are the actions of a

man forced back continually from the objects of his intellect and

choice upon some alien objects dictated by internal wretchedness.

It is true that, by possibility, some derangements of the human

system are not incompatible with happiness: and a celebrated German

author of the last century, Von Hardenberg--better known by his

assumed name of Novalis--maintained, that certain modes of ill

health, or valetudinarianism, were pre-requisites towards certain

modes of intellectual development. But the ill health to which he

pointed could not have gone beyond a luxurious indisposition; nor

the corresponding intellectual purposes have been other than narrow,

fleeting, and anomalous. Inflammatory action, in its earlier

stages, is sometimes connected with voluptuous sensations: so is

the preternatural stimulation of the liver. But these states, as

pleasurable states, are transitory. All fixed derangements of the

health are doubly hostile to the moral energies: first, through

the intellect, which they debilitate unconsciously in many ways;

and next, both consciously and semi-consciously, through the will.

The judgment is, perhaps, too clouded to fix upon a right purpose:

the will too enfeebled to pursue it.

Two general remarks may be applied to all, interferences of

the physical with the moral sanity; 1st, That it is not so much

by absolute deductions of time that ill health operates upon the

serviceableness of a man, as by its lingering effects upon his

temper and his animal spirits. Many a man has not lost one hour

of his life from illness, whose faculties of usefulness have been

most seriously impaired through gloom, or untuned feelings; 3d,

That it is not the direct and known risks to our health which act

with the most fatal effects, but the semi-conscious condition, the

atmosphere of circumstances, with which artificial life surrounds

us. The great cities of Europe, perhaps London beyond all others,

under the modern modes of life and business, create a vortex of

preternatural tumult, a rush and frenzy of excitement, which is fatal

to far more than are heard of as express victims to that system.

The late Lord Londonderry's nervous seizure was no solitary or rare

case. So much we happen to know. We are well assured by medical

men of great London practice, that the case is one of growing

frequency. In Lord Londonderry it attracted notice for reasons of

obvious personal interest, as well as its tragical catastrophe.

But the complaint, though one of modern growth, is well known, and

comes forward under a most determinate type as to symptoms, among

the mercantile class. The original predisposition to it, lies

permanently in the condition of London life, especially as it exists

for public men. But the immediate existing cause, which fires the

train always ready for explosion, is invariably some combination of

perplexities, such as are continually gathering into dark clouds

over the heads of great merchants; sometimes only teasing and

molesting, sometimes menacing and alarming. These perplexities are

generally moving in counteracting paths: some progressive, some

retrograde. There lies a man's safety. But at times it will happen

that all comes at once; and then comes a shock such as no brain

already predisposed by a London life, is strong enough (but more

truly let us say--coarse enough) to support.

Lord Londonderry's case was precisely of that order: he had been

worried by a long session of Parliament, which adds the crowning

irritation in the interruption of sleep. The nervous system,

ploughed up by intense wear and tear, is denied the last resource

of natural relief. In this crisis, already perilous, a new tempest

was called in--of all the most terrific--the tempest of anxiety:

and from what source? Anxiety from fear, is bad: from hope delayed,

is bad: but worst of all is anxiety from responsibility, in cases

where disease or weakness makes a man feel that he is unequal to the

burden. The diplomatic interests of the country had been repeatedly

confided to Lord Londonderry: he had justified that confidence:

he had received affecting testimonies of the honor which belonged

to such a situation. But a short time before his fatal seizure, in

passing through Birmingham at a moment when all the gentlemen of

the place were assembled, he had witnessed the whole assembly--no

mob, but the collective good sense of the place--by one impulse

standing bareheaded in his presence,--a tribute of disinterested

homage which affected him powerfully, and which was well understood

as offered to his foreign diplomacy. Under these circumstances could

he bear to transfer or delegate the business of future negotiation?

Could he suffer to lapse into other hands, as a derelict, the

consummation of that task which thus far he had so prosperously

conducted? Was it in human nature to do so? He felt the same

hectic of human passion which Lord Nelson felt in the very gates

of death, when some act of command was thoughtlessly suggested as

belonging to his successor--'Not whilst I live, Hardy; not whilst

I live.' Yet, in Lord Londonderry's case, it was necessary, if

he would not transfer the trust, that he should rally his enegies

instantly: for a new Congress was even then assembling. There

was no delay open to him by the nature of the case: the call was

--_now, now,_ just as you are, my lord, with those shattered

nerves and that agitated brain, take charge of interests the

most complex in Christendom: to say the truth, of interests which

_are_ those of Christendom.

This struggle, between a nervous systm too grievously shaken, and the

instant demand for energy seven times intensified, was too much for

any generous nature. A ceremonial embassy might have been fulfilled

by shattered nerves; but not this embassy. Anxiety supervening upon

nervous derangement was bad; anxiety through responsibility was

worse; but through a responsibility created by grateful confidence,

it was an appeal through the very pangs of martyrdom. No brain could

stand such a siege. Lord Londonderry's gave way; and he fell with

the tears of the generous, even where they might happen to differ

from him in politics.

Meantime, this case, belonging to a class generated by a London

life, was in some quarters well understood even then; _now_,

it is well known that, had different remedies been applied, or

had the sufferer been able to stand up under his torture until the

cycle of the symptoms had begun to come round, he might have been

saved. The treatment is now well understood; but even then it was

understood by some physicians; amongst others by that Dr. Willis

who had attended George III. In several similar cases overpowering

doses had been given of opium, or of brandy; and usually a day or

two had carried off the oppression of the brain by a tremendous

reaction.

In Birmingham and other towns, where the body of people called

Quakers are accumulated, different forms of nervous derangement

are developed; the secret principle of which turns not, as in these

London cases, upon feelings too much called out by preternatural

stimulation, but upon feelings too much repelled and driven in.

Morbid suppression of deep sensibilities must lead to states of

disease equally terrific and perhaps even less tractable; not so

sudden and critical perhaps, but more settled and gloomy. We speak

not of any physical sensibilities, but of those which are purely

moral--sensibilities to poetic emotions, to ambition, to social

gaiety. Accordingly it is amongst the young men and women of this

body that the most afflicting cases under this type occur. Even

for children, however, the systematic repression of all ebullient

feeling, under the Quaker discipline, must be sometimes perilous;

and would be more so, were it not for that marvellous flexibility

with which nature adapts herself to all changes--whether imposed by

climate or by situation--by inflictions of Providence or by human

spirit of system.

These cases we point to as formidable mementos, _monumenta

sacra,_ of those sudden catastrophes which either ignorance of

what concerns the health, or neglect in midst of knowledge, may

produce. Any mode of life in London, or not in London, which trains

the nerves to a state of permanent irritation, prepares a _nidus_

for disease; and unhappily not for chronic disease only, but for

disease of that kind which finishes the struggle almost before it

is begun. In such a state of habitual training for morbid action,

it may happen--and often has happened--that one and the same week

sees the victim apparently well and in his grave.

These, indeed, are extreme cases: though still such as threaten

many more than they actually strike; for, though uncommon, they grow

out of very common habits. But even the ordinary cases of unhealthy

action in the system, are sufficient to account for perhaps

three-fourths of all the disquiet and bad temper which disfigure

daily life. Not one man in every ten is perfectly clear of some

disorder, more or less, in the digestive system--not one man in fifty

enjoys the absolutely normal state of that organ; and upon that

depends the daily cheerfulness, in the first place, and through that

(as well as by more direct actions) the sanity of the judgment. To

speak strictly, not one man in a hundred is perfectly sane even as

to his mind. For, though the greater disturbances of the mind do

not take place in more than one man of each thousand,[Footnote: in

several nations that has been found to be the average proportion

of the insane. But this calculation has never been made to include

all the slighter cases. It is not impossible that at some periods

the whole human race may have been partially insane.] the slighter

shades that settle on the judgment, which daily bring up thoughts

such as a man would gladly banish, which force him into moods

of feeling irritating at the moment, and wearing to the animal

spirits,--these derangements are universal.

From the greater alike and the lesser, no man can free himself but

in the proportion of his available knowledge applied to his own

animal system, and of the surrounding circumstances, as constantly

acting on that system. Would we, then, desire that every man should

interrupt his proper studies or pursuits for the sake of studying

medicine? Not at all: nor is that requisite. The laws of health are

as simple as the elements of arithmetic or geometry. It is required

only that a man should open his eyes to perceive the three great

forces which support health.

They are these: 1. The _blood_ requires exercise: 2. The great

central organ of the _stomach_ requires adaptation of diet:

3. The _nervous system_ requires regularity of sleep. In those

three functions of sleep, diet, exercise, is contained the whole

economy of health. All three of course act and react upon each

other: and all three are wofully deranged by a London life--above

all, by a parliamentary life. As to the first point, it is probable

that any torpor, or even _lentor_ in the blood, such as

scarcely expresses itself sensibly through the pulse, renders that

fluid less able to resist the first actions of disease. As to the

second, a more complex subject, luckily we benefit not by our own

brief experience exclusively; every man benefits practically by

the traditional experience of ages, which constitutes the culinary

experience in every land and every household. The inheritance of

knowledge, which every generation receives, as to the salubrity of

this or that article of diet, operates continually in preventing

dishes from being brought to table. Each man's separate experience

does something to arm him against the temptation when it is offered;

and again, the traditional experience far oftener intercepts the

temptation. As to the third head, _sleep_, this of all is the

most immediately fitted by nature to the relief of the brain and

its exquisite machinery of nerves:--it is the function of health

most attended to in our navy; and of all it is the one most painfully

ravaged by a London life.

Thus it would appear, that the three great laws of health, viz.,

_motion_, _rest_, and _temperance_, (by a more adequate expression,

_adaptation to the organ_,) are, in a certain gross way, taught to

every man by his personal experience. The difficulty is--as in so

many other cases--not for the understanding, but for the will--not

to know, but to execute.

Now here steps in Casuistry with two tremendous suggestions, sufficient

to alarm any thoughtful man, and rouse him more effectually to the

performance of his duty.

First, that under the same law (whatever that law may be) which

makes suicide a crime, must the neglect of health be a crime? For

thus stand the two accounts:--By suicide you have cut off a _portion

unknown_ from your life: years it may be, but possibly only

days. By neglect of health you have cut off a _portion unknown_

from your life: days it may be, but also by possibility years. So

the practical result may be the same in either case; or, possibly,

the least is suicide. 'Yes,' you reply, 'the _practical_

results--but not the purpose--not the intention--_ergo_, not

the crime.' Certainly not: in the one case the result arises from

absolute predetermination, with the whole energies of the will;

in the other it arises _in spite_ of your will, (meaning your

choice)--it arises out of human infirmity. But still the difference

is as between choosing a crime for its own sake, and falling into

it from strong temptation.

Secondly, that in every case of duty unfulfilled, or duty imperfectly

fulfilled, in consequence of illness, languor, decaying spirits,

&c., there is a high probability (under the age of sixty-five almost

a certainty) that a part of the obstacle is due to self-neglect.

No man that lives but loses some of his time from ill health,

or at least from the incipient forms of ill health--bad spirits,

or indisposition to exertion. Now, taking men even as they are,

statistical societies have ascertained that, from the ages of

twenty to sixty-five, ill health, such as to interrupt daily labor,

averages from seven days to about fourteen per annum. In the best

circumstances of climate, occupation, &c., one fifty-second part

of the time perishes to the species--in the least favorable, two

such parts. Consequently, in the forty-five years from twenty to

sixty-five, not very far from a year perishes on an average to every

man--to some as much more. A considerable part even of this loss

is due to neglect or mismanagement of health. But this estimate

records only the loss of time in a pecuniary sense; which loss,

being powerfully restrained by self-interest, will be the least

possible under the circumstances. The loss of energy, as applied

to duties not connected with any self-interest, will be far more.

In so far as that loss emanates from defect of spirits, or other

modes of vital torpor, such as neglect of health has either caused

or promoted, and care might have prevented, in so far the omission is

charged to our own responsibility. Many men fancy that the slight

injuries done by each single act of intemperance, are like the

glomeration of moonbeams upon moonbeams--myriads will not amount to

a positive value. Perhaps they are wrong; possibly every act--nay,

every separate pulse or throb of intemperate sensation--is numbered

in our own after actions; reproduces itself in some future perplexity;

comes back in some reversionary shape that injures the freedom of

action for all men, and makes good men afflicted. At all events,

it is an undeniable fact, that many a case of difficulty, which in

apology for ourselves we very truly plead to be insurmountable by

our existing energies, has borrowed its sting from previous acts or

omissions of our own; it might _not_ have been insurmountable,

had we better cherished our physical resources. For instance, of

such a man it is said--he did not assist in repelling an injury

from his friend or his native land. 'True,' says his apologist, 'but

you would not require him to do so when he labors under paralysis?'

'No, certainly; but, perhaps, he might _not_ have labored under

paralysis had he uniformly taken care of his health.'[Footnote:

With respect to the management of health, although it is undoubtedly

true that like the 'primal charities,' in the language of Wordsworth,

in proportion to its importance it shines alike for all, and is

diffused universally--yet not the less, in every age, some very

obstinate prejudices have prevailed to darken the truth. Thus

Dryden authorizes the conceit, that medicine can never be useful

or requisite, because--

'God never made his work for man to mend.'

To mend! No, glorious John, neither physician nor patient has any

such presumptuous fancy; we take medicine to mend the injuries

produced by our own folly. What the medicine mends is not God's

work, but our own. The medicine is a _plus_ certainly; but it

is a _plus_ applied to a _minus_ of our own introducing.

Even in these days of practical knowledge, errors prevail on the

subject of health which are neither trivial nor of narrow operation.

Universally, the true theory of digestion, as partially unfolded

in Dr. Wilson Philip's experiments on rabbits, is so far mistaken,

and even inverted--that Lord Byron, when seeking a diet of easy

digestion, instead of resorting to animal food broiled and underdone,

which all medical men know to be the most digestible food, took

to a vegetable diet, which requires a stomach of extra power. The

same error is seen in the common notion about the breakfast of

ladies in Elizabeth's days, as if fit only for ploughmen; whereas

it is _our_ breakfasts of slops which require the powerful

organs of digestion. The same error, again, is current in the notion

that a weak watery diet is fit for a weak person. Such a person

peculiarly requires solid food. It is also a common mistake to

suppose that, because no absolute illness is caused by daily errors

of diet, these errors are practically cancelled. Cowper the poet

delivers the very just opinion--that all disorders of a _function_

(as, suppose, the secretion of bile,) sooner or later, if not

corrected, cease to be functional disorders, and become organic.]

Let not the reader suspect us of the Popish doctrine, that men

are to enter hereafter into a separate reckoning for each separate

act, or to stand at all upon their own merits. That reckoning, we

Protestants believe, no man could stand; and that some other resource

must be had than any personal merits of the individual. But still

we should recollect that this doctrine, though providing a refuge

for past offences, provides none for such offences as are committed

deliberately, with a prospective view to the benefits of such

a refuge. Offend we may, and we must: but then our offences must

come out of mere infirmity--not because we calculate upon a large

allowance being made to us, and say to ourselves, '_Let us take

out our allowance._'