much beyond formal reproofs and chidings, which, | a right to such authority, and in support of that being generally prompted by some present provocation, discover more of anger than of principle, and are always received with a temporary alienation and disgust.

authority to exercise such discipline as may be
necessary for these purposes. The law of nature
acknowledges no other foundation of a parent's
right over his children, besides his duty towards
them. (I speak now of such rights as may be
enforced by coercion.) This relation confers no
property in their persons, or natural dominion
over them, as is commonly supposed.
Since it is, in general, necessary to determine
the destination of children, before they are capa-
ble of judging of their own happiness, parents
have a right to elect professions for them.

As the mother herself owes obedience to the father, her authority must submit to his. In a competition, therefore, of commands, the father is to be obeyed. In case of the death of either, the authority, as well as duty, of both parents, devolves upon the survivor.

A good parent's first care is, to be virtuous himself; a second, to make his virtues as easy and engaging to those about him as their nature will admit. Virtue itself offends, when coupled with forbidding manners. And some virtues may be urged to such excess, or brought forward so unseasonably, as to discourage and repel those who observe and who are acted upon by them, instead of exciting an inclination to imitate and adopt them. Young minds are particularly liable to these unfortunate impressions. For instance, if a father's economy degenerate into a minute and teasing parsimony, it is odds but that the son, who has suffered under it, sets out a sworn enemy to all rules of order and frugality. If a father's piety be morose, rigorous, and tinged with melancholy, perpetually breaking in upon the recreation of his family, and surfeiting them with the language of religion on all occasions, there is danger From this principle, "that the rights of parents Test the son carry from home with him a settled result from their duty," it follows, that parents prejudice against seriousness and religion, as in-have no natural right over the lives of their chilconsistent with every plan of a pleasureable life; and turn out, when he mixes with the world, a character of levity or dissoluteness.

These rights, always following the duty, belong likewise to guardians; and so much of them as is delegated by the parents to guardians, belongs to tutors, school-masters, &c.

dren, as was absurdly allowed to Roman fathers; nor any to exercise unprofitable severities; nor to command the commission of crimes: for these rights can never be wanted for the purpose of a parent's duty.

Nor, for the same reason, have parents any right to sell their children into slavery. Upon which, by the way, we may observe, that the children of slaves, are not, by the law of nature, born slaves: for, as the master's right is derived to him through the parent, it can never be greater than the parent's own.

Something likewise may be done towards the correcting or improving of those early inclinations which children discover, by disposing them into situations the least dangerous to their particular characters. Thus, I would make choice of a retired life for young persons addicted to licentious pleasures; of private stations for the proud and passionate; of liberal professions, and a town life, for the mercenary and sottish: and not, according to the general practice of parents, send Hence also it appears, that parents not only dissolute youths into the army; penurious tem- pervert, but exceed their just authority, when pers to trade; or make a crafty lad an attorney; they consult their own ambition, interest, or preor flatter a vain and haughty temper with ele-judice, at the manifest expense of their children's vated names, or situations, or callings, to which the fashion of the world has annexed precedency and distinction, but in which his disposition, without at all promoting his success, will serve both to multiply and exasperate his disappointments. In the same way, that is, with a view to the particular frame and tendency of the pupil's character, I would make choice of a public or private education. The reserved, timid, and indolent, will have their faculties called forth, and their nerves invigorated, by a public education. Youths of strong spirits and passions will be safer in a private education. At our public schools, as far as I have observed, more literature is acquired, and more vice; quick parts are cultivated, slow ones are neglected. Under private tuition, a moderate proficiency in juvenile learning is seldom exceeded, but with more certainty attained.

happiness. Of which abuse of parental power, the following are instances: the shutting up of daughters and younger sons in nunneries, and monasteries, in order to preserve entire the estate and dignity of the family; or the using of any arts, either of kindness or unkindness, to induce them to make choice of this way of life themselves; or, in countries where the clergy are prohibited from marriage, putting sons into the church for the same end, who are never likely to do or receive any good in it, sufficient to compensate for this sacrifice; the urging of children to marriages from which they are averse, with the view of exalting or enriching the family, or for the sake of connecting estates, parties, or interests; or the opposing of a marriage, in which the child would probably find his happiness, from a motive of pride or avarice, of family hostility, or personal pique.

CHAPTER X.

The Rights of Parents.

THE rights of parents result from their duties. If it be the duty of a parent to educate his children, to form them for a life of usefulness and virtue, to provide for them situations needful for their subsistence, and suited to their circumstances, and to prepare them for those situations; he has

CHAPTER XI.

The Duty of Children.

THE duty of children may be considered,
I. During childhood.

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

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

1. During childhood.

DUTY OF CHILDREN.

Children must be supposed to have attained to some degree of discretion before they are capable of any duty. There is an interval of eight or nine years between the dawning and the maturity of reason, in which it is necessary to subject the inclination of children to many restraints, and direct their application to many employments, of the tendency and use of which they cannot judge; for which cause, the submission of children during this period must be ready and implicit, with an exception, however, of any manifest crime which may be commanded them."

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

If children, when they are grown up, voluntarily continue members of their father's family, they are bound, beside the general duty of gratitude to their parents, to observe such regulations of the family as the father shall appoint; contribute their labour to its support, if required; and confine themselves to such expenses as he shall allow. The obligation would be the same, if they were admitted into any other family, or received support from any other hand.

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

In this state of the relation, the duty to parents is simply the duty of gratitude; not different in kind, from that which we owe to any other benefactor; in degree, just so much exceeding other obligations, by how much a parent has been a greater benefactor than any other friend. The services and attentions, by which filial gratitude may be testified, can be comprised within no enumeration. It will show itself in compliances with the will of the parents, however contrary to the child's own taste or judgment, provided it be neither criminal, nor totally inconsistent with his happiness; in a constant endeavour to promote their enjoyments, prevent their wishes, and soften their anxieties, in small matters as well as in great; in assisting them in their business; in contributing to their support, ease, or better accommodation, when their circumstances require it; in affording them our company, in preference to more amusing engagements; in waiting upon their sickness or decrepitude; in bearing with the infirmities of their health or temper, with the peevishness and complaints, the unfashionable, negligent, austere manners, and offensive habits, which often attend upon advanced years: for where must old age find indulgence, if it do not meet with it in the piety and partiality of children?

sires constitutes, or the disappointment affects
any considerable portion of their happiness, com-
pared with that of their whole life, it is difficult to
determine; but there can be no difficulty in pro-
nouncing, that not one half of those attachments,
I believe it also to
which young people conceive with so much haste
and passion, are of this sort.
be true, that there are few aversions to a profes-
sion, which resolution, perseverance, activity in
going about the duty of it, and, above all, despair
of changing, will not subdue: yet there are some
such. Wherefore, a child who respects his pa-
rents' judgment, and is, as he ought to be, tender
of their happiness, owes, at least, so much de-
ference to their will, as to try fairly and faithfully,
in one case, whether time and absence will not
cool an affection which they disapprove; and, in
the other, whether a longer continuance in the
profession which they have chosen for him may
not reconcile him to it. The whole depends upon
the experiment being made on the child's part
with sincerity, and not merely with a design of
compassing his purpose at last, by means of a
simulated and temporary compliance. It is the
nature of love and hatred, and of all violent af-

fections, to delude the mind with a persuasion that
we shall always continue to feel them as we feel
them at present; we cannot conceive that they
will either change or cease. Experience of similar
or greater changes in ourselves, or a habit of
giving credit to what our parents, or tutors, or
books, teach us, may control this persuasion,
otherwise it renders youth very untractable: for
they see clearly and truly that it is impossible
they should be happy under the circumstances
proposed to them, in their present state of mind.
After a sincere but ineffectual endeavour, by the
child, to accommodate his inclination to his pa-
rent's pleasure, he ought not to suffer in his pa-
rent's affection, or in his fortunes. The parent,
when he has reasonable proof of this should ac-
quiesce; at all events, the child is then at liberty
to provide for his own happiness.

Parents have no right to urge their children upon marriages to which they are averse: nor ought, in any shape, to resent the children's disobedience to such commands. This is a different case from opposing a match of inclination, because the child's misery is a much more probable consequence; it being easier to live without a person that we love, than with one whom we hate. Add to this, that compulsion in marriage necessarily leads to prevarication; as the reluctant party promises an affection, which neither exists, nor is exThe most serious contentions between parents pected to take place and parental, like all human and their children are those commonly which re-authority, ceases at the point where obedience becomes chal. late to marriage, or to the choice of a profession.

In the above-mentioned, and in all contests beA parent has, in no case, a right to destroy his child's happiness. If it be true, therefore, that tween parents and children, it is the parent's duty there exist such personal and exclusive attach- to represent to the child the consequences of his ments between individuals of different sexes, that conduct; and it will be found his best policy to the possession of a particular man or woman in represent them with fidelity. It is usual for pamarriage be really necessary for the child's hap-rents to exaggerate these descriptions beyond prodefeating piness; or, if it be true, that an aversion to a par- bability, and by exaggeration to lose all credit with ticular profession may be involuntary and uncon- their children; thus, in a great measure, querable; then it will follow, that parents, where their own end. this is the case, ought not to urge their authority, and that the child is not bound to obey it. The point is, to discover how far, in any parWhether the ticular instance, this is the case. fondness of lovers ever continues with such intensity, and so long, that the success of their de M

Parents are forbidden to interfere, where a trust is reposed personally in the son; and where, consequently, the son was expected, and by virtue of that expectation is obliged, to pursue his own judgment, and not that of any other: as is the case with judicial magistrates in the execution of 8*

their office; with members of the legislature in
their votes; with electors where preference is to
be given to certain prescribed qualifications. The
son may assist his own judgment by the advice of
his father, or of any one whom he chooses to con-
sult: but his own judgment, whether it proceed
upon knowledge or authority, ought finally to de-attempt, it cannot be contended to be for the aug-

termine his conduct.

The duty of children to their parents was thought worthy to be made the subject of one of the Ten Commandments; and, as such, is recognised by Christ, together with the rest of the moral precepts of the Decalogue, in various places of the Gospel.

The same divine Teacher's sentiments concerning the relief of indigent parents, appear sufficiently from that manly and deserved indignation with which he reprehended the wretched casuistry of the Jewish expositors, who, under the name of a tradition, had contrived a method of evading this duty, by converting, or pretending to convert, to the treasury of the temple, so much of their property as their distressed parent might be entitled by their law to demand.

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

Obedience to parents is enjoined by St. Paul to the Ephesians: "Children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right;" and to the Colossians: "Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing unto the Lord."*

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

BOOK IV.

DUTIES TO OURSELVES.

THIS division of the subject is retained merely for the sake of method, by which the writer and the reader are equally assisted. To the subject itself it imports nothing; for, the obligation of all duties being fundamentally the same, it matters little under what class or title any of them are considered. In strictness, there are few duties or crimes which terminate in a man's self; and so far as others are affected by their operation, they have been treated of in some article of the preceding book. We have reserved, however, to this head, the rights of self-defence; also the consideration of drunkenness and suicide, as offences against that care of our faculties, and preservation of our persons, which we account duties, and call

duties to ourselves.

CHAPTER I.

The Rights of Self-Defence.

IT has been asserted, that in a state of nature we might lawfully defend the most insignificant

*Upon which two phrases, "this is right," and, "for this is well-pleasing unto the Lord," being used by St. Paul in a sense perfectly parallel, we may observe, that moral rectitude, and conformity to the Divine will, were in his apprehension the same.

right, provided it were a perfect determinate right, by any extremities which the obstinacy of the aggressor rendered necessary. Of this I doubt; because I doubt whether the general rule be worth sustaining at such an expense; and because, apart from the general consequence of yielding to the should lose his life, or a limb, rather than another mentation of human happiness, that one man a pennyworth of his property. Nevertheless, perfect rights can only be distinguished by their value; and it is impossible to ascertain the value at which the liberty of using extreme violence beas he can, between the general consequence of gins. The person attacked, must balance, as well yielding, and the particular effect of resistance.

ture, is suspended by the establishment of civil However, this right, if it exist in a state of nasociety: because thereby other remedies are provided against attacks upon our property, and because it is necessary to the peace and safety of the community, that the prevention, punishment, and redress of injuries, be adjusted by public laws. covery of his right, or of a compensation for his Moreover, as the individual is assisted in the reright, by the public strength, it is no less equitable than expedient, that he should submit to public arbitration the kind, as well as the measure of the satisfaction which he is to obtain.

justifiable; namely, when our life is assaulted, and
There is one case in which all extremities are
it becomes necessary for our preservation to kill the
assailant. This is evident in a state of nature;
fer the aggressor's life to our own, that is to say,
unless it can be shown, that we are bound to pre-
to love our enemy better than ourselves, which
can never be a debt of justice, nor any where ap-
pears to be a duty of charity. Nor is the case
altered by our living in civil society; because, by
the supposition, the laws of society cannot inter-
pose to protect us, nor, by the nature of the case,
compel restitution. This liberty is restrained to
cases in which no other probable means of pre-
ance, disarming the adversary, &c. The rule
serving our life remain, as flight, calling for assist-
holds, whether the danger proceed from a volun-
tary attack, as by an enemy, robber, or assassin;
or from an involuntary one, as by a madman, or
person sinking in the water, and dragging us after
him; or where two persons are reduced to a situa-
tion in which one or both of them must perish: as
in a shipwreck, where two seize upon a plank,
which will support only one: although, to say the
truth, these extreme cases, which happen seldom,
and hardly, when they do happen, admit of moral
agency, are scarcely worth mentioning, much less
discussing at length.

the preservation of life, and which seems to justify
The instance which approaches the nearest to
the same extremities, is the defence of chastity.

In all other cases, it appears to me the safest to
consider the taking away of life as authorised by
the law of the land; and the person who takes it
away, as in the situation of a minister or execu-
tioner of the law.

fiable:
In which view, homicide, in England, is justi-

when committed, would be punishable with death.
1. To prevent the commission of a crime, which,
Thus, it is lawful to shoot a highwayman, or one
attempting to break into a house by night; but
not so if the attempt be made in the day-time;

and Rome.

DRUNKENNESS.

2. In necessary endeavours to carry the law into execution, as in suppressing riots, apprehending malefactors, preventing escapes, &c.

do not know that the law holds forth its authority to any cases besides those which fall within one or other of the above descriptions; or, that, after the exception of immediate danger to life or chastity, the destruction of a human being can be innocent without an authority.

which particular distinction, by a consent of le- | by his irregularities; and a fourth may possess gislation that is remarkable, obtained also in the a constitution fortified against the poison of Jewish law, as well as in the laws both of Grecce strong liquors. But if, as we always ought to do, we comprehend within the consequences of our conduct the mischief and tendency of the example, the above circumstances, however fortunate for the individual, will be found to vary the guilt of his intemperance less, probably, than he supposes. The moralist may expostulate with him thus: Although the waste of time and of money be of small importance to you, it may be of the utmost to some one or other whom your society corrupts. Repeated or long-continued excesses, which hurt not your health, may be fatal to your companion. Although you have neither wife or child, nor parent, to lament your absence from home, or expect your return to it with terror: other families, in which husbands and fathers have been invited to share in your ebriety, or encouraged to imitate it, may justly lay their misery or ruin at your door. This will hold good whether the person seduced be seduced immediately by you, or the vice be propagated from you to him through several intermediate examples. All these considerations it is necessary to assemble, to judge truly of a vice which usually meets with milder names and more indulgence than it deserves.

The rights of war are not here taken into the

account.

CHAPTER II.
Drunkenness.

DRUNKENNESS is either actual or habitual; just as it is one thing to be drunk, and another to be a drunkard. What we shall deliver upon the subject must principally be understood of a habit of intemperance; although part of the guilt and danger described, may be applicable to casual excesses; and all of it in a certain degree, forasmuch as every habit is only a repetition of single in

stances.

I omit those outrages upon one another, and upon the peace and safety of the neighbourhood, in which drunken revels often end; and also those deleterious and maniacal effects which strong liquors produce upon particular constitutions: "because, in general propositions concerning drunk1. It betrays most constitutions either to extra-enness, no consequences should be included, but what are constant enough to be generally exvagances of anger, or sins of lewdness. pected.

The mischief of drunkenness, from which we are to compute the guilt of it, consists in following the bad effects:

2. It disqualifies men for the duties of their station, both by the temporary disorder of their faculties, and at length by a constant incapacity and stupefaction.

3. It is attended with expenses, which can often be ill spared.

4. It is sure to occasion uneasiness to the family of the drunkard.

5. It shortens life.

Drunkenness is repeatedly forbidden by St. Paul: "Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess." "Let us walk honestly as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness." "Be not deceived; neither fornicators, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God." Ephes. v. 18; Romans xiii. 13; 1 Cor. vi. 9, 10. The same apostle likewise condemns drunkenness, as peculiarly inconsistent with the Christian proThey that be drunken, are drunken fession :-" in the night: but let us, who are of the day, be sober." I Thess. v. 7, 8. We are not concerned with the argument: the words amount to a prohibition of drunkenness, and the authority is conclusive.

It is a question of some importance, how far drunkenness is an excuse for the crimes which the drunken person commits.

To these consequences of drunkenness must be added the peculiar danger and mischief of the example. Drunkenness is a social festive vice; apt, beyond any vice that can be mentioned, to draw in others by the example. The drinker collects his circle; the circle naturally spreads; of those who are drawn within it, many become the corrupters and centres of sets and circles of their own; every one countenancing, and perhaps emulating the rest, till a whole neighbourhood be inIn the solution of this question, we will first fected from the contagion of a single example. This account is confirmed by what we often ob- suppose the drunken person to be altogether deserve of drunkenness, that it is a local vice; found prived of moral agency, that is to say, of all reto prevail in certain countries, in certain districts flection and foresight. In this condition, it is eviof a country, or in particular towns, without any dent that he is no more capable of guilt than a reason to be given for the fashion, but that it had madman; although, like him, he may be extremebeen introduced by some popular examples. With ly mischievous. The only guilt with which he is this observation upon the spreading quality of chargeable, was incurred at the time when he vodrunkenness, let us connect a remark which be- luntarily brought himself into this situation. And longs to the several evil effects above recited. The as every man is responsible for the consequences consequences of a vice, like the symptoms of a dis- which he foresaw, or might have foreseen, and for ease, though they be all enumerated in the de- no other, this guilt will be in proportion to the ription, seldom all meet in the same subject. probability of such consequences ensuing. From In the instance under consideration, the age and which principle results the following rule, viz. that temperature of one drunkard may have little to the guilt of any action in a drunken man, bears fear from inflammations of lust or anger; the for- the same proportion to the guilt of the like action tune of a second may not be injured by the ex-in a sober man, that the probability of its being pense; a third may have no family to be disquieted the consequence of drunkenness, bears to absolute

92.

certainty. By virtue of this rule, those vices which
are the known effects of drunkenness, either in
general or upon particular constitutions, are in all, or
in men of such constitutions, nearly as criminal
as if committed with all their faculties and senses
about them.

it exceeds the ordinary patience of human nature to endure. This is usually relieved for a short time, by a repetition of the same excess; and to this relief, as to the removal of every long continued pain, they who have once experienced it, are This is not all: as the liquor loses its stimulus, urged almost beyond the power of resistance. the dose must be increased, to reach the same pitch of elevation or ease; which increase proportionably accelerates the progress of all the maladies that drunkenness brings on. Whoever readvanced stages of the habit, and the fatal termination to which the gratification of it leads, will, the moment he perceives in himself the first symptoms of a growing inclination to intemperance, collect his resolution to this point; or (what perhaps, he will find his best security,) arm himself with some peremptory rule, as to the times and quantity of his indulgences. I own myself a friend to the laying down of rules to ourselves of this sort, and rigidly abiding by them. They may be exclaimed against as stiff, but they are often salutary. Indefinite resolutions of abstemiousness are apt to yield to extraordinary occasions; and extraordinary occasions to occur perpetually. Whereas, the stricter the rule is, the more tenacious we grow of it; and many a man will abstain rather than break his rule, who would not easily be brought to exercise the same tion, that when our rule is once known, we are mortification from higher motives. Not to menprovided with an answer to every importunity.

If the privation of reason be only partial, the guilt will be of a mixed nature. For so much of his self-government as the drunkard retains, he is as responsible then as at any other time. He is entitled to no abatement beyond the strict proportion in which his moral faculties are impaired.flects upon the violence of the craving in the Now I call the guilt of the crime, if a sober man had committed it, the whole guilt. A person in the condition we describe, incurs part of this at the instant of perpetration; and by bringing himself into such a condition, he incurred that fraction of the remaining part, which the danger of this consequence was of an integral certainty. For the sake of illustration, we are at liberty to suppose, that a man loses half his moral faculties by drunkenness; this leaving him but half his responsibility, he incurs, when he commits the action, half of the whole guilt. We will also suppose that it was known beforehand, that it was an even chance, or half a certainty, that this crime would follow his getting drunk. This makes him chargeable with half of the remainder; so that altogether, he is responsible in three-fourths of the guilt which a sober man would have incurred by the same action.

I do not mean that any real case can be reduced to numbers, or the calculation be ever made with arithmetical precision; but these are the principles, and this the rule by which our general admeasurement of the guilt of such offences should be regulated.

The appetite for intoxicating liquors appears to me to be almost always acquired. One proof of which is, that it is apt to return only at particular times and places: as after dinner, in the evening, on the market-day, at the market-town, in such a company, at such a tavern. reason that, if a habit of drunkenness be ever overAnd this may be the come, it is upon some change of place, situation, company, or profession. A man sunk deep in a habit of drunkenness will, upon such occasions as these, when he finds himself loosened from the associations which held him fast, sometimes make a plunge, and get out. In a matter of so great importance, it is well worth while, where it is in any degree practicable, to change our habitation and society, for the sake of the experiment.

Habits of drunkenness commonly take their rise either from a fondness for, and connexion with, some company, or some companion, already addicted to this practice; which affords an almost irresistible invitation to take a share in the indulgences which those about us are enjoying with so much apparent relish and delight; or from want of regular employment, which is sure to let in many superfluous cravings and customs, and often this among the rest; or, lastly, from grief, or fatigue, both which strongly solicit that relief which inebriating liquors administer, and also furnish a specious excuse for complying with the inclination. But the habit, when once set in, is continued by different motives from those to which it owes its origin. Persons addicted to excessive drinking, suffer in the intervals of sobriety, and near the return of their accustomed indulgence, a faintness and oppression circa præcordia, which |

vivial intemperance, and that solitary sottishness There is a difference, no doubt, between conwhich waits neither for company nor invitation. other: and this last, in the basest degradation But the one, I am afraid, commonly ends in the to which the faculties and dignity of human nature can be reduced.

CHAPTER III.
Suicide.

consideration of general consequences is more THERE is no subject in morality in which the necessary than in this of Suicide. Particular and extreme cases of suicide may be imagined, and may arise, of which it would be difficult to assign the particular mischief, or from that conthese cases have been the chief occasion of consideration alone to demonstrate the guilt; and fusion and doubtfulness in the question: albeit, this is no more than what is sometimes true of the most acknowledged vices. I could propose many possible cases even of murder, which, if they were detached from the general rule, and governed by their own particular consequences alone, it would be no easy undertaking to prove criminal.

than this: May every man who chooses to deThe true question in this argument is no other stroy his life, innocently do so? Limit and distinguish the subject as you can, it will come at last to this question.

to commit suicide when we find our continuance For, shall we say, that we are then at liberty in life become useless to mankind? Any one who pleases, may make himself useless; and melancholy minds are prone to think themselves use