an equal and steady hand, so that neither a foolish compassion on the miserable when they are culpable, nor affection to friends, nor the insinuations of the crafty, nor the daubings of flatterers, the gifts of the wealthy, the favor of great ones, nor yet the frowns or threatenings of the mighty, should make it incline in the least to either side. Whatever difference there may be in respect of dignity between the parties concerned in the justice to be administered, yet justice remains one and the same, and the law by which it is to be administered ought to be duly regarded and kept unto, and not bowed or bent on every turn, as may serve occasions. This will maintain the honor of the laws, and of him who executes them; whereas, if this be neglected, they will

be both despised." ** "Do your utmost to remove every thing that hath the appearance of deceit and falsehood in it, as far as it is possible, from all affairs pertaining to the administration of justice. It is a sad thing, when it becomes a ruled case with those that have to do with such pleadings as are proper for courts of justice, that it is but a usual matter to aver any thing, be it never so wrong, if they can but make it serve the cause which they have undertaken, and when such as are paid for their speaking are so basely mercenary, as to speak more according to their fee, than their consciences. It is a horrid practice, not to be tolerated by such whose business it is to search the matter and discover the truth."

We endeavored in our first volume to present our views of the law of veracity. We found that this law binds us to preserve faith with all those, in whose minds we endeavor by a pledge of our veracity to inspire confidence, that we shall do, or refrain from doing, a specified act. We discovered also, that as such a pledge, except by the use of language, can not be given, so a breach of faith or lie, can consist only in an attempt to deceive another person by the use of language, either that of the deaf and dumb or ordinary speech.

In that essay no special reference was had to promises; the breach of which is thought to constitute the most flagrant species of lying. A lie or criminal falsehood is a breach of faith, because when we pledge our word to a given course of conduct, we give a tacit promise that the person to whom we make the pledge, shall not be disappointed. But in the case of promises, the prom. ise is of course explicit. We declare expressly that we will do or forbear doing a particular thing.

Promises are of two kinds, simple and mutual. A simple promise is made by one party only. It is not conVol. II.

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ditioned on the promise of any one man or body of men. A parent makes a simple promise when he tells his children, that he will, at a future time, take them to ride or to visit the museum. A mutual promise is usually styled a contract, and consists in the promise of one party, that he will do thus and thus, provided the other party will do so and so, to which the latter accedes and pledges himself.

Embarrassment often arises from the equivocal terms in which a promise is expressed. The same is true in respect to ambiguous declarations. Thus, if a boy keeps his eyes shut, while his brother is doing a mischievous act, he may tell his parents he did not see his brother do it. In one sense he did not see the mischief done, but in another sense, which is the one, in which he knows his parents put the question, he did see it. He was present when the thing was done; he was a witness to it; and this is what they meant when they asked him if he saw his brother do it. He did not see it with his naked eye; and by understanding their question in this sense, he flatters himself he speaks the truth. Still he is guilty of a lie. He is put on his veracity, he is expected to answer honestly,

he is supposed to be sincere, he virtually promises to represent things truly; yet he practices a deception, under cover of an ambiguous word. Such illustrations are familiar to all. A master is said to have charged his servant, Frank, not to be out late at night. Having been disobedient, Frank shrewdly endeavors to escape punishment, without wounding his conscience, by chalking the figure 9 on one door-post and the figure 10 on the other; and so on being interrogated in the morning as to the time when he returned home, he replied, between 9 and 10. He was of course understood to mean between nine and ten o'clock; and he therefore told a lie, though in another sense his declaration was true. A lady called at a friend's house about tea-time, and on being invited to a seat at table, replied that she had taken tea. She was understood to mean, that she had taken tea that evening, which was not the fact. When the truth was discovered, she apologized, by saying that she had often taken tea.

Ananias and Sapphira probably expected to escape the guilt of lying, by using equivocal language. They declared they sold the land for so much; a sum less than what they actually received. Yet they may have justified themselves by saying, we did sell the land for so much, and

more.

In the same manner, promises are often couched in ambiguous terms either by design or inadvertently; so that the promiser may insist on one sense, and the promisee on another. By what rule then are we to interpret these ambiguous declarations and promises? The rule generally and justly acknowledged is, that an equivocal promise is to be taken in that sense in which the promiser supposes that the promisee receives it. The same rule applies to the interpretation of mere declarations. Thus when a prisoner is asked in court whether he pleads

guilty or not to the accusation, he may lawfully plead not guilty, though he knows the contrary to be the fact, for this language is ambiguous. His declaration is true in the sense in which it is received. The language is elliptical and means simply, I do not acknowledge myself to be guilty, I put my accusers to the proof.

A trader may innocently say that he can not sell his goods at less than a given price, for he does not mean, and is not thought to mean, that it would bankrupt him to do so, nor that he would make no profit; but that he is warranted by the market to expect a greater price.

On this principle alone can we excuse a juror for acquiescing in the opinions of his colleagues, contrary to his private judgment, after having sworn to decide a case according to law and evidence, unless the true interpretation of his oath is that he may thus acquiesce. This interpretation, however, even if it prevails, is unsound; because the law evidently designs that a case shall not be decided against a defendant except by a unanimous verdict of twelve of his peers; and hence each juror is bound by his oath to adhere inflexibly to his opinion.

This then is the rule of interpretation applicable both to declarations of fact and to promises. When a promise admits of more senses than one, it ought to be performed in that sense in which the promiser supposed that the promisee received it. It is not the sense in which the promi sor actually intended it, which gov erns the interpretation of an equivocal promise; for it is possible that his real intention might not occur to the promisee, and the promiser might know that it would not. Much less is it the sense in which the promisee receives a promise; for then the promiser might be drawn into engagements of which he never dreamed. It must therefore be taken in the sense in which the promiser at the time of the promise believed that

the promisee understood it. A general, says Paley, once promised a garrison, which he was besieging, that if they would surrender, no blood should be shed. The garrison surrendered and he buried them all alive. Now he fulfilled the letter of his promise, and in the sense in which he intended it at the time, but not in the sense in which he knew the garrison received it. He was therefore guilty of a breach of promise, for he ought to have fulfilled his promise as he knew it was understood.

A promiser may however, in many cases, screen himself from human censure, behind the ambiguity of his promise, for it is not possible for the promiser to know in what sense the promisee understood his language; but still he is bound in the sight of God, to fulfill the promise precisely as he supposed it was received.

Whoever acknowledges the duty of veracity in respect to facts, on the ground that whenever we profess to speak the truth, we virtually promise to do so, will readily acknowledge the obligation of keeping our actual promises. The same considerations which create the former obligations, impose the latter with equal or greater weight. Most writers on moral science however, tell us that promises are not always binding; and they generally give us a list of cases, in which they assure us promises are not obligatory.

There is something, we apprehend, unfortunate for the cause of good morals, in the use of this language. We are at first assured that a breach of promise is a lie or criminal falsehood, and then that breach es of promise are sometimes justifiable-a loose mode of expression adapted to bewilder the mind, and set it afloat in an ocean of uncertain ty. Breaches of promise are invariably sinful, if the argument on the universal sinfulness of lying, contained in our previous article, is sound. What then shall be done in

those cases in which it is evidently sinful to perform what has been promised? Are these sinful acts to be committed rather than violate a promise? We are not thrown on the horns of any such dilemma. The truth is that no promise ceases to be obligatory until it has ceased to exist. All promises are made on conditions either expressed or implied, on the failure of any one of which, the promise itself may be annihilated.

A promise can not exist after the conditions on which it was made, have vanished. This is very obvious in the case of a contract, where one promises thus and thus, on the express condition that another will do so and so. For if one party in the engagement fails to fulfill his promise, the other party is released, not from the obligation of keeping a promise, but from the promise itself. When I say I will do a certain thing, if you will do another, I make no promise, until you reply accepting my offer. I am then bound, until it appears that you are false to your engagement, when my obligation and promise cease. By not doing what I once promised to do, I do not innocently break a promise; there is no promise to break. This all acknowledge.

The same is true, if we mistake not, in regard to all other promises. They never lose their force, unless some of the conditions, on which they are expressly or impliedly made, are found to be wanting-in which event, they no longer exist.

Some of these conditions may be named for the purpose of showing the truth of these views. When I promise a beggar, to do him an act of kindness, it is on the expressed or implied condition, that I find his tale of distress, which is the motive of my promise, to be true. If, on inquiry, I find he has been telling me a tissue of lies, I can tell him so, and dismiss him without relief; for I made the promise on the condition, that he told me the truth. In like

manner no promise is binding, which is obtained by false pretenses; for the implied condition of making it, is, that the reason for which it is made, shall prove to be true. Thus, if a woman promises her hand in marriage; and afterwards discovers that her suitor is a man of bad character, her promise is null and void; for she may be presumed to have made it on the supposition of his being such a man as he represents himself to be.

Ability to perform a promise is always one of its conditions. If I promise I will pay a debt at such a time, it places me under obligation to do all in my power to fulfill my engagement; but if, after having done this, it should prove impossible for me to pay it, I am not guilty in the sight of God of a breach of promise. I may have done wrong in making it without sufficient reflection and a proper calculation of my means; but I am not culpable for failing to do impossibilities. Every promise is manifestly conditioned on our ability to fulfill it; for otherwise it would be wrong to make any prom ise, since our ignorance of what an hour may bring forth, assures us, that we may be unable to fulfill promises, which seem to be completely in our power. Still the promiser is guilty of a lie, if at the time of making the promise, he is secretly aware of the impossibility of keeping it. The case is the same, if he voluntarily occasions the impossibility.

Another condition of every promise, is, that the promise is lawful. A promise can create no obligation, to do that which God forbids. A case may occur, (like that of the men who made a vow that they would neither eat nor drink, till they had killed Paul,) in which the promise is known at the time to be unlawful. In such a case it is unlawful to make a promise, and doubly so to fulfill it. No obligation is created by it. As a binding power,

the promise never has an existence. Those to whom it is made, knowing it to be unlawful, ought not to expect or desire its fulfillment. It is no breach of authorized confidence to treat it as an idle word. It may happen, however, that the promiser is, at the time, ignorant of the unlawfulness of his promise, but discovers the fact afterwards, when the promise ceases to have a being. Thus, a woman may give a promise of marriage, and afterwards discover that her intended husband has a wife yet living. Her promise at once vanishes. The oath of Herod to the daughter of Herodias belongs to this class. He promised her whatever she should ask, even to the half of his kingdom. This promise was not unlawful; it was only rash, in the terms in which he delivered it; and when it became unlawful by his daughter-in-law's choice of the head of John the Baptist, he was not bound to fulfill it, in that sense; for the implied condition was, that she should ask what he had a right to give. If she had asked him for the throne of Cæsar, it would have been no more inconsistent with his legitimate powers, or the true interpretation of his promise. Though he had a physical control over John, as he was one of his subjects, he had no more right, in a moral sense, to take his life, than he had to usurp the throne of the Roman emperor.

It is, also, made a condition of every promise, that the promisee may release the promiser from his engagement. This is evident. If now we carefully examine every promise, we shall find them all to be binding, except such as are vacated by the failure of some one or more of the conditions on which they depend. When any of these conditions fail, the promise ceases, or becomes extinct, just as truly as it would if I should say expressly, that I will assist you or visit you at such a time, if I am well or not unavoidably prevented. We do not

always thus express the conditions. of our promises, but they are always either expressed or understood. We never mean to promise a thing absolutely, whether it proves practicable or not, whether lawful or unlawful, whether the promise is fraudulently obtained or not, whether we are released or not by the promisee. And because these conditions belong to every promise, and are generally recognized, we are not often at the pains of expressing them.

It is, therefore, no breach of the law of veracity, no lie, not to perform a promise, which has become null and void by a failure of any material condition, either expressed or implied, on which it was made. In all cases promises are binding; or it is our duty to fulfill every prom ise, for no vacated promise has any existence. However much the fulfillment of a promise may distress or embarrass us, it is our duty to fulfill it. He is commended in the Holy Scriptures, who sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not.

After this exposition of the law of veracity, we feel disposed to moralize a moment, and in this manner to throw a stronger light on this important point in practical ethics.

1. It should never be forgotten, that when one party in a contract fails to keep his engagement, the other is entitled to damages to the amount of what he may have suffered by such failure. A breach of a promise of marriage, on the part of the man especially, justly entitles the other party to damages for whatever injury may have been suffered, in feeling and in the pros. pects of life. Nor ought the recovery of damages in a court of law, to be esteemed derogatory to the female sex; for in this case, above many others, the magistrate beareth not the sword in vain.

2. Contracts between societies, and between societies and individuals, are just as obligatory, as if formed between individuals. The familiar assertion, that corporations have

no souls, or no consciences, owes its currency to the strange delusion, that men may do things in an associated capacity, which would be acknowledged immoral in an individual. The conduct of many men, who are upright in their intercourse and transactions with private persons, is often of such a character in their dealings with the government, as can be justified only on the supposition, that society is indeed, like the lower creation, without a soul, without rights. But the obligation of veracity extends to all the parties to a contract. A society is as strictly bound to keep its faith with other societies, and with individuals, as individuals can be to keep faith with each other; and even more strictly, since the interests at stake are much more momentous. A breach of faith between nations may involve them in war; indeed the faith of treaties is that which binds them together in peace, and sustains their commercial enterprise. Nor is it less essential to the prosperity of a nation, that her rulers should possess the confidence of the people. A government that can not be trusted, will be hated, and if possible overthrown. Individuals are also bound to keep inviolate their faith with society. Their obligation to fulfill their engagements with individuals can not be more sacred. When we wrong society, we wrong every particular member of it. The reason why this is so feebly felt, is that our contracts with society are not usually made in manner and form, but tacitly. Thus, by remaining in a country, when one has the liberty of removing-by claiming the protection of government, and by participating in the election of rulers and the enactment of laws, if that is permitted him, a person tacitly or si lently agrees to submit to the laws of the land. He thus becomes a party to a contract. While society is under obligation to extend to him the rights of a citizen, he is under