86

AUTHORITY OF THE LAW OF NATIONS.

[ESSAY I.

them avoid them when "another nation's greatness merely awakens their alarms."

II. That the law of nations is wholly nugatory with respect to those states which are not parties to it is a truth which, however sound, has been too little regarded in the conduct of civilized nations. The state whose subjects discover and take possession of an uninhabited island, is entitled by the law of nations quietly to possess it. And it ought quietly to possess it; not that in the view of reason or of morality, the circumstance of an Englishman's first visiting the shores of a country gives any very intelligible right to the King of England to possess it rather than any other prince, but that, such a rule having been agreed upon, it ought to be observed. But by whom? By those who are parties to the agreement. For which reason, the discoverer possesses no sufficient claim to oppose his right to that of a people who were not parties to it. So that he who, upon pretence of discovery, should forcibly exclude from a large extent of territory a people who knew nothing of European politics, and who in the view of reason possessed an equal or a greater right, undoubtedly violates the obligations of morality. It may serve to dispel the obscurity in which habit and self-interest wrap our perceptions, to consider, that among the states which were nearest to the newlydiscovered land, a law of nations might exist which required that such land should be equally divided among them. Whose law of nations ought to prevail? That of European states, or that of states in the Pacific or South Sea? How happens it that the Englishman possesses a sounder right to exclude all other nations, than surrounding nations possess to partition it among them?

Unhappily, our law of nations goes much further; and by a monstrous abuse of power, has acted upon the same doctrine with respect to inhabited countries; for when these have been discovered, the law of nations has talked, with perfect coolness, of setting up a standard, and thenceforth assigning the territory to the nation whose subjects set it up; as if the previous inhabitants possessed no other claim or right than the bears and wolves. It has been asked (and asked with great reason), what we should say to a canoe full of Indians who should discover England, and take possession of it in the name of their chief?

Civilized states appear to have acted upon the maxim, that no people possess political rights but those who are parties to the law of nations; and accordingly the history of European settlements has been, so far as the aborigines were concerned, too much a history of outrage, and treachery, and blood. Penn acted upon sounder principles: he perfectly well knew that neither an established practice nor the law of nations could impart a right to a country which was justly possessed by former inhabitants; and therefore, although Charles II. "granted" him Pennsylvania, he did not imagine that the gift of a man in London could justify him in taking possession of a distant country without the occupiers' consen What was " granted" therefore by his sovereign he purchased of the owners; and the sellers were satisfied with their bargain and with him. The experience of Pennsylvania has shown that integrity is politic as well as right. When nations shall possess greater expansion of knowledge, and exercise greater purity of virtue, it will be found that many of the principles which regulate international intercourse are foolish as well as vicious that while they disregard the interests of morality they sacrifice their own.

PT. 2, CH. 4.]

THE LAW OF HONOUR.

87 III. Respecting the third consideration, that the law of nations is of no force in opposition to the moral law, little needs to be said here. It is evident that upon whatever foundation the law of nations rests, its authority is subordinate to that of the will of God. When therefore we say that among civilized states, when an island is discovered by one state, other states are bound to refrain, it is not identical with saying that the discoverer is at liberty to keep possession by whatever means. The mode of asserting all rights is to be regulated in subordination to the moral law. Duplicity, and fraud, and violence, and bloodshed may perhaps sometimes be the only means of availing ourselves of the rights which the law of nations grants: but it were a confused species of morality which should allow the commission of all this, because it is consistent with the law of nations.

A kindred remark applies to the obligation of treaties. Treaties do not oblige us to do what is morally wrong. A treaty is a string of engagements; but those engagements are no more exempt from the jurisdiction of the moral law, than the promise of a man to assassinate another. Does such a promise morally bind the ruffian? No: and for this reason, and for no other, that the performance is unlawful. And so it is with treaties. Two nations enter into a treaty of offensive and defensive alliance. Subsequently one of them engages in an unjust and profligate war. Does the treaty morally bind the other nation to abet the profligacy and injustice? No: if it did, any man might make any action lawful to himself by previously engaging to do it. No doubt such a nation and such a ruffian have done wrong; but their offence consisted in making the engagement, not in breaking it. Even if ordinary wars were defensible, treaties of offensive alliance that are unconditional with respect to time or objects can never be justified. The state, however, which, in the pursuit of a temporary policy, has been weak enough or vicious enough to make them, should not hesitate to refuse fulfilment, when the act of fulfilment is incompatible with the moral law. Such a state should decline to perform the treaty, and retire with shame,-with shame, not that it has violated its engagements, but that it was ever so vicious as to make them.

SECTION II.

THE LAW OF HONOUR.

THE law of honour consists of a set of maxims, written or understood, by which persons. of a certain class agree to regulate, or are expected to regulate their conduct. It is evident that the obligation of the law of honour, as such, results exclusively from the agreement, tacit or expressed, of the parties concerned. It binds them because they have agreed to be bound, and for no other reason. He who does not choose to be ranked among the subjects of the law of honour is under no obligation to obey its rules. These rules are precisely upon the same footing as the laws of free-masonry, or the regulations of a reading-room.

88

AUTHORITY OF THE LAW OF HONOUR.

[ESSAY I. He who does not choose to subscribe to the room, or to promise conformity to masonic laws, is under no obligation to regard the rules of either.

For which reasons, it is very remarkable that at the commencement of his moral philosophy, Dr. Paley says, the rules of life "are, the law of honour, the law of the land, and the Scriptures." It were strange indeed, if that were a rule of life which every man is at liberty to disregard if he pleases; and which, in point of fact, mine persons out of ten do disregard without blame. Who would think of taxing the writer of these pages with violating a "rule of life," because he pays no attention to the law of honour? "The Scriptures" communicate the will of God; "the law of the land" is enforced by that will; but where is the sanction of the law of honour?--It is so much the more remarkable that this law should have been thus formally proposed as a rule of life, because in the same work it is described as "unauthorized." How can a set of unauthorized maxims compose a rule of life? But further the author says that the law of honour is a "capricious rule, which abhors deceit, yet applauds the address of a successful intrigue." -And further still: "it allows of fornication, adultery, drunkenness, prodigality, duelling, and of revenge in the extreme." Surely then it cannot, with any propriety of language, be called a rule of life.

:

99

Placing, then, the obligation of the law of honour, as such, upon that which appears to be its proper basis,-the duty to perform our lawful engagements—it may be concluded, that when a man goes to a gaminghouse or a race-course, and loses his money by betting or playing, he is morally bound to pay: not because morality adjusts the rules of the billiard-room or the turf, not because the law of the land sanctions the stake, but because the party previously promised to pay it. Nor would it affect this obligation to allege, that the stake was itself both illegal and immoral. So it was; but the payment is not. The payment of such a debt involves no breach of the moral law. The guilt consists, not in paying the money, but in staking it. Nevertheless, there may be prior claims upon a man's property which he ought first to pay. Such are those of lawful creditors. The practice of paying debts of honour with promptitude, and of delaying the payment of other debts, argues confusion or depravity of principle. It is not honour, in any virtuous and rational sense of the word, which induces men to pay debts of honour instantly. Real honour would induce them to pay their lawful debts first: and indeed it may be suspected that the motive to the prompt payment of gaming debts is usually no other than the desire to preserve a fair name with the world. Integrity of principle has often so little to do with it, that this principle is sacrificed in order to pay them.

With respect to those maxims of the law of honour which require conduct that the moral law forbids, it is quite manifest that they are utterly indefensible. "If unauthorized laws of honour be allowed to create exceptions to Divine prohibitions, there is an end of all morality as founded in the will of the Deity, and the obligation of every duty may at one time or other be discharged."* These observations apply to those foolish maxims of honour which relate to duelling. These maxims can never justify the individual in disregarding the obligations of morality. He who acts upon them acts wickedly; unless indeed he be so little informed of the requisitions of morality that he does not upon this subject

*Mor. and Pol. Phil. b. 3, c. 9.

PT. 2, CH. 4.]

CHARACTER OF THE LAW OF HONOUR.

89

perceive the distinction between right and wrong. The man of honour therefore should pay a gambling debt, but he should not send a challenge, or accept it. The one is permitted by the moral law, the other is forbidden.

Whatever advantages may result from the law of honour, it is, as a system, both contemptible and bad. Even its advantages are of an ambiguous kind; for although it may prompt to rectitude of conduct, that conduct is not founded upon rectitude of principle. The motive is not so good as the act. And as to many of its particular rules, both positive and negative, they are the proper subject of reprobation and abhorrence. We ought to reprobate and abhor a system which enjoins the ferocious practice of challenges and duels, and which allows many of the most flagitious and degrading vices that infest the world.

The practical effects of the law of honour are probably greater and worse than we are accustomed to suppose. Men learn, by the power of association, to imagine that that is lawful which their maxims of conduct do not condemn. A set of rules which inculcates some actions that are right, and permits others that are wrong, practically operates as a sanction to the wrong. The code which attaches disgrace to falsehood, but none to drunkenness or adultery, operates as a sanction to drunkenness and adultery. Does not experience verify these conclusions of reason? Is it not true that men and women of honour indulge, with the less hesitation, in some vices, in consequence of the tacit permission of the law of honour? What then is to be done but to reprobate the system as a whole? In this reprobation the man of sense may unite with the man of virtue; for assuredly the system is contemptible in the view of intellect, as well as hateful in the view of purity.

END OF THE FIRST ESSAY.

ESSAY II.

PRIVATE RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS.

THE division which has commonly been made of the private obligations of man, into those which respect himself, his neighbour, and his Creator, does not appear to be attended with any considerable advantages. These several obligations are indeed so involved the one with the other, that there are few personal duties which are not also in some degree relative, and there are no duties, either relative or personal, which may not be regarded as duties to God. The suicide's or the drunkard's vice injures his family or his friends: for every offence against morality is an injury to ourselves, and a violation of the duties which we owe to Him whose law is the foundation of morality. Neglecting, therefore, these minuter distinctions, we observe those only which separate the private from the political obligations of mankind.

CHAPTER I.

RELIGIOUS OBLIGATIONS.

Or the two classes of Religious Obligations, that which respects the exercise of piety towards God, and that which respects visible testimonials of our reverence and devotion, the business of a work like this is principally with the latter. Yet at the risk of being charged with deviating from this proper business, I would adventure a few paragraphs respecting devotion of mind.

That the worship of our Father who is in heaven consists, not in assembling with others at an appointed place and hour, not in joining in the rituals of a Christian church, or in performing ceremonies, or in participating of sacraments,† all men will agree; because all men know that these things may be done while the mind is wholly intent upon other affairs, and even without any belief in the existence of God. "Two attendances upon public worship is a form complied with by thousands, who never kept a Sabbath in their lives." Devotion, it is evident, is an operation of the mind; the sincere aspiration of a dependent and grateful

[We would amend the phraseology here, by inserting the qualifying term "merely" ;— "Not merely in assembling," "not merely in joining," &c.-B.]

+ It is to be regretted that this word, of which the origin is so exceptionable, should be used to designate what are regarded as solemn acts of religion.

Cowper's Letters.