original instinct, and is not ascertained by any argument or reflection. But who is there that ever heard of such an instinct," &c.

I doubt not but Mr. Hume has heard of a principle called conscience, which nature has implanted in the human breast. Whether he will call it a simple original instinct, I know not, as he gives that name to all our appetites, and to all our passions. From this prineiple, I think, we derive the sentiment of justice.

As the eye not only gives us the conception of colours, but makes us perceive one body to have one colour, and another body another; and as our reason not only gives us the conception of true and false, but makes us perceive one proposition to be true, and another to be false; so our conscience, or moral faculty, not only gives us the conception of honest and dishonest, but makes us perceive one kind of conduct to be honest, another to be dishonest. By this faculty we perceive a merit in honest conduct, and a demerit in dishonest, without regard to public utility.

That these sentiments are not the effect of education or of acquired habits, we have the same reason to conclude, as that our perception of what is true and what false, is not the effect of education or of acquired habits. There have been men who professed to believe, that there is no ground to assent to any one proposition rather than its contrary; but I never yet heard of a man who bad the effrontery to profess himself to be under no obligation of honor or honesty, of truth or justice, in his dealings with men.

Nor does this faculty of conscience require innate ideas of property, and of the various ways of acquiring and transferring it, or innate ideas of kings and senators, of pretors, and chancellors, and juries. any more than the faculty of seeing requires innate ideas of colours, or than the faculty of reasoning requires innate ideas of cones, cylinders, and spheres.

CHAP. VI.

OF THE NATURE AND OBLIGATION OF A CONTRACT.

THE obligation of contracts and promises is a matter so sacred, and of such consequence to human society, that speculations which have a tendency to weaken that obligation, and to perplex men's notions on a subject so plain and so important, ought to meet with the disapprobation of all honest men.

Some such speculations, I think, we have in the third volume of Mr. Hume's Treatise of Human Nature, and in his Enquiry into the Principles of Morals; and my design in this chapter is, to offer some observations on the nature of a contract or promise, and on two passages of that author on this subject.

I am far from saying or thinking, that Mr. Hume meant to weaken men's obligations to honesty and fair dealing, or that he had not a sense of these obligations himself. It is not the man I impeach, but his writings. Let us think of the first as charitably as we can, while we freely examine the import and tendency of the last.

Although the nature of a contract and of a promise is perfectly understood by all men of common understanding; yet, by attention to the operations of mind signified by these words, we shall be better enabled to judge of the metaphysical subtilties which have been raised about them. A promise and a contract differ so little in what concerns the present disquisition, that the same reasoning, as Mr. Hume justly observes, extends to both. In a promise, one party only comes under the obligation, the other acquires a right to the prestation promised. But we give the name of a contract to a transaction in which each party comes under

an obligation to the other, and each reciprocally ac quires a right to what is promised by the other.

The Latin word pactum seems to extend to both; and the definition given of it in the Civil Law, and borrowed from Ulpian, is, Duorum pluriumce in idem placitum consensus. Titius, a modern Civilian, has endeavoured to make this definition more complete, by adding the words, Obligationis licitè constituendæ vel tollendæ causa datus. With this addition, the definition is, that a contract is the consent of two or more persons in the same thing. given with the intention of constituting or dissolving lawfully some obligation.

This definition is perhaps as good as any other that can be given; yet, I believe, every man will acknowledge, that it gives him no clearer or more distinct notion of a contract than he had before. If it is considered as a strictly logical definition, I believe some objections might be made to it; but I forbear to mention them, because I believe that similar objections might be made to any definition of a contract that can be given.

Nor can it be inferred from this, that the notion of a contract is not perfectly clear in every man come to ⚫ years of understanding. For this is common to many operations of the mind, that although we understand them perfectly, and are in no danger of confounding them with any thing else; yet we cannot define them according to the rules of logic, by a genus and a specifie difference. And when we attempt it, we rather darken than give light to them.

Is there any thing more distinctly understood by all men, than what it is to see, to hear, to remember, to judge? Yet it is the most difficult thing in the world to define these operations according to the rules of logical definition. But it is not more difficult than it is useless.

Sometimes philosophers attempt to define them; but if we examine their definitions, we shall find, that they amount to no more than giving one synonymous word for another, and commonly a worse for a better. So when we define a contract, by calling it a consent, a convention, an agreement, what is this but giving a synonymous word for it, and a word that is neither more expressive nor better understood?

One boy has a top, another a scourge; says the first to the other, if you will lend me your scourge as long as I can keep up my top with it, you shall next have the top as long as you can keep it up. Agreed, says the other. This is a contract perfectly understood by both parties, though they never heard of the definition given by Ulpian or by Titius. And each of them knows, that he is injured if the other breaks the bargain, and that he does wrong if he breaks it himself.

The operations of the human mind may be divided into two classes, the solitary and the social. As promises and contracts belong to the last class, it may be proper to explain this division.

I call those operations solitary, which may be performed by a man in solitude, without intercourse with any other intelligent being.

I call those operations social, which necessarily imply social intercourse with some other intelligent being who bears a part in them.

A man may see, and hear, and remember, and judge, and reason; he may deliberate and form purposes, and execute them, without the intervention of any other intelligent being. They are solitary acts. But when he asks a question for information, when he testifies a fact, when he gives a command to his servant, when he makes a promise, or enters into a contract, these are social acts of mind, and can have no existence without the intervention of some other intelligent being, who

acts a part in them. Between the operations of the mind, which, for want of a more proper name, I have called solitary, and those I have called social, there is this very remarkable distinction, that, in the solitary, the expression of them by words, or any other sensible sign, is accidental. They may exist, and be complete, without being expressed, without being known to any other person. But, in the social operations, the expression is essential. They cannot exist without being expressed by words or signs, and known to the other party.

If nature had not made man capable of such social operations of mind, and furnished him with a language to express them, he might think, and reason, and deliberate, and will; he might have desires and aversions, joy and sorrow; in a word, he might exert all those operations of mind, which the writers in logic and pneumatology have so copiously described; but, at the same time, he would still be a solitary being, even when in a crowd; it would be impossible for him to put a question, or give a command, to ask a favour, or testify a fact, to make a promise or a bargain.

I take it to be the common opinion of philosophers, that the social operations of the human mind are not specifically different from the solitary, and that they are only various modifications or compositions, of our solitary operations, and may be resolved into them.

It is, for this reason, probably, that, in enumerating the operations of the mind, the solitary only are mentioned, and no notice at all taken of the social, though they are familiar to every man, and have names in all languages.

I apprehend, however, it will be found extremely difficult, if not impossible, to resolve our social operations into any modification or composition of the solitary: and that an attempt to do this, would prove as