towards establishment, as in modern Spain and Italy, and in the Spanish and Portuguese conquests and colonies, it has proved the most fatal bar to all freedom, whether of thought or action; and has congealed society to a condition almost perfectly stationary.*

The struggle of Christian mysticism, and of the theocracies attempted to be founded upon it, first, with Paganism, the ancient philosophies, and the civil institutions of Rome; next with the superstitions of the North, and those moral and political customs and ideas which the destroyers of the Roman Empire brought with them from the woods of Germany and the plains of Sarmatia; thirdly, with numberless new systems of mysticism, which, under the name of heresies, have been constantly springing out of its own bosom; fourthly, with the simpler, more rational, and in some respects, more captivating doctrine preached by Mahomet; fifthly, with the kings, princes, nobles, and burghers of Europe; and sixthly, with the advancing knowledge and philosophy of modern times; these events form the most interesting and instructive leaf in the fragments which we possess, of the history of mankind.

4. The priesthood, alike during the infant weakness of theocracy, and when it begins to tremble under the decrepitude of age, have affected to content themselves with controlling the thoughts and private actions of mankind; and have courted the aid, or at least the countenance, of the civil magistrates, by ostentatiously yielding up to them all

*This subject will be fully considered in the Theory of Politics.

control of civil and political affairs. Hence the doctrine, that those who have power govern by divine ordination; and that passive obedience to the powers that be, is a duty to God. This, indeed, is an obvious and necessary deduction from that pure mysticism which ascribes all existences and events to immediate volitions of the Deity.

5. This doctrine is equally applicable to all forms of government. When it is kings who are in power, kings have a divine right to govern. Under aristocracies, this same divine right belongs to the aristocracy; and whenever democracy begins to rear its head, we presently begin to hear of the divine right of democracies. Indeed, it is an ancient mystical maxim, that the voice of the people is the voice of God; a maxim which came into vogue at a time when the priesthood were the people's spokesmen, and when they employed the name and the strength of the people for the accomplishment of their own private ends.*

The priesthood, in every age and country, readily become the advocates of those who rule de facto. Whoever gets the power, no matter how, the priests are ready to crown and consecrate. A Charlemagne, a Bonaparte, a William the Third, a George the First, a Louis-Philippe, have, in their eyes, a much

* As, for instance, during the civil wars of France, when the populace of Paris and the large towns was leagued with Philip the Second of Spain, the Pope, and the Guises, against Henry the Fourth, and the Protestants. The Jesuits held doctrines, at that time, as to the right of the people to depose kings, not at all short of those which, two centuries after, brought Louis the Sixteenth to the block.

in its character of truth, the circumstance of an oath can make no difference in the moral obligation of speaking the truth and fulfilling promises; and hence it has been concluded that to speak the truth at all times, is an absolute duty admitting of no exceptions; and that to deceive or even to conceal, for concealment is a sort of deception, can never be permissible.

8. Some forensic speculators upon morals, proceeding by a different route, have arrived at the same conclusions. The utility of truth, that is to say, the advantages which veracity and general fidelity to engagements confer upon society, are so immense that it has been thought impossible to go too far in inculcating this duty. The means has thus come to be looked upon as equivalent, or superior, to the end; and it has been zealously maintained that men are under a moral obligation to fulfil their promises, and to speak the truth, in all supposable cases, even in cases where nothing but evil seems likely to result from it.

9. It ought here to be observed, that what is called the love or admiration of the truth, and the eulogiums passed upon veracity, do not by any means originate entirely in the moral sentiment, whether from the perception of the general utility of truth to mankind at large, or of its utility in particular cases to particular individuals. Many sentiments purely selfish contribute to make truth so great a favorite. Knowledge is power. Every increase of our knowledge enlarges our power, and gatifies the desire of superiority. The perception that we have been deceived

or misled, is accompanied by a pain of inferiority. Men frequently insist upon the obligation of oaths and the duty of veracity, merely because they wish. to employ them as means of increasing their own power, and of binding and subjecting others to the fulfilment of their will; that is, as instruments of despotism. Thus the subscription to creeds as a condition of civil privileges and of the right to teach was first introduced by the Jesuits as a means of reëstablishing the Catholic faith. The Protestants soon followed the example; and both, of course, were very loud and very positive as to the binding obligation of such subscriptions.

10. When we detect a man in having told us what is not true, a painful feeling at the idea of having been deceived rises in our minds. To this is added another painful feeling, at perceiving that we can no longer rely upon that man's assertions, a pain of anticipation at the idea of the future deceits which he may put upon us. To these are added other painful feelings produced by the present pains to which this defect of veracity has exposed us, or by the idea of certain future pains, to which it is likely to expose us. All these pains thus inflicted upon us naturally excite a feeling of malevolence against the person who deceives; and, quite independently of any sentiment of moral disapprobation, serve to render a liar an odious character.

11. Mere falsehood, however, when unaccompanied with the intention to inflict some additional serious injury, of which the falsehood serves as an instrument, is a practice into which men so habitu

1

ally and universally fall, that, however severely it may be condemned by professed moralists, in all practical codes of morals, it is reckoned among the more trivial offences. In a very large proportion of cases in which men deceive, they have no fixed deliberate intention of doing so. With the vast majority of men the imagination is so much an overmatch for the memory, the judgment is so sluggish, or so much under the influence of emotions, that it is impossible for them to report correctly what they have seen, or what they have heard. Hence that universal tendency to misrepresent, which leads all those who rely upon tradition or hearsay into infinite errors, even in those numerous cases where there is no intention to deceive. The same may be said of simple breach of promise, as, for instance, the nonpayment of debts, which, unless the debts were contracted with a predetermination not to pay, seems, in these days, to be reckoned hardly any offence at all. Even when there is a design to deceive, simple falsehood when it inflicts no positive injury, as, for instance, putting off a dun by promises to pay him, or denying ourselves to persons whom we do not wish to see, is practically regarded as a trivial

matter.

12. The pain of inferiority at being detected in a falsehood, or a breach of contract, for the greater part of falsehoods proceed from fear, and the greater part of breaches of contract from inability, — has, in general, much more influence than the sentiment of benevolence in inducing men to tell the truth and to fulfil their engagements. There are many very