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    still so ignorant of their own interests ; , tfcat they will readily forgive ^ the theolog ians this wrong , and could almost forgive them every other wrong for the sake of this one , were it proved against them . If the maxim , however , was first " a religious maxim , " it

    was so not as " a part of the optimism in which it was combined , " but as a deduction from that revelation which taught our " first teachers of morals , " as they supposed , that truth is an attribute of the Divinity . Of the theological argument , however , restingon revelation , the writer has s 5 id

    nothing , though speaking of Christian theologians ; but "by a dexterous manoeuvre of controversy has considered tliem in the more convenient character of optirnists , who maintained that whatever is must be beneficial ,

    because it exists under the government of a Being who wills happiness , and happiness only ; The reason of this view of the theological moralist is manifest : if truth must be beneficial on the principles of optimism , so must

    error also , because error has been , and still is , and therefore makes a part of that scheme of things which tends to the production of good . Hence it is concluded that there is nothing "in the abstract consideration of truth

    and Deity , which justifies the admission of the maxim in debate . If the maxim was to be tried at all as a theological one , it ought to have been met fairly on the grounds of natural

    and revealed religion , and shewn to have no foundation in either , instead of being thus dexterously evaded by a diversion into the system of optimism . The question as a theological question would then stand thus :

    ™ ay it be inferred from any thing we how of the divine Being , that truth * iU 8 t be favourable to virtue } It is jwt a sufficient answer to this question to say , « that the employment of wwhood for the production of good , ^ nnot be more unworthy of the Di-^ ne Being , than the acknowledged employment of rapine and murder for ™ e same purpose . " If the crimes of

    ** fc are made subservient to the ends j * the divine government , they are JW the less crimes on that account ; * N | if falsehood , or the wilful propae « tom of error , be made subservient ? w * « ame ends , it is not , therefore , ^ j aeratea of the dbarge of immo-****• life nt > tin 1 fth ya yttmt any

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    question respecting human conduct can be tried at the bar of the human understanding . If such reasoning were allowed to be applied to such questions , the distinction of vice and

    virtue must quickly disappear , and every action will be proved to be morally right , because it makes a part of the universal plan . Every practical maxim must be tried either by an appeal to the authority of revelation , or to experience . As the former has not

    been made in the present instance , the latter only demands our attention . Is the principle , " that truth , or the diffusion of trqth ( for it is a qtiestiori of practice ) , must be favourable to morality , justified by actual experience ? " A question of so wide a range is not solved by saying , that

    the courtesies of lite , forming " the chief Happiness of civilized manners , proceed either from actual falsehc od or from the suppression of truth j" and therefore that happiness , fur from being promoted by the indiscriminate diffusion of truth " is increased by the general adoption of a system of concerted and limited deceit / 1 To

    this reasoning it might be replied that deceit which is concerted and limited by a whole community , loses its nature . It may be an abuse of terms , but in that community it is no longer deceit ; for what is concerted is understood . But even admitting that it retains all the natu re of deceit , before the solution c ?* n be considered

    as complete , the good arising from the system of falsehood must be weighed against the mischief that must result from the general admission of the practical principle , that the partial suppression of ascertained truth conduces to human happiness ,

    and is therefore a moral duty . It must also be compared with the gooji that must ensue from a system of universal sincerity . To say that such , a system is impracticable , does not prove that the practice would be productive of less happiness than the system of falsehood . Perfect virtue is

    unattainable * , but few moralists are inclined to dispute it $ connexion with the greatest possible happiness . Medicine is good , but health ie better ; and dissimulation may have its use , but it is not so useful as virtue , Wjhich could supersede it . The ai-gumeftt , th £ jj , of the advocate of fjflsehpod may he thus stated : —because , through a

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    ? Dr . Merell , on the Connexion between Truth and Morality . SS 9

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1815, page 339, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1761/page/11/