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Untitled Article
haps , fortunate for him that he U not exposed to the temptation . He has in public broken down the barrier of honesty , the defences are overthrown , and the strength of virtue being gone , \ i is open to all attacks . Truth > ana honesty are no longer principles with him , but mere conventionalities ;* and if by any chance he should lose his large property and be reduced to distress * his conventionality might enlarge'its bounds , and he might find it as
convenient a thing to swindle a tradesman out of his money , as he now does td swindle the public out of their rights . He might * then consider it as fitting a thing to level his pistol at a traveller on the highway for the purpose of possessing himself of his purse , as he now does to level his pistol at Joseph Hume to stop him from asserting the rights of the public , which are obstacle ^ to Tory dominion , or as he does to set soldiers to shoot Irishmen because they refuse to pay tithes .
But if rules or principles of morality exist independent of conventionality then these rules must be independent of time , place , or individual . They must be the unalterable principles which determine the well-being of man , and on which all sound laws must be based . Tried by these principles , that which is morally wrong in private life , must be equally wrong in public life 5 and , vice versa , that which is good in public life , must be equally good in
private life . Thus the habit of lying , or violating truth , is not a vice by any conventional rule laid down by lawgivers or society at large , but because the habitual violation of truth , if universally practised , would utterly destroy social habits , and subject all human beings to individual isolation . The intercourse of families would be broken up ; all the sweet ties of confidence which render life desirable would cease to exist . Commerce , business , science , art , all would come to an end ; and the world , for want ojf the united
exertions of man , would be again reduced to a ' howling wilderness . * Truth may be called the universal bond between mind and mind , for even those who choose to form societies apart , to profit by the damage of the rest of their species , are yet obliged to be true to one another , Lying is an universal vice , more mischievous in its consequences than even great crimes , for it overspreads society to an enormous extent , from the fluttering capital to the groaning base . The King ' s Speech is a lie ; the speeches of his Ministers are lies ; the speeches of their opponents are but rarely truths , they contain
for the most part a gram of truth set round with conventional trimming The Bishops lie , both as churchmen and legislators . The merchant lies m his counting-house , and the small tradesman and dealer lies in his shop . But these people , from the highest to the lowest , use lying principally as a tool of business , and they all profess to hate lies in the abstract . But their principle of virtue has vanished ; and so that the temptation be but large enough , or the necessity urgent enough , the lying no-principle will by them be carried through every variety of private life .
We have yet one consolation ; a large portion of the community , the producers , have , by the nature of their occupations , been kept from the necessity of considering lying a part of the business of life . They can well appreciate truth , and from their ranks will the apostles of freedom and virtue come forth to wield that power which is at present turned to evil purposes . The apostles of Christ were men of occupation , and many other great and good men have also been so . Philosophy is not in all cases the result of leisure or gentle training .
There are amongst our mechanics men of high powers and noble pur * poses ; men amongst whom are found profound judgment and deep , feeling united with a power and flow of language , constituting oratory in its best sense . Oh ! for the time which shall witness the progress of sound sense amongst electors , prompting them to choose as their legislators , men of the highest minds , without regard to adventitious circumstances , which shall prompt them to choose a Samuel Downing , though hi ^ hands , be ha ^ dt and turn away in scorn from the silken slaves of luxury , and the dull-witted
Untitled Article
, Notes on the Newspapers . 883
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1835, page 223, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2643/page/79/
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