the detection of our error; as there is dishonesty in willingly abstaining from detecting our error.

442. When Ignorance and Error are of such a kind that they may be avoided by Inquiry and Consideration, the actions to which they give occasion are not freed from blame by the ignorance and the error. Yet Ignorance and Error, even when they are the consequence of a neglect of the Duties of Inquiry and Consideration, may exist for a time, without producing any external action which violates Moral Rules. So long as this is the case, the fault which we have committed is the general Neglect of that Intellectual Culture which is requisite to our moral progress. But when Ignorance and Error, thus produced, give rise to special violations of Moral Rules, such transgressions are not excusable on account of the Ignorance and Error. If a man remain, through Negligence, ignorant, or mistaken, as to the amount of his income, and in consequence, contract debts greater than he can pay, he is not blameless; though Ignorance and Error are the occasion of the wrong which he does to his creditors. He is culpable for not ascertaining what he could afford to spend, before he incurred his debts. If, with the same ignorance, he had not incurred such debts, he might still be blamed for Negligence in not ascertaining the conditions under which he had to act. But when his Negligence inflicts loss on other persons, it becomes a carelessness of Justice and Honesty embodied in act; and therefore a transgression of a graver kind.

443. Still, there is a difference between Carelessness of Justice and Honesty, and intentional Injustice and Dishonesty. Debts contracted through negligent ignorance of our income, are not so culpable as Debts contracted with fraudulent intentions. In one case, the Duty of Consideration is, for the time, omitted; but it may be resumed. In the other case, the Duty of Justice or of Honesty is intentionally vio

lated; and the Violation must be repented of. In one case, the moral progress is suspended; in the other, it is reversed. And thus, Ignorance and Error arising from negligence, though they cannot excuse, may pal. liate our transgressions, by excluding intentional wrong.

444. But besides Ignorance and Error with regard to the Facts on which the direction of our actions must depend; there may, also, be Ignorance and Error with regard to the Rules by which the moral character of actions is determined. And it may be made a Question, how far such Ignorance and Error render actions excusable, which are contrary to Moral Rules. If a man be ignorant that theft is a crime, is he guilty when he steals? If a man believe slavery to be consistent with morality, is he excusable in buying and selling men? If a man think that property is an immoral institution, is he justified in disregarding the Rights of Property in other men?

To such questions, we reply, in the first place, that a person labouring under Ignorance and Error, such as are here described;—ignorant that theft is a crime; that buying and selling men is immoral; that property is an institution necessary for moral action among men;-must be in a very imperfect state of moral culture. We have shown that, in virtue of man's moral nature, property is a necessary institution, and theft necessarily a crime; and we shall be able to show, in like manner, that buying and selling men is immoral.

These Moral Truths spring from the moral nature of man, and are unfolded in an explicit form, by our moral and intellectual culture. They are virtually included in the Express Principles of Humanity, Justice, Truth, Purity, Order, Earnestness, and Moral Purpose, which we formerly stated (269). Such general moral truths, thus derived from the Fundamental Principles of Morality, may themselves be termed Moral Principles. And as the denial of the Expres

Principles of Morality implies a defect in the Operative Principles, namely, Benevolence, Justice, Truth, Purity, and Wisdom; so a denial of the Derivative Principles, which result from the Fundamental Principles, also implies a defect in the same Operative Principles. A person who denies the necessity of Property, the criminality of theft, and the like, must either be a person in whom the power and habit of intellectual deduction are feeble and confused; or he must be a person who denies the express Fundamental Principles of Benevolence, Justice, Truth, Purity, and Order. Denying these express Principles, he cannot possess, except in a very imperfect and obscure form, the Operative Principles which form the Cardinal Virtues of men. Hence a person who is in Ignorance and Error on such points as have been mentioned, the necessity of Property, the criminality of Theft, and the like, may be said to be wanting in the Common Moral Principles of men.

445. Putting off for a moment the Question how far this condition-the Want of the Common Moral Principles-may be said to excuse or exculpate actions arising from such a condition; we cannot hesitate to say that such a condition implies a low stage of moral culture. The man who is in this condition, has made a very small advance in that Moral Progress, at which, as Moral Agents, we must constantly aim. When Ignorance and Error take the form of a Want of the Common Moral Principles, they may easily suspend or reverse the Moral Progress of the Man, as much as many kinds of Transgression would do. And hence, they must produce upon the Man's Moral Being, the effects which the Suspension and Inversion of the Moral Progress does produce.

We shall not now attempt to determine what is the result of a suspended and inverted Moral Culture, when not retrieved by any subsequent progress. Perhaps Morality alone cannot decide this question; per

haps she must refer us to Religion, in order that we may learn what consequences such a final suspension and inversion of moral progress produces, upon man's destination and condition. But we must necessarily conceive thus of the result: that the condition of the man whose moral progress is finally suspended and inverted is, in some way, opposite to that of the vir tuous man; and this, equally, whether the want of progress arise from transgression of moral principles or the want of them. If Virtue lead to Happiness. as we have said it must (304), the Want of the Com. mon Moral Principles must lead to an unhappy condition. The man who, wanting the Common Moral Principles, transgresses them, cannot be placed, by his Ignorance and Error, on a like footing with the man who knows these Principles, and conforms to them in his actions. If such Ignorance and Error be not faults, they must at least be considered as great moral misfortunes. Such Ignorance and Error belong to a conscience dark and erroneous; and a dark and erroneous Conscience is a gread moral calamity.

446. But the general judgment of mankind regards the Want of the Common Moral Principles, not only as a Misfortune and a Calamity, but as a Fault. The man who shows this Want of Moral Principles by the declarations which he makes, incurs the disapprobation and repugnance which we give to moral wrong. We abhor a man who asserts that no affection is due from a child to a parent. We do not hear with patience men asserting that they have a Right to buy and sell their brother men as if they were cattle. We condemn, as immoral, a man who refuses to acknowledge any Duty of Kindness, or Justice, or Truth, towards other men. These are Errors which we do not hold to be innocent or excusable. We think they might have been avoided, and ought to have been avoided. Each man's Reason, and the Instruc.

tion which each man receives, in the general cours of Society, might, we hold, have taught him bette than this. And this, our conviction, agrees with what we have said of Intellectual Duties. We require of men that they should be rational; we have seen (338) that there is a Duty of acting rationally. And as there is a Duty of acting rationally, there is a Duty of thinking rationally; for rational thinking is a condition of rational acting. And to deny, or to be ignorant of, the Common Moral Principles of Man, is to be, to a certain extent, irrational. It is to neglect or pervert the use of the human Reason, by which all men are capable of arriving at such Principles. And thus Ignorance or Error, in the form of the Want of the Common Moral Principles of Man, are blameable.

447. Hence, as a general distinction, Moralists pronounce Errors of Fact, when not accompanied with negligence, to be exculpations of the actions which they occasion; but Errors of Principle, not to be exculpations. And in this distinction, they agree with the Jurists who lay down these two cardinal maxims : Ignorantia facti excusat: Ignorantia juris non excusat. Ignorance of the Fact is an excuse; Ignorance of the Law is no excuse. A man is not criminal for not directing his actions by a Fact, which he did not know from observation or testimony; and which he could not know any other way. On the other hand, ignorance of the Law cannot be accepted by the Law as an excuse. The Law is requisite for the guidance of each citizen in his social transactions, and it is his business to make himself acquainted with it so far as it concerns him. The Law is Natural Justice, with such additional regulations, as are requisite to define its application; the Law, therefore, is requisite for each man's moral guidance. It is his duty, as wel! as his obligation, to guide himself by it, and, therefore, to make himself acquainted with it. And the Law, in assuming a knowledge of the actual Laws, assume