The above are given as Specimens only of Cases of Conscience respecting Truth; not as a complete Collection, or even as including all the more prominent classes of Cases. But the remarks made upon the above cases may serve to show the manner in which we are led, by the doctrines of Morality, to treat them; and the like Rules may be applied to other Cases. CHAPTER XVI. OF CASES OF NECESSITY. 407. THE discussion of Cases of Conscience, which we were pursuing in the last Chapter, led us, in several instances, to Cases of Necessity; and these, we stated that we must reserve for a separate consideration. Cases of Conscience are those in which conflicting Duties and conflicting Rules are weighed deliberately, the time and circumstances allowing of this. Cases of Necessity are those in which a man is impelled to violate Common Duties and Common Rules by the pressure of extreme danger or fear; as when a man kills another in defense of himself or his family; or when he steals, or tells a lie, to save his life. 408. We shall first consider the Cases in which a man thus violates Common Rules under the pressure of danger to himself. The Law shows us that men judge such danger, when extreme, to justify the transgression of Common Rules. Thus, in the Laws of most countries, the Command, Thou shalt not kill, is suspended when I am attacked by a burglar or a robber; and the Command, Thou shalt not steal, is suspended when I am perishing with hunger. And the common moral judgment of mankind looks with indulgence upon the transgressions of ordinary Rules in such extraor dinary circumstances. The Moralist must, in like manner, allow, that there are Cases of Necessity, in which the Common Rules of Duty may be transgressed. But these Cases of Necessity must be treated with great caution. 409. In the first place, the Necessity, which is the condition of these Cases, must be very rigorously understood. It must be some such extreme peril and terrour of immediate death, or of some dreadful immediate evil, little short of death, as produces a pressure on the mind far beyond the usual course of human motives and passions. It is not every extraordinary emergency, when fear and other passions are excited somewhat beyond their usual bounds, that justifies acts which would otherwise be crimes. It is not a moderate danger, that justifies acts of violence and falsehood. The Law teaches us this, when it does not permit us to kill the diurnal housebreaker, or the flying robber; and when it requires, in order that a Contract, made under fear, shall be annulled, that the fear shall have been such as not a timid merely, but a firm man, might feel. To allow any looseness of signification in this condition of Cases of Necessity, would destroy all Morality. If not only the fear of death, but the fear of any great evil, would justify falsehood, there would be an end of the Duty of Truth. For any evil would appear great, when it was impending over us; and the Duty, being confined in its influence to cases in which there were no fears of inconvenience to overcome, would have no office left. And the same might be said of the other Duties. If it be said that fear excuses the violation of Moral Rules, because it carries us out of ourselves; we reply, that so far as fear carries us out of ourselves, it makes us cease to be moral agents; and that if we allow any ordinary fears to do this, we abandon our moral character. To be thus carried out of ourselves, by fear and other passions such as commonly occur, is to be immoral and wicked. The precise office of Morality is, to condemn those who yield to such a necessity as this. We cannot make transgression blameless, merely by calling the Case a Case of Necessity. 410. In excuse of transgression of Moral Rules under Constraint, it has been said, that when man's Liberty ceases, his moral agency ceases. But to make this maxim in every degree true, the notion of a Cessation of man's liberty must be very rigorously understood. In truth, man's Liberty, as a moral agent, never ceases, till he is moved as a piece of mere brute matter. Nothing but the man's own volition can move his muscles. No force, which other men can exert, can compel him, by physical means, to utter a word, or sign his name. It is not merely being put in close prison, and scantily fed, that can deprive man of the liberty which moral agency supposes. His liberty is not a liberty that can act only when all external obstacles and influences are removed; for in fact, that can never be. Moral Liberty shows itself, not in acting without external influences, but in acting in spite of external influences. To resist fear and danger, and still to do what we will to do, is the manifestation of our liberty. If we plead the limitation of our liberty as a reason why we are not bound by Moral Rules, we cast off such Rules altogether; for our liberty is always limited. It is not therefore by being deprived of Liberty merely, that we are placed in a Case of Necessity. Even when we are in prison, or otherwise under a constraint, we are bound by the ordinary Rules of Morality. 411. We have said, that the fear of immediate death constitutes a Case of Necessity. The fear of immediate death constitutes one of the most distinct and plain of such cases. The reason of fixing upon such a case, is that such a fear, in most persons, produces a paroxysm and agony of terrour and trouble which subvert the usual balance of the mind, and the usual course of thought and action. What is done under such circumstances, may be considered as an exception to the common condition of the man's being. It has not the same bearing upon the man's moral culture as acts done in a more tranquil and deliberate manner. In cases where the condition is so extreme, we may allow a deviation from Moral Rules, without infringing their general authority. In addition to this reason for taking the fear of immediate death as a prominent example of a Case of Necessity, this condition makes the danger more inevitable. It may be supposed, in general, that if the threatened death be not immediate, other means of averting that result may be found by the person threatened, besides the violations of Moral Rules, which are the alternative. If, however, a death not immediate can be presented to the mind as an inevitable menace, it may perhaps constitute a Case of Necessity, on the grounds above stated. 412. But though the fear of immediate, or of certain, death, as the alternative, must be allowed to constitute a Case of Necessity, so far as such Cases are to be recognized; we are not therefore to conclude that such fear liberates us from all Duties, or justifies all Acts. We do not say, generally, that a man may, without blame, tell a Lie, or violate other Duties, in order to save his life. If we were to decide thus, what would become of our moral approval of Martyrs, who incur death by their open assertion of the truth? and of our admiration of virtuous men in other cases, who perform acts of Duty, knowing that they lead to their death? Even in Cases of Necessity, the violation of Rule may not be without blame; but the blame may be mitigated, in consideration of the Necessity: or, reference being had to the circumstances of the case and of the person, the act may be even excusable and allowable. 413. We shall not attempt to define or enumerate Cases of Necessity. A consideration of the peculiar character The of such cases will shew that the Moralist ought not to undertake such definition and enumeration. In the Act which is excused as a Case of Necessity, there must be a struggle and compunction in the mind of the agent respecting the Duty violated; although the extreme urgency of the motives which act in the opposite direction, may prevail. For we are supposing the agent to be a virtuous man; and are considering what such a one may do, in a Case of Necessity. And we cannot suppose that such a man can violate the broadest Rules of Morality, without pain and trouble of mind. If we suppose a good man to be led, under the terrour of immediate death, not otherwise to be avoided, to tell a lie, or to stab the keeper of his prison; or a woman to give up her person to the lust of a man, we cannot suppose this to take place without great anguish and strong abhorrence of the acts thus committed. intense vehemence with which man clings to life may overmaster this abhorrence; and even the best estimate which the person, at the moment, can form of the course of Duty, may direct such acts. But a person would not be virtuous who could commit them without repugnance, or look upon them with complacency. Any acquiescence in the acts, except as great though inevitable evils; any indifference with regard to the violation of the usual Rules of Morality; is at once immoral. When the act is over, there has been a dire and mortal struggle between Moral Rules and Selfpreservation; and if we rejoice that we are preserved, we must still regret that, even for a moment, the general Rules of Duty were compelled to give way. We cannot look upon lying, or homicide, or being an instrument of lust, with approbation; even if, under the circumstances, we think that the acts have been, in this case, excusable. In such Cases of Necessity, we may excuse the act, but we cannot admire it. On the contrary, in such cases, our admiration |