If Virtue lead to Happiness, as we have said it must (304), the Want of the Common 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 Errour, on a like footing with the man who knows these Principles, and conforms to them in his actions. If such Ignorance and Errour be not faults, they must at least be considered as great moral misfortunes. Such Ignorance and Errour belong to a Conscience dark and erroneous; and a dark and erroneous Conscience is a great 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 Errours which we do not hold to be innocent or excusable. We think they might have been avoided, and ought to have been avoided. man's Reason, and the Instruction which each man receives, in the general course of Society, might, we hold, have taught him better 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

Each

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 Errour, in the form of the Want of the Common Moral Principles of Man, are blameable.

A man

447. Hence, as a general distinction, Moralists pronounce Errours of Fact, when not accompanied with negligence, to be exculpations of the actions which they occasion; but Errours 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. 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 well 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, assumes only a knowledge of that Rational Law which is the basis of Actual Laws, and of its special consequences in our own country. Such assumptions are requisite for the administration of Laws. If a man might plead ignorance of the Law, in excuse of a crime, it would

be impossible to convict criminals; for men would remain wilfully ignorant of the Law, in order to avail themselves of this excuse; and even if they were not ignorant, it would be difficult, or impossible, to prove their knowledge. Hence, it is everywhere presumed that the citizen is acquainted with the Law of the State; and in like manner, it is presumed, by the Moralist, that man, as a moral being, is acquainted with the Laws to which his Moral Nature directs him: and if he transgresses these Laws, or pleads ignorance, as his excuse, the excuse is generally not to be accepted.

448. But though the Moralist pronounces Ignorance and Errour, when they appear as the Want of common Principles, to be blameable; and rejects such a Want, when offered as an exculpation of immoral actions, because it implies a neglect or perversion of Reason; it is still proper for him to recollect, that it is by no means easy to avoid all imperfection and confusion in the use of the Reason. It is our Duty to act and think rationally, as it is our privilege to be rational; but it is by no means easy to think in a manner perfectly rational. The original Endowments, internal Habits, and external Circumstances of men, make Ignorance and Errour, even with regard to the Common Moral Principles of men, very difficult to avoid. Few persons are able to see, all that the light of Reason is capable of showing. Men may miss their way at many a point, in the path to and from the Fundamental Principles of Morality. We have been led to such Fuudamental Principles (Express Principles (see 268)) by the examination of several abstract and general Conceptions. And we deduce from these Fundamental Principles, special Duties, also by means of abstract and general Conceptions. But in forming these abstract and general Conceptions, which are thus the objects of our thoughts, and the guides of our reasonings, we may perform these intellectual processes very

If

imperfectly; and in attempting them, we may fall into confusion, ambiguity, inconsistency; and thus into Errour. Abstraction and Generalization are intellectual processes which are very inexactly and obscurely performed by most persons: and in the confusion and obscurity of the general and abstract Conceptions thus formed, there is a source of a great deal of irrationality and incoherence, which thus infuses itself into the Moral Principles held by men; even when they have not been negligent, nor intentionally perverse, in their moral reasonings. Thus, if a person maintain theft to be no crime, his Errour may arise from a very confused apprehension of that abstract conception, the Right of Property; or from a very imperfect notion of that balanced jural Condition of Society, in which Rights are necessary. a person deny the necessity of Property, perhaps his Errour arises from some confused notion of equality, applied to the quantities of men's possessions, instead of the Rights of the possessors. If a man assert that buying and selling men is not immoral, his Errour may arise from a very defective conception of Humanity, the brotherhood of man to man; as we shall afterwards endeavour to show. In these and the like cases, it may be difficult for some men to avoid those imperfect and confused notions which thus lead to Errours, that are, in themselves, contrary to Reason. 449. And this imperfection and confusion of moral notions is, in some measure, augmented and extended by the use of Moral Terms, as it prevails among men. For while many men's notions are thus defective and obscure, and on that account, as well as on others, different, under the same name; men reason as if the same Term always meant the same Conception, and thus fall into Errour. Abstract and general Terms are not only marks of our Conceptions, and thus, helps to the memory in reasoning; they are also our instruments of Reasoning. Without the names of Con

ceptions, we cannot reason at all; and hence, if the names are applied in a confused and variable manner, we are led to false and inconsistent Principles. Principles are established and assented to, in one sense of their Terms; and then, they are applied and urged upon our assent, in another sense. And this cause may make a man inconsistent, even with himself; for we often remember and refer to Principles expressed in words, when we do not clearly retain in our minds the meaning of the Terms which they involve. This confused use of Terms, by ourselves and those around us, leads to many Moral Errours. We live in an atmosphere of Language, by which we see Moral Truths obscured and distorted. But still we must recollect, that without the use of Language, we should not be able to see Moral Truths at all; as without an atmosphere we should have no daylight.

450. Language is not only thus a source of moral obscurity and inconsistency difficult to be avoided; but also, a source of Prejudices; for it subjects our minds to the influences of those with whom we share the habitual use of language; our families, our educators, our class, our nation. These Influences are Causes of Errour difficult to avoid.

451. It will be well to recollect this, in order that we may abstain from applying to men, on account of the Express Principles which they assert, and which are contrary to true Moral Principles, that condemnation, which properly belongs to immoral Operative Principles. If, indeed, men carry out immoral Principles into immoral actions, we cannot be mistaken in condemning them. In that case,

there must be something worthy of condemnation. But if, while they assert Principles which, in their expression, are immoral, the acts which they bring forth, as examples of their Principles, are kind, just, true, pure and orderly; we