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his brother's conscience. Veracity, therefore, not mere accuracy; to convey truth, not merely to say it, is the point of duty in dispute and the only difficulty in the mind of an honest man arises from the doubt, whether more than veracity, that is, the truth and nothing but the truth-is not demanded of him by the law of conscience; whether it does not exact simplicity; that is, the truth only, and the whole truth. If we can solve this difficulty, if we can determine the conditions under which the law of universal reason commands the communication of the truth independently of consequences, we shall then be enabled to judge whether there is any such probability of evil consequences from such communication, as can justify the assertion of its occasional criminality, as can perplex us in the conception, or disturb us in the performance, of our duty.

The conscience, or effective reason, commands the design of conveying an adequate notion of the thing spoken of, when this is practicable: but at all events a right notion, or none at all. A schoolmaster is under the necessity of teaching a certain rule in simple arithmetic empirically,-(do so and so, and the sum will always prove true);—the necessary truth of the rule-that is, that the rule having been adhered to, the sum must always prove true-requiring a knowledge of the higher mathematics for its demonstration. He, however, conveys a right notion, though he cannot convey the adequate one.

51

ESSAY VI.

Πολυμαθίη κάρτα μὲν ὠφελέει, κάρτα δὲ βλάπτει τὸν ἔχοντα. Ωφελέει μὲν τὸν δεξιὸν ἄνδρα, βλάπτει δὲ τὸν ῥηϊδίως φωνεῦντα πᾶν ἔπος καὶ ἐν παντὶ δήμῳ. Χρὴ δὲ καιροῦ μέτρα εἰδέναι· σοφίης γὰρ οὗτος ὅρος. Εἰ δὲ οἱ ἔξω καιροῦ ῥῆσιν μουσικὴν πεπνυμένως ἀείσουσιν, οὐ παρα δέχονται ἐν ἀργίῃ γνώμην, αἰτίην δ' ἔχουσι μωρίας.

ANAXARCHUS, apud Stobæum, Serm. xxxiv.*

General knowledge and ready talent may be of very great benefit, but they may likewise be of very great disservice, to the possessor. They are highly advantageous to the man of sound judgment, and dexterous in applying them; but they injure your fluent holder-forth on all subjects in all companies. It is necessary to know the measures of the time and occasion for this is the very boundary of wisdom(that by which it is defined, and distinguished from mere ability). But he, who without regard to the unfitness of the time and the audience will soar in the high region of his fancies with his garland and singing robes about him, will not acquire the credit of seriousness amidst frivolity, but will be condemned for his silliness, as the greatest idler of the company because the most unseasonable.

THE moral law, it has been shewn, permits an inadequate communication of unsophisticated truth, on the condition that it alone is practicable, and

*Edit. Gaisford.-Ed.

binds us to silence when neither an adequate, nor even a right, exposition of the truth is in our power. We must first inquire then,-what is necessary to constitute, and what may allowably accompany, a right though inadequate notion,-and, secondly, what are the circumstances, from which we may deduce the impracticability of conveying even a right notion; the presence or absence of which circumstances it therefore becomes our duty to ascertain. In answer to the first question, the conscience demands: 1. That it should be the wish and design of the mind to convey the truth only; that if in addition to the negative loss implied in its inadequateness, the notion communicated should lead to any positive error, the cause should lie in the fault or defect of the recipient, not of the communicator, whose paramount duty, whose inalienable right, it is to preserve his own integrity,* the integral cha

* The best and most forcible sense of a word is often that, which is contained in its etymology. The author of the poems, the Synagogue, frequently affixed to Herbert's Temple, gives the original purport of the word 'integrity,' in the following lines of the fourth stanza of the eighth poem ;*

Next to sincerity, remember still,

Thou must resolve upon integrity.

God will have all thou hast, thy mind, thy will,
Thy thoughts, thy words, thy works.-

And again, after some verses on constancy and humility, the poem concludes with

*Church-Porch.-Ed.

Self-respect; the

racter of his own moral being. reverence which he owes to the presence of humanity in the person of his neighbour; the reverential upholding of the faith of man in man; gratitude for the particular act of confidence; and religious awe for the divine purposes in the gift of language; are duties too sacred and important to be sacrificed to the guesses of an individual, concerning the advantages to be gained by the breach of them. 2. It is further required, that the supposed error shall not be such as will pervert or materially vitiate the imperfect truth, in communicating which we had unwillingly, though not perhaps unwittingly, occasioned it. A barbarian so instructed in the power and intelligence of the infinite Being as to be left wholly ignorant of his moral attributes, would have acquired none but erroneous notions even of the former. At the very best, he would gain only a theory to satisfy his curiosity with; but more probably, would deduce the belief of a Moloch or a Baal. For the idea of

He that desires to see

The face of God, in his religion must
Sincere, entire, constant, and humble be.

Having mentioned the name of Herbert, that model of a man, a gentleman, and a clergyman, let me add, that the quaintness of some of his thoughts, not of his diction, than which nothing can be more pure, manly, and unaffected, has blinded modern readers to the great general merit of his poems, which are for the most part exquisite in their kind.

an irresistible, invisible, Being naturally produces terror in the mind of uninstructed and unprotected man, and with terror there will be associated whatever has been accustomed to excite it, anger, vengeance, &c.; as is proved by the mythology of all barbarous nations. This must be the case with all organized truths; the component parts derive their significance from the idea of the whole. Bolingbroke removed love, justice, and choice, from power and intelligence, and yet pretended to have left unimpaired the conviction of a Deity. He might as consistently have paralyzed the optic nerve, and then excused himself by affirming, that he had, however, not touched the eye.

The third condition of a right though inadequate notion is, that the error occasioned be greatly outweighed by the importance of the truth communicated. The rustic would have little reason to thank the philosopher, who should give him true conceptions of the folly of believing in ghosts, omens, dreams, &c. at the price of abandoning his faith in divine providence, and in the continued existence of his fellow-creatures after their death. The teeth of the old serpent planted by the Cadmuses of French literature, under Lewis XV., produced a plenteous crop of philosophers and truthtrumpeters of this kind, in the reign of his successor. They taught many truths, historical, political, physiological, and ecclesiastical, and diffused their notions so widely, that the very ladies

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