CHAP. IV. ed to produce a mechanical effect. When the effect is not produced, the tool must be unfit or wrong applied.

Upon the fuppofition of liberty, rewards and punishments will. have a proper effect upon the wife and the good; but not so upon the foolish and the vicious, when opposed by their animal paffions or bad habits; and this is juft what we fee to be the fact. Upon this fuppofition the tranfgreffion of the law implies no defect in the law, no fault in the lawgiver; the fault is folely in the tranfgreffor. And it is upon this fuppofition only, that there can be either reward or punishment, in the proper sense of the words, because it is only on this supposition, that there can be good or ill defert.

W

Liberty confiftent with Government.

HEN it is faid that liberty would make us abfolutely ungovernable by GoD or man; to understand the ftrength of this conclufion, it is neceffary to know diftinctly what is meant by government. There are two kinds of government, very different in their nature. The one we may, for diftinction's fake, call mechanical government, the other moral. The first is the government of beings which have no active power, but are merely paffive and acted upon; the second, of intelligent and active beings.

An instance of mechanical government may be that of a mafter or commander of a ship at fea. Suppofing her skilfully built, and furnished with every thing proper for the deftined voyage, to govern her properly for this purpose requires much art and attention: And, as every art has its rules, or laws, fo has this.

But

But by whom are thofe laws to be obeyed, or those rules ob- CHAP. V. ferved? not by the ship, surely, for fhe is an inactive being, but by the governor. A failor may say that she does not obey the rudder; and he has a diftinct meaning when he says so, and is perfectly understood. But he means not obedience in the proper, but in a metaphorical fense: For, in the proper sense, the ship can no more obey the rudder, than she can give a command. Every motion, both of the fhip and rudder, is exactly proportioned to the force impreffed, and in the direction of that force. The fhip never difobeys the laws of motion, even in the metaphorical sense; and they are the only laws fhe can be subject to.

The failor, perhaps, curfes her for not obeying the rudder ; but this is not the voice of reafon, but of paffion, like that of the lofing gamefter, when he curfes the dice. The fhip is as innocent as the dice.

Whatever may happen during the voyage, whatever may be its iffue, the fhip, in the eye of reason, is neither an object of approbation nor of blame; because she does not act, but is acted upon. If the material, in any part, be faulty; Who put it to that use? If the form; Who made it? If the rules of navigation were not observed; Who tranfgreffed them? If a ftorm occafioned any difafter, it was no more in the power of the ship than of the master.

Another inftance to illuftrate the nature of mechanical government may be, That of the man who makes and exhibits a puppetfhow. The puppets, in all their diverting gefticulations, do not move, but are moved by an impulfe fecretly conveyed, which they cannot refift. If they do not play their parts properly, the fault is only in the maker or manager of the machinery. Too much or too little force was applied, or it was wrong directed.

No

CHAP. V. No reasonable man imputes either praise or blame to the puppets, but folely to their maker or their governor.

If we fuppofe for a moment, the puppets to be endowed with understanding and will, but without any degree of active power, this will make no change in the nature of their government: For understanding and will, without fome degree of active power, can produce no effect. They might, upon this supposition, be called intelligent machines; but they would be machines ftill as much fubject to the laws of motion as inanimate matter, and therefore incapable of any other than mechanical government.

Let us next confider the nature of moral government. This is the government of persons who have reason and active power, and have laws prescribed to them for their conduct, by a legislator. Their obedience is obedience in the proper fense; it must therefore be their own act and deed, and confequently they must have power to obey or to difobey. To prefcribe laws to them which they have not power to obey, or to require a fervice beyond their power, would be tyranny and injuftice in the highest degree.

When the laws are equitable, and prescribed by just authority, they produce moral obligation in those that are subject to them, and difobedience is a crime deserving punishment. But if the obedience be impoffible; if the tranfgreffion be necessary; it is felf-evident, that there can be no moral obligation to what is impoffible, that there can be no crime in yielding to neceffity, and that there can be no juftice in punishing a person for what it was not in his power to avoid. There are first principles in morals, and, to every unprejudiced mind, as felf-evident as the axioms of mathematics. The whole fcience of morals muft

ftand or fall with them.

Having thus explained the nature both of mechanical and of

moral

moral government, the only kinds of government I am able to CHAP. V. conceive, it is eafy to fee how far liberty or neceffity agrees with either.

On the one hand, I acknowledge that neceffity agrees perfectly with mechanical government. This kind of government is most perfect when the governor is the fole agent ; every thing done is the doing of the governor only. The praife of every thing well done is his folely; and his is the blame if there be any thing ill done, because he is the fole agent.

It is true that, in common language, praise or dispraise is often metaphorically given to the work; but, in propriety, it belongs folely to the author. Every workman understands this perfectly, and takes to himself very juftly the praise or difpraise of his own work.

On the other hand, it is no lefs evident, that, on the fuppofition of neceffity in the governed, there can be no moral government. There can be neither wisdom nor equity in prefcribing laws that cannot be obeyed. There can be no moral obligation upon beings that have no active power. There can be no crime in not doing what it was impoffible to do; nor can there be justice in punishing such omission.

If we apply these theoretical principles to the kinds of government which do actually exift, whether human or divine, we fhall find that, among men, even mechanical government is imperfect.

Men do not make the matter they work upon. Its various kinds, and the qualities belonging to each kind, are the work of GOD. The laws of nature, to which it is fubject, are the work of God. The motions of the atmosphere and of the sea, the heat and cold of the air, the rain and wind, which are use

CHAP. V. ful instruments in moft human operations, are not in our power. So that, in all the mechanical productions of men, the work is more to be afcribed to God than to man.

Civil government among men is a fpecies of moral government, but imperfect, as its lawgivers and its judges are. Huinan laws may be unwife or unjuft; human judges may be partial or unskilful. But in all equitable civil governments, the maxims of moral government above mentioned, are acknowledged. as rules which ought never to be violated. Indeed the rules of justice are fo evident to all men, that the most tyrannical governments profefs to be guided by them, and endeavour to palliate what is contrary to them by the plea of neceffity.

That a man cannot be under an obligation to what is impoffible; that he cannot be criminal in yielding to neceffity, nor justly punished for what he could not avoid, are maxims admitted, in all criminal courts, as fundamental rules of justice.

In oppofition to this, it has been faid by fome of the most able defenders of neceffity, That human laws require no more to conftitute a crime, but that it be voluntary; whence it is inferred that the criminality confists in the determination of the will, whether that determination be free or neceffary. This, I think indeed, is the only poffible plea by which criminality can be made confiftent with neceffity, and therefore it deferves to be confidered.

1..

I acknowledge that a crime must be voluntary; for, if it be not voluntary, it is no deed of the man, nor can be justly imputed to him; but it is no less neceffary that the criminal have moral liberty. In men that are adult, and of a found mind, this liberty is prefumed. But in every cafe where it cannot be prefumed, no criminality is imputed, even to voluntary actions.

This