The Online Library of Liberty

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• Introduction
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• General Note
• Advertisement By the Translator.
• Juventuti Academicae Salutem.
• To the Students In Universities.
• Philosophiae Moralis Institutio Compendiaria With a Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy
• Philosophiae Moralis Institutio Compendiaria
• Liber I: Ethices Elementa.
• Caput I: De Hominis Natura Ejusque Partibus.
• Caput II: De Summo Bono Et Virtute.
• Caput III: De Variis Virtutum Divisionibus.
• Caput IV: De Virtutibus Et Officiis Erga Deum.
• Caput V: De Officiis Erga Alios Homines Exercendis.
• Caput VI: De Officiis Cujusque Erga Se, Et De Animi Cultura.
• 1 {caput VII: De Virtutis Studio Excitando Et Retinendo.
• Liber II: Jurisprudentiae Naturalis Elementa.
• Caput I: De Lege Naturali.
• Caput II: De Juris Natura Et Divisionibus.
• Caput III: De Virtutum Et Vitiorum Gradibus, Inter Se Comparatis{; Iisque Quae Speciem Moralem Afficiunt}.
• Caput IV: De Jure Privato Naturali.
• Caput V: De Jure Adventitio Reali, Et Rerum Dominio.
• Caput VI: De Dominii Acquirendi Rationibus.
• Caput VII: De Jure Derivato, Ejusque Causis.
• Caput VIII: De Dominii Transferendi Rationibus, Per Contractus, Successiones, Aut Testamenta.
• Caput IX: De Contractibus.
• Caput X: De Sermocinantium Officiis.
• Caput XI: De Jurejurando Et Votis.
• Caput XII: De Rerum Pretio.
• Caput XIII: De Variis Contractuum Generibus Post Pretia Rerum Constituta.
• Caput XIV: De Obligationibus Quasi Ex Contractu Ortis.
• Caput XV: Jura Ex Damno Dato, Atque Ex Aliorum Injuriis Orta. Jura Belli.
• Caput XVI: De Jure Extraordinario Ex Necessitate, Omniumque Jure Communi.
• Caput XVII: De Juris Interitu. De Litibus In Libertate Dirimendis, Et Interpretatione.
• Liber III: Oeconomices Et Politices Elementa.
• Caput I: De Conjugio.
• Caput II: De Parentum Et Liberorum Officiis.
• Caput III: De Herorum Et Servorum Jure.
• Caput IV: De Civitatum Origine Et Causis.
• Caput V: De Interna Civitatum Structura, Et Summi Imperii Partibus.
• Caput VI: De Variis Rerumpublicarum Formis.
• Caput VII: De Summi Imperii Jure, Ejusque Acquirendi Rationibus.
• Caput VIII: De Legibus Condendis, Et De Jurisdictione.
• Caput IX: De Jure Belli.
• Caput X: De Foederibus, Legatis, Et Civitatum Interitu [deletione].
• A Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy.
• Book I: The Elements of Ethicks.
• Chapter I: Of Human Nature and Its Parts.
• Chapter II: Concerning the Supreme Good.
• Chapter III: Concerning the Chief Divisions of Virtue.
• Chapter IV: Our Duties Toward God.
• Chapter V: Our Duties Toward Mankind.
• Chapter VI: Concerning Our Duties Toward Ourselves, and the Improvement of the Mind.
• Chapter VII: Some Practical Considerations to Excite and Preserve the Study of Virtue.
• Book II: Elements of the Law of Nature.
• Chapter I: Of the Law of Nature.
• Chapter II: Of the Nature of Rights, and Their Several Divisions.
• Chapter III: Concerning the Various Degrees of Virtue and Vice, and the Circumstances On Which They Depend.
• Chapter IV: Concerning the Natural Rights of Individuals.
• Chapter V: Of Real Adventitious Rights and Property.
• Chapter VI: The Methods of Acquiring Property.
• Chapter VII: Of Derived Property.
• Chapter VIII: The Methods of Transferring Property, Contracts, Succession, Testaments.
• Chapter IX: Of Contracts In General.
• Chapter X: Our Obligations In Speech.
• Chapter XI: Of Oaths and Vows.
• Chapter XII: Concerning the Values Or Prices of Goods.
• Chapter XIII: Of the Several Sorts of Contracts.
• Chapter XIV: * Obligations Resembling Those From Contracts.
• Chapter XV: Of Rights Arising From Damage Done, and the Rights of War.
• Chapter XVI: Extraordinary Rights In Cases of Necessity, and the Common Rights of Mankind.
• Chapter XVII: How Rights and Obligations Cease: How Controversies Are to Be Decided In Natural Liberty: and the Rules of Interpretation.
• Book III: The Principles of Oeconomicks and Politicks.
• Chapter I: Concerning Marriage.
• Chapter II: The Duties of Parents and Children.
• Chapter III: The Rights of Masters and Servants.
• Chapter IV: The Original of Civil Government.
• Chapter V: The Internal Structure of States: and the Several Parts of Supreme Power.
• Chapter VI: Of the Various Plans of Government.
• Chapter VII: The Rights of the Supreme Power: and the Methods of Acquiring It.
• Chapter VIII: Of Civil Laws and Their Execution.
• Chapter IX: The Laws of War.
• Chapter X: Of Treaties and Ambassadors, and the Entire Dissolution of States.
• Bibliography of Modern Literature

CHAPTER X

Our Obligations in Speech.

I. Our duties in the use of speech have a near affinity to those in contracts. Mankind enjoy this preeminence above other animals, that they have the powers of reason and speech, by which chiefly a social life, commerce, and an intercourse of kind offices are maintained. ’Tis in general plain that we are bound to use these excellent gifts of God in such manner as is most conducive to the general good, and suitable to our several obligations in life.

In this important matter we have very manifest indications of what God requires of us, in the very structure of our nature: an immediate sense seems to recommend that use of speech which the common interest requires. In our tender years we are naturally prone to discover candidly all we know. We have a natural aversion to all falshood and dissimulation, until we experience some inconveniency from this openness of heart, which we at first approve. Reflection [Right reason], a regard to the common good, and a prudent care of our own safety, will often persuade us to conceal or be silent about certain things; and to restrain the first impulse of our mind. But {when we resolve to speak to others, then} both the immediate sense of our hearts, and a rational [right reason and a] regard to the common interest, will recommend and enjoin upon us this steddy rule or purpose, of speaking nothing contrary to the sentiments of our heart, or which will deceive others. These are our natural sentiments whether we are judging of our own conduct or that of others.

For as a great share of the most useful knowledge in the affairs of life, as well as that of a more speculative kind, is acquired from the conversation of others who are under no special obligations of communicating to us their sentiments; this advantage of a social life, not to mention the pleasures of conversation with mutual confidence, must be entirely lost, unless men maintain truth and fidelity in all their discourse with each other.

What we say of speech holds also concerning other signs used for the same purpose of communicating our sentiments, viz. common writing, or hieroglyphicks[, or symbols].

II. We must also observe here that there’s a twofold use of signs, whether natural, or artificial and [or customary or] instituted:* one in which the person who causes the appearance is never imagined to make any profession, or to have any intention of communicating his sentiments to others. The spectator according to his own sagacity concludes from the appearances some fact or other, without imagining that the person who occasioned these appearances did it with a view to give him any information. The other use of signs is of such a nature [has such a strength] that it plainly contains this profession, or gives the observer just ground to conclude that such signs were made designedly to intimate something to him<, which the same use of the signs seems to reveal>.

In the former way of making signs, there’s no peculiar obligation: we are only under that obligation common to all parts of life, to do no hurt to our neighbour without a just cause. But when there is just cause, as in the case of a just war, we may without blame use such arts of deceiving, which are called <commander’s in chief plans or> stratagems. Nay provided we do no hurt to any innocent person, there’s no crime in deceiving{† } by such sort of signs our very best friends.

But we are under very different obligations as to the other use of signs. For without presupposing any old covenant or formal express agreement, the very use of signs in certain circumstances may plainly contain the nature of a tacit convention, and he who exhibits them is justly understood to covenant with the other to communicate his sentiments, according to that interpretation of these signs which is either natural or customary, unless there be some special reason{* } in the case, known on both sides, why we should depart from the ordinary interpretation. For did we not universally understand such an agreement as to speech, it would be a ridiculous action either to address speech to another or to listen to it. And the same holds as to{† } other signs natural or instituted, used in this manner.

These therefor are the laws of speech and writing. 1. “Where others have a right to know the whole sentiments of the speaker, he is obliged not only to speak truth but to reveal the whole truth.” This holds as to witnesses in courts of justice, and such as have engaged to communicate the whole mysterys of any art.1

The second law is. “Tho’ others may have no peculiar right to know our sentiments, yet when we speak to them, we should say nothing but what agrees with our sentiments according to the common interpretation which obtains among men of understanding [honest and prudent].”2 One is therefor guilty of falshood or lying who speaks what is thus contrary to his sentiments, altho’ by some unusual way of interpreting the words, or by some mental reservation, it might agree with them. If such arts were allowed, a gate would be opened to all deceit and fraud.

III. That our duty in this point may the better appear, we must <carefully> observe, 1. that all signs, especially <spoken or written> words should be used in the customary manner, without regard to antient obsolete meanings or etymologies. Expressions of civility and courtesy, or titles of honour, deceive no body. They are known not to signify what the same words do on other occasions.

2. If ’tis known to all concerned that in some affairs certain persons are allowed to deceive; nor does the person deceived, when he comes to discover it, complain of it as an injury; what artifice or false-speaking is used in these affairs is not deemed criminal. This is the case in many diversions; and sometimes in serious business, when we commit ourselves entirely to the conduct of others, in whose wisdom and fidelity we confide; as patients do to physicians, and soldiers to their commanders in chief.

3. Nay if the custom has prevailed in war, that enemies deceive each other by false narrations when they can, nor do the deceived complain of it as a violation of the laws of civilized nations: one may judge that by a new tacit convention enemies have remitted to each other that right otherways founded in the general convention contained in the addressing of speech to others. But a candid mind would not without the most urgent causes use such methods, since they have a strong appearance of moral turpitude.

4. But the deceiving of enemys by any pretence of a treaty or covenant, never was nor can be allowed. As it is by treaties alone that we can maintain the more human methods of carrying on war, and prevent the most savage cruelties; or restore peace again without the destruction of one side, or reducing them to miserable slavery.3

5. But this obligation about speech, as all others founded in tacit conventions may be prevented or taken away, by a{* } timely premonition of all concerned.

6. Beside the above mentioned exception of unjust force in matters of contracts, some plead for another exception from some grievous and extraordinary necessities; when without false-speaking we cannot preserve the innocent, or the most worthy perhaps of mankind, or even a whole nation, from ruin. Whatever force there is in this exception, ’tis plain it is not peculiar to this subject; since it seems, as we shall† hereafter shew, that this exception takes place in most of the other special laws {of nature}.

7. Where men with malicious intentions, and without having any right to demand it, are endeavouring to discover a person’s sentiments by captious and insidious questions; when even his silence would discover all they want to his ruin: if there occurr to him such answers as to good unprejudiced men would bear a true signification according to his sentiments, while yet they will appear to these insidious enemies to signify something very different;{* } he may use such evasive answers, tho’ he foresees that his unjust enemies will be deceived by them.

8. Since maintaining veracity in all our conversation is of such importance in society, ’tis plainly unlawful to use false-speaking from any of those smaller motives which frequently occurr in life; such as, to pacify men in a passion of anger, or to comfort the sorrowful; or in general to obtain any advantages or avert any evils which are not of the very highest kinds.4 For we may by other means consistent with all candour and sincerity generally obtain these ends more effectually, and either prevent these evils, or assist men to bear them with fortitude. And however such false-speaking may at first have some effect, before it becomes known that we make no conscience of speaking truth in such cases; yet, when this is once known, and when men generally take this liberty, they lose all credit in such cases with others, and mutual confidence is destroyed. So much concerning veracity.

IV. But there are other sacred duties in the use of speech; and this in the first place, that we study to make our speech profitable to others, in recommending and cherishing sincere virtue, in correcting the vain imaginations of men about the true happiness of life; in teaching, admonishing, exhorting, comforting, and sometimes reproving sharply, and all these shewing an hearty intention of doing good. These too are among the most honourable offices, to reconcile friends who have been at variance, to prevent animosities, or to compose them. Nor is there any thing a good man will more conscientiously avoid than hurting the characters of others. Nay he will not only avoid the spreading of false calumnies, but will conceal the secret faults of others, unless he be forced to divulge them to prevent the seducing the innocent{, or to avert some publick evil}. For men who have lost their characters and are publickly infamous, are on this account far harder to be reclaimed to virtue; and the more that vice appears to abound in the world, the vitious grow the more impudent.5

Criticks have observed that many words, beside their primary meaning, have also an additional signification of the dispositions of the speaker: and hence there are often three sorts of names for the same things, or actions. One of a middle nature, barely denoting its object; another denoting the speaker’s delight in it, or his keen passion for it; the third denoting his aversion and hatred of it.6 And from this we see {how to answer the reasonings of the old Cynicks, against supposing any crime in obscenity of language;}7 that tho’ it be true, there’s no work of God, or natural action, which may not be a proper subject of inquiry and speech to a good man, {on some occasions,} yet we may evidence [give birth to a] great depravation and turpitude of mind in speaking about the dissolute actions of others: to wit, by using such words as betray a like dissolute temper in ourselves, and a delight in such vices, and kindle like vitious passions in the minds of the hearers. And in this consists obscenity, which is hateful and detestable in conversation.8

[* ]See Grotius de Jure belli, &c. L. III. 1. 8. [The reason of this reference to Grotius is not very clear. We find the same reference and a very similar paragraph in Illustrations, sect. IV, p. 264–65, where Hutcheson argues against Wollaston’s thesis that a bad action is equivalent to a lie. The distinction between the two usages of signs is more clearly expressed by Pufendorf in De iure nat. 4.1.7 and 10 and in De officio 1.10.3 and 4]

[† ]{Thus an army intending to decamp in the night, yet keep all their fires burning in the old places, to conceal their motions. A studious man to avoid interruption, keeps his doors shut, and his street-windows darkened, whence we conclude that he is abroad.} [The first example appears in Illustrations, Sect. IV, p. 264 as well as in System 2.10.3, vol. II, p. 29; the second ibidem, p. 31.]

[* ]{A cypher agreed upon, for instance.}

[† ]{Thus sending wings or spurs to a friend at court, intimates to him that we imagine he is in danger, and contains this profession.} [This example appears in Illustrations, Sect. IV, p. 265.]

[1. ]System 2.10.4, point 5, vol. II, p. 37.

[2. ]See System 2.10.3, vol. II, p. 32.

[3. ]See System 2.10.4, point 3, vol. II, pp. 33–34.

[* ]{See the preceding Chap. § 6} [2.9.6, p. 184.]

[† ]Ch. xvi. [sect. II] of this Book.

[* ]{Of this there are instances in very great characters; as also of many expressions which the speaker abundantly knew that the hearers would understand in a very false sense.}

[4. ]Here Hutcheson contradicts what Pufendorf says in De officio 1.10.9 and in De iure nat. 4.1.15, even if he agrees with Pufendorf that a kind of false-speech is allowed to physicians or commanders, but in these cases, by a preventive tacit convention (see above point 2 and System 2.10.4, point 2, vol. II, p. 33)

[5. ]See System 2.10.5, vol. II, p. 41.

[6. ]Cf. System 2.10.5, vol. II, p. 42.

[7. ]This added reference to the Cynics is drawn from System 2.10.5, point 5, vol. II, p. 42.

[8. ]Cf. System 2.10.5, vol. II, p. 43.