confidence specially reposed, and tends to produce jealousies, animosities, and every kind of ill-feeling, and even threatens to disturb the public tranquillity, a good man will hesitate long, and reflect carefully, before he does an act, by which his prudence and consistency, if not the still higher qualities of his moral character must stand committed, and by which the feelings of others must be violated, and their confidence betrayed. CHAPTER V. OBSERVANCE OF PROMISES. THE indispensable necessity of observing good faith in the transactions and intercourse of mankind, and the dangerous nature and ruinous consequences of bad faith, have before been sufficiently illustrated and insisted on. Good faith is the great moral bond which keeps men united in society; the prosperity and happiness of individuals and communities depend upon its observance; nothing can supply its place, or atone for the want of it. Universal bad faith would introduce universal suspicion and distrust, and these again would bring universal unhappiness and ruin in their train. The highest breach of good faith is falsehood, in its various kinds, degrees, and modifications; and as this breach is particularly dangerous and criminal, men have guarded against it with corresponding solicitude; on various important occasions, in order more effectually to secure truth, drawing motives for its observance from the solemnities of the unseen world, by the use of an oath. The next most dangerous infraction of good faith, is, the non-observance of promises and contracts, which last are mutual promises. In a due regard to these, consists no small part of practical good faith. I shall treat of promises under two divis ions; I. In what sense they are to be interpreted. II. In what cases they are not binding. I. A promise differs from a mere declaration of our intentions, though there is much resemblance between them. When we simply declare what our present intentions are, nothing more is required to justify our declarations of this kind, than that we were, at the time, sincere in making them. Still, since, in declaring our intentions, we may very probably raise certain expectations in others, and since we are bound to satisfy, as far as we can, the expectations which we knowingly raise, such a declaration lays a man under an obligation, which, though an imperfect one, a wise and good man will not neglect or lightly A wise man will not willingly lay himself open to the charge of trifling, or of forming his designs without deliberation, and changing them without reason. And, unless the motives which engage him to change his designs are reasonable and weighty, he cannot easily escape this charge, if he does not make good his declarations by his conduct. esteem. For instance, a man may declare his intention to leave a part of his estate to his friend at his death. In consequence of such declaration, his friend will very naturally raise his style of living, and otherwise conform himself to the expectations of enlarged fortune which he has been led to entertain. A disappointment, therefore, does not leave him in the same condition in which he would have been, if no such expectations had been raised ; — the entire course of his life and pursuits may, very possibly, have been changed in consequence of them. A wise man, therefore, for his own sake, or from regard to his own character, and a good man, for the sake of others and from regard to their welfare, will keep his intentions to himself, and make no declaration of them, until he has well considered the matter, and is well satisfied, that nothing will probably intervene, which may cause him to fail in making them good. If he has once declared his intentions, he will be careful to abide by them, and, without carrying them into effect, will not feel satisfied with himself, unless he can find full justification in hindrances and circumstances which could not have been foreseen. According to Dr. Rutherforth, a man may go one step further without coming to a promise; "he may not only declare what his present intentions are, but he may add, that these are his settled intentions, that he is not only in earnest now, but will continue in the same mind when the time comes for putting these intentions in practice. This additional declaration," says he, "does not confer any perfect right upon the person in whose favor it is made, nor give him any strict demand upon him who made it. But it strengthens vastly his obligation to make his designs good; both because it would be an instance of greater levity to change what seems to have been thus firmly and unalterably resolved upon; and because a disappointment, to those who are made to expect his favors, will be so much more hurtful, in proportion as their expectations were raised higher." Again, continues he, "when a man not merely declares his present intentions to another, in reference to some future gift or service, with satisfactory indications of his being in earnest, and of his being resolved with himself to continue in the same mind; but, further, makes known his design to give him a right to demand such gift or service hereafter, it is a promise."* Here, however, as sometimes elsewhere, this valuable writer draws a line of distinction where there is not much difference. When the terms of a promise admit of more senses than one, the promise is to be performed in that sense in which the promiser apprehended at the time that the promisee received it. It is very certain, that the rightful interpretation of a promise is not always the same in which the promiser intended to perform it, when making it. An equivocal promise may be made the means of the most cruel deception. For instance, Mahomet, Emperor of the Turks, at the taking of Negropont, having promised a man. to spare his head, caused him to be cut in two, through the middle of the body. Tamerlane, after having engaged the city of Sebasta to capitulate, under the promise of causing no blood to be spilt, caused all the soldiers of the garrison to be buried alive. These barbarian conquerors fulfilled their promises in one sense, and in the sense too, in which they intended at the time of making them; but not in the sense in which the promisees actually received them, nor in the sense in which they themselves knew that the promisees received them; which last sense, according to the rule I am illustrating, was the sense in which they were in conscience bound to perform them. * Institutes of Natural Law, Chap. XII. 1, 2. Still less is a promise always to be interpreted in the sense in which the promisee actually understood it; for, according to such. a rule, a man might be drawn into engagements which he never designed to undertake. It must, therefore, be the sense (for there is no other remaining) in which the promiser believed that the promisee accepted his promise. This will not differ from the actual intention of the promiser, where the promise is given. with sincerity, and without collusion or reserve; but it is best to put the rule in the above form, to prevent evasion, in cases in which the popular meaning of a phrase, and the strict grammatical signification of terms, differ; or, in general, to prevent evasion, wherever the promiser might attempt to make his escape, through some ambiguity in the expressions which he used.* Promises are sometimes made upon certain conditions; and those conditions may be either expressed, or tacit and implied. When the condition is expressed, it thereby becomes a part of the promise itself; and, whenever a promise pertains to any thing important, the condition, if there is one, ought always to be distinctly declared. This prevents disappointments and misunderstandings, and all the evil consequences which are accustomed to grow out of them. The surest way of making a promise absolute in all other respects, is, to annex one or more express conditions to it. When one condition is expressed, the natural presumption is, that no other is implied or understood; because, if there had been any other in the mind of the promiser, the occasion of mentioning the one condition would naturally have led him to mention the other, when he designed to make conditions, and was employed in making them, he mentioned only one, -we have, therefore, good reason to believe, that he thought of and intended no more. Still, it cannot be said, universally, that a promise is subject to no tacit conditions, because none are expressed. It has sometimes been affirmed, that all promises are to be understood to contain a tacit condition, that the promiser continues in the same situation as when he promised; insomuch so, that he is not bound by his promise, when the time of perform ance comes, unless it shall be as convenient to him to make it good as it was at the time of promising. But such a tacit condition as this, if the promiser is allowed to explain it, will put it in his power either to be bound or not bound by his promise, according to his own good pleasure. For it is next to impossible, that the circumstances of any man should continue so exactly the same, as not to furnish him, on this ground, with a pretext to evade his promise, between the time of promising and the time of performance. Besides, it would be absurd to suppose a condition to be tacitly annexed to any obligation, which is of such a kind as to leave the obligation to the discretion of the party obliged. * But promises are made every day and almost every hour;— all the minutiae of time, place, and circumstance cannot always be distinctly expressed, and, where nothing of much importance is depending on them, implied conditions may well be admitted. How many promises are made every day in the unqualified form, which, however, it is well understood, will be performed or neglected, according as our health at the time may permit or prevent, or according as the weather and other circumstances over which we have no control, may be favorable or unfavorable. Moreover, the cases in which promises are not binding, which are to be reviewed and illustrated under the next division, must be understood as implied conditions of every promise. The general and governing principle applicable not only to promises, but also to a mere declaration of intention, when such a declaration affects another person, is, that our obligation is measured by the expectations which we knowingly and voluntarily excite. The same principle is also applicable to our conduct. Any action or conduct of ours towards another, by which we are sensible his expectations are excited, creates an obligation on our part, which we are morally bound to satisfy and fulfil. Taking, for instance, a kinsman's child, and educating him for a liberal profession, or in a manner suitable only for the heir of a large fortune, puts a man under the same moral obligation to place him in such a profession, or to leave him such a fortune, as if he had * Rutherforth's Institutes of Natural Law, p. 92. |