the
family and kindred of the person defamed may incur, through true, yet
useless reports to his discredit, shame, annoyance, and damage, which they
do not merit. Evil reports, also, even if true, disturb the peace of the
community, and often provoke violent retaliation. The wanton circulation
of them, therefore, if a luxury to him who gives them currency, is a
luxury indulged at the expense of the public, and he ought to be held
liable for all that it may cost. Finally, and above all, the slanderer
becomes a nuisance to the community, not only by his reports of real or
imagined wrong and evil, but by the degradation of his own character,
which can hardly remain above the level of his social intercourse.

By the law, defamation and libel are, very justly, liable both to
*criminal prosecution*, as offences against the public, and to *action for
damages* by civil process, on the obvious ground that the injury of a
man's character tends to impair his success in business, his pecuniary
credit, and his comfortable enjoyment of his property.

Chapter VII.

MOTIVE, PASSION, AND HABIT.

The appetites, desires, and affections are, as has been said, the
*proximate motives* of action. The perception of expediency and the sense
of right act, not independently of these motives, but upon them and
through them, checking some, stimulating others. Thus they, both, restrain
the appetites, the former, so far as prudence requires; the latter, in
subserviency to the more noble elements of character. The former directs
the desires toward worthy, but earthly objects; the latter works most
efficiently through the benevolent affections, as exercised toward God and
man.

Exterior motives are of a secondary order, acting not directly upon the
will, but influencing it indirectly, through the springs of action, or
through the principles which direct and govern them.

*The action of exterior motives* takes place in three different ways. 1.
When they are in harmony with any predominant appetite, desire, or
affection, they at once intensify it, and prompt acts by which it may be
gratified. Thus, for instance, a sumptuously spread table gives the
epicure a keener appetite, and invites him to its free indulgence. The
opportunity of a potentially lucrative, though hazardous investment,
excites the cupidity of the man who prizes money above all things else,
and tempts him to incur the doubtful risk. The pre