t or indirect, and partly by
generalising them, that is to say, by considering what would happen to
society if men generally were to act in that manner. Thus, take the case
of lying. In primitive states of society, and even in some more advanced
nations, no great opprobrium attaches to telling a lie. In ancient
Greece, for instance, veracity by no means occupied the same prominent
position among the virtues that it does among ourselves, and, even now,
Teutonic races are generally credited with a peculiar sensitiveness on
the subject of truthfulness. This improved sentiment as regards veracity
is, no doubt, partly due to the realisation of its importance and of the
inconveniences which result from the breaches of it, especially in
commercial affairs, by the members of a community at large; but it must
also, to a great extent, have been produced by the definite teaching
conveyed in books, and by moral and religious instructors. Follow out a
lie to all its consequences, realise the feelings of the person deceived
by it, when he has discovered the deception, above all, consider what
would be the result if men were commonly to deceive one another, and no
man could place any dependence on the information which his neighbour
gave him; and then a falsehood excites very different feelings from what
it does when regarded simply as an isolated act. Or, again, take the
evasion of taxes. There is probably, even yet, no country in which the
popular sentiment on this subject is sufficiently enlightened and
severe. A man smuggles a box of cigars, or evades paying a tax for his
dog, or makes an insufficient return of his income, and few of his
neighbours, if the fact come to their knowledge, think the worse of him.
The character and consequences of the action are not obvious, and hence
they do not perceive what, on reflexion, or, if guided by proper
instruction, they could hardly fail to realise, that the act is really a
theft, only practised on the community at large instead of on an
individual member of it, and that, if every one were to act in the same
way, the collection of taxes and, consequently, the administration and
defence of the country, the maintenance of its army and navy, its
police, its harbours and roads, would become an impossibility, and it
would quickly relapse into barbarism. Other familiar instances of the
advantage to be derived from the conscious and intentional application
of the reasoning powers to matters of cond