ed for thus bringing forward
statements expressly to injure me, or to make me unhappy; yet there must
have been many, in so large a place, who had too little interest in the
question, or too limited means of inquiry, for ever ascertaining the
truth. Consequently, in _their_ minds, to this hour, my name, as one
previously known to them, and repeatedly before the town in connexion
with political or literary articles in their Conservative journal, must
have suffered.

But the main purpose, for which I have reported the circumstances of
these two cases, relates to the casuistry of duelling. Casuistry, as I
have already said, is the moral philosophy of _cases_--that is, of
anomalous combinations of circumstances--that, for any reason
whatsoever, do not fall, or do not seem to fall, under the general rules
of morality. As a general rule, it must, doubtless, be unlawful to
attempt another man's life, or to hazard your own. Very special
circumstances must concur to make out any case of exception; and even
then it is evident, that one of the parties must always be deeply in the
wrong. But it _does_ strike me, that the present casuistry of society
upon the question of duelling, is profoundly wrong, and wrong by
manifest injustice. Very little distinction is ever made, in practice,
by those who apply their judgments to such cases, between the man who,
upon principle, practises the most cautious self-restraint and
moderation in his daily demeanour, never under any circumstance offering
an insult, or any just occasion of quarrel, and resorting to duel only
under the most insufferable provocation, between this man, on the one
side, and the most wanton ruffian, on the other, who makes a common
practice of playing upon other men's feelings, whether in reliance upon
superior bodily strength, or upon the pacific disposition of
conscientious men, and fathers of families. Yet, surely, the difference
between them goes the whole extent of the interval between wrong and
right. Even the question, 'Who gave the challenge?' which _is_ sometimes
put, often merges virtually in the transcendant question, 'Who gave the
provocation?' For it is important to observe, in both the cases which I
have reported, that the _onus_ of offering the challenge was thrown upon
the unoffending party; and thus, in a legal sense, that party is made to
give the provocation who, in a moral sense, received it. But surely, if
even the law makes allowances for human infirm