Chap. V.]

OBSERVANCE OF PROMISES.

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cannot but be understood to have obliged himself to use thenecessary means of attaining the end. It cannot be said to beimpossible for a man to do any thing, which can be accomplishedby his own acts or endeavours. A promise, therefore, of thissort is binding from the beginning ; and, though the promiser hasnot, in express terms, bound himself to do these acts or to usethese endeavours, yet, if the possibility of performing what hehas promised depends upon them, he is obliged to do them byvirtue of his promise.

7. A promise is not binding when the performance is im-moral.* Sometimes the performance of the promise is knownto the parties to be immoral at the time when the promise wasmade, as where an assassin promises his employer to despatch hisrival or his enemy, or a servant promises to betray his master.These promises and the like of them are not binding, becausetheir performance is criminal ; their guilt, therefore, lies in themaking, not in the breaking of them ; and if, in the interval be-tween the promise and the performance, conscience awakens andregains its rightful supremacy, the promiser will repent of hisengagements, and will assuredly break through them. In thesecases, the object of the promise is immoral, in the highest sensetoo ; and this makes the performance immoral, and therefore notbinding.

Again, sometimes the immorality of the performance did not

* Rutherforth, and after him Dr. Paley, have used the term unlawful , where Ihave used immoral. The term unlawful does not seem to me to be either suffi-ciently definite or comprehensive. Dr. Rutherforth, indeed, appears to havebeen sensible of its want of comprehensiveness; for he says, u When I speakof unlawful promises, I do not mean those only by which we engage to give ordo what the law of nature forbids to be given or to be done by us; where thematter of a promise is forbidden by any other law, by the positive law of God,for instance, or by the law of the land, or by the commands of our lawful su-periors, as far as they have a right to command us, such a promise is void; wehave done nothing by making it; and consequently have not obliged ourselvesto the performance of it.” (Institutes of Natural Law, p. 90.) The term im-moral is here used with reference to the standard of morals established andillustrated in my Preliminary Principles and Discussions, pp. 29-60; to wit,the dictates of conscience, when not disturbed by passion or blinded by prej-udice, and when enlightened and guided by the law of the land, the law of con-sequences (as it may well be called), and the divine law as contained in theScriptures of the Old and New Testament.

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