368 MURALS OF THE DIFFERENT PROFESSIONS. [Part V.

immoral and licentious books, to wit, printers, binders, and keep-ers of circulating libraries, come in for their share of the guilt.But what shall we say of the authors of such books ? They standon a high preeminence of guilt; for, without them, such bookswould never have existed. I have selected the case of writingand circulating immoral books, to illustrate a general principle.The principle itself ought to be applied to reform and purify sev-eral employments which exist among us. #

4. No man can rightfully do any thing on the ground of a spe-cial code of professional morals, which he would not do on hisown personal responsibility. Judge Hopkinson says, opinionshave got a footing among mercantile men, a code of ethics hasreceived a sanction from them, which appear to him to be alto-gether wanting in sound principles of justice and morality. Again,he says, addressing merchants, “ Do not believe that there is onesort of honesty, one code of morality, for your business, andanother for your ordinary transactions; that you may deceiveand ruin a man in the way of trade, while you would shrink fromtaking a pin from his pocket; that any thing can be just and hon-orable in a merchant, that is not so in the man and the citizen, inthe gentleman and the Christian. Such distinctions may satisfythe ethics of a vicious cupidity, and quiet the conscience of onewho would be honest only for the world’s eye, and to avoid thepenalties of crime ; but can never be sanctioned by a pure anduncorrupted mind.” f

If there is, among merchants, a special code of professionalmorals, subversive of the ordinary principles of morals, as thislearned jurist asserts ; there may be similar codes known to, andpractised by, men of other professions. And his denunciationof this special mercantile code, must equally apply to all similarprofessional codes, customs, and systems, of whatever kind theymay be.

5. Every honest man ought to blush to do any act as a mem-ber of a committee, corporation, legislature, or other body ofmen, which he would not be willing to do on his own individualresponsibility. That bodies of men act with less rectitude and

* Dymond’s Principles of Morality, pp. 168, 169.1 Lecture on Commercial Integrity, pp. 16, 22.