212

niSTORY OP ENGLAND.

CHAP.

IX.

1688 .

tented and factious men wlio would say, and perhaps think,that their grievances constituted an extreme case? If, indeed,it were possible to lay down a clear and accurate rule whichmight forbid men to rebel against Trajan, and yet leave themat liberty to rebel against Caligula, such a rule might be highlybeneficial. But no such rule had ever been, or ever wouldbe, framed. To say that rebellion was lawful under somecircumstances, without accurately defining those circum-stances, was to say that every man might rebel whenever hethought fit; and a society in which every man rebelled when-ever he thought fit would be more miserable than a societygoverned by the most cruel and licentious despot. It wastherefore necessary to maintain the great principle of non-resistance in all its integrity. Particular cases might doubt-less be put in which resistance would benefit a community: butit was, on the whole, better that the people should patientlyendure a bad government than that they should relieve them-selves by violating a law on which the security of all govern-ment depended.

Such reasoning easily convinced a dominant and pro-sperous party, but could ill bear the scrutiny of minds stronglyexcited by royal injustice and ingratitude. It is true that totrace the exact boundary between rightful and wrongful re-sistance is impossible: but this impossibility arises from thenature of right and wrong, and is found in almost every partof ethical science. A good action is not distinguished froma bad action by marks so plain as those which distinguish ahexagon from a square. There is a frontier where virtue andvice fade into each other. Who has ever been able to definethe exact boundary between courage and rashness, betweenprudence and cowardice, between frugality and avarice,between liberality and prodigality? Who has ever been ableto say how far mercy to offenders ought to be carried, andwhere it ceases to deserve the name of mercy and becomes apernicious weakness? What casuist, what lawgiver, has everbeen able nicely to mark the limits of the right of self-defence?All our jurists hold that a certain quantity of risk to life orlimb justifies a man in shooting or stabbing an assailant: but