OATHS.

WHOEVER considers the number of absurd and ridiculous oaths necessary to be taken at present in most countries, on being admitted into any society or profession whatever, will be less surprised to find prevarication still prevailing, where perjury has led the way.

While good faith reigned upon the earth, a simple promise was sufficient to insure confidence. Oaths owe their origin to perfidy. Man was not required to call upon the God that heard him to witness his veracity, till he deserved no longer to be believed. Magistrates and sovereigns, to what

do

your regulations tend? You either oblige the man of probity to lift up his hand, and call heaven to witness, which with him is a requisition as injurious as it is useless; or you compel an oath from the mouth of a reprobate. Of what value can the oath of such a man appear to you? If the oath be contrary to his own security, it is absurd. If it be consonant with his interest, it is superDoes it argue a knowledge of the human

uous.

"

heart, to give the debtor his choice between his ruin and a falsehood; or the criminal his option between death and perjury? Will the man whom motives of revenge, interest, or wickedness, have determined to give a false testimony, be deterred by the fear of committing one crime more? Is he not apprised, before he is brought up to the tribunal of justice, that this formality will be required of him? And has he not from the bottom of his heart despised it, before he complied with it? Is it not a species of impiety to introduce the name of God in our wicked disputes? Is it not a singular mode of making heaven, as it were, an accomplice in the guilt, to suffer that heaven to be called upon, which never has contradicted nor ever will contradia the oath? How intrepid, therefore, must the false witness become, when he has with impunity called down the divine vengeance on his head, without the fear of being convicted? Oaths seem to be so much debased and prostituted by their frequency, that false witnesses are grown as common as robbers,

RAYNAL.

Hist. of European Settlements, b. ii.

ENGLAND, in this respect, seems to be sunk to the lowest possible degree of degeneracy. Oaths among us are required on so many occasions, and so carelessly administered, as to have lost almost all their use and efficacy. It has been asserted, that, including oaths of office, oaths at elections, custom-house oaths, &c. &c. there are about a

million

million of perjuries committed in this kingdom annually. This is one of the most atrocious of our

national iniquities.

PRICE.

Importance of Amer. Revolution, p. 81.

for no

CUSTOM-HOUSE oaths now a days go thing. Not that the world grows more wicked, but because no body lays any stress upon them. The duty on French wine is the same in Scotland and in England. But as we cannot afford to pay this high duty, the permission, underhand, to pay Spanish duty for French wine, is found more beneficial to the revenue than the rigour of the law. The oath, however, must be taken, that the wine we import is Spanish, to entitle us to the ease of the Spanish duty. Such oaths at first were highly criminal, because directly a fraud against the pubJic, but now that the oath is only exacted for form's sake, without any faith intended to be given or received, it becomes very little different from saying in the way of civility, I am, sir, your friend, or obedient servant!!

KAIMES.

Loose Hints on Education, App. p. 362.

CAN there be a practice more pregnant with false morality than that of administering oaths in a court of justice? The language it expressly holds is, "You are not to be believed upon your mere "word;" and there are few men resolute enough to preserve themselves from contamination, when they are accustomed, upon the most solemn occa

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sions to be treated with contempt. To the unthinking it becomes a plenary indulgence to the occasional tampering with veracity in affairs of daily occurrence, that they are not upon their oath; and we may affirm without risk of error, that there is no cause of insincerity, prevarication, and falsehood more powerful, than this practice. It treats veracity in the scenes of ordinary life as unworthy to be regarded. It takes for granted that no man, at least no man of plebeian rank, is to be credited upon his bare affirmation; and what it takes for granted it has an irresistible tendency to produce.

Wherever men of uncommon energy and dignity of mind have existed, they have felt the degradation of binding their assertions with an oath. The English constitution recognises in a partial and imperfect manner the force of this principle, and therefore provides, that, while the common herd of mankind shall be obliged to swear to the truth, nothing more shall be required from the order of the nobles than a declaration upon honour. Will reason justify this distinc

tion?

Men will never act with that liberal justice and conscious integrity which is their highest ornament, till they come to understand what men are. He that contaminates his lips with an oath, must have been thoroughly fortified with previous moral instruction, if he be able afterwards to un

derstand

derstand the beauty of an easy and simple integrity. If our political institutors had been but half so judicious in perceiving the manner in which excellence and worth were to be generated, as they have been ingenious and indefatigable in the means of depraving mankind, the world, instead of a slaughter-house, would have been a paradise.

What are the words which we are taught in this instance to address to the creator of the universe? "So help me, God, and the contents of his holy "word." It is the language of imprecation. I pray him to pour down his everlasting wrath and curse upon me if I utter a lie. It were to be wished that the name of that man were recorded, who first invented this mode of binding men to veracity. He had surely himself but very light and contemptuous notions of the Supreme Being, who could thus tempt men to insult him by braving his justice. If it be our duty to invoke his blessing, yet there must surely be something insupportably profane in wantonly and unnecessarily putting all that he is able to inflict upon us upon conditions.

GODWIN.

Political Justice, b. vi. ch. v.

YE have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths:

But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by Heaven, for it is God's throne: