SCIENCE AND MORALITY. 765 



others of his dehtors by going to the wall may put him in further difficulties. 

 Shall he ask a friend for a loan? On the one hand, is it not wrong forthwith to 

 bring on himself, his family, and those who have business relations with him, the 

 evils of his failure ? On the other hand, is it not wrong to hypothecate the prop- 

 erty of his friend, and lead him too, with his belongings and dependents, into 

 similar risks? The loan would probably tide him over his difficulty ; in which 

 case would it not be unjust to his creditors did he refrain from asking it? Con- 

 trariwise, the loan would very possibly fail to stave off his bankruptcy; in 

 which case is not his action in trying to obtain it practically fraudulent? Though 

 in extreme cases it may be easy to say which course is the least wrong, how is it 

 possible in all those medium cases where even by the keenest man of business 

 the contingencies can not be calculated? . . . Take, again, the difficulties that 

 not unfrequently arise from antagonism between family duties and social duties. 

 Here is a tenant farmer whose political principles prompt him to vote in opposi- 

 tion to his landlord. If, being a Liberal, he votes for a Conservative, not only 

 does he by his act say that he thinks what he does not think, but he may per- 

 haps assist what he regards as bad legislation : his vote may by chance turn the 

 election, and on a parliamentary division a single member may decide the fate of 

 a measure. Even neglecting, as too improbable, such serious consequences, 

 there is the manifest truth that, if all who hold like views with himself are simi- 

 larly deterred from electoral expression of them, there must result a different 

 balance of power and a different national policy : making it clear that only by 

 adherence of all to their political principles can the policy he thinks right be 

 maintained. But, now, on the other hand, how can he absolve himself from the 

 responsibility for the evils which those depending on him may suffer if he fulfills 

 what appears to be a peremptory public duty ? Is not his duty to his children 

 even more peremptory? Does not the family precede the state? and does not 

 the welfare of the state depend on the welfare of the family ? May he, then, 

 take a course which, if the threats uttered are carried out, will eject him from 

 his farm, and so cause inability, perhaps temporary, perhaps prolonged, to feed 

 his children ? The contingent evils are infinitely varied in their ratios. In one 

 case the imperativeness of the public duty is great and the evil that may come 

 on dependents small; in another case the political issue is of trivial moment and 

 the possible injury which the family may suffer is great ; and between these ex- 

 tremes there are all gradations. Further, the degrees of probability of each re- 

 sult, public and private, range from the nearly certain to the almost impossible. 

 Admitting, then, that it is wrong to act in a way likely to injure the. state, and 

 admitting that it is wrong to act in a way likely to injure the family, we have 

 to recognize the fact that in countless cases no one can decide by which of the 

 alternative courses the least wrong is likely to be done. 



In the first case nothing, according to common conceptions, could 

 appear more certain than this, that a man has no right to borrow 

 money under any circumstances, or for any purpose whatever, unless 

 he is sure that he can pay, or, at least, has fully apprised the lender of 

 the risk. In the second case, it seems equally clear that in the exer- 

 cise of a public trust public duty ought to prevail over all private con- 

 siderations, and that, though a man may be justified in abstaining 

 from voting if the state fails to afford him protection against the 

 tyranny of his landlord, he can not possibly be justified in voting 



