4h 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
Sir: 
HOEVER has observed atten- 
tively, and much at large, the con- 
duct of men under different circumstan- 
ces of occupation, connexion and inter- 
course, cannot but have been occasion- 
ally struck with the duality, if I may so 
express myself, of moral character which 
the same individual exhibits under 
different aspects :—in other words, with 
the difference between the principles 
of action and notions of honour and 
integrity which actuate the same man, 
as an individual merely, and as member 
of a particular class. 
It has been observed, that every 
station, from. the scullery to the court 
(of course we ascend not to the throne 
itself), every rank, trade, calling and 
profession, has its own peculiar and 
self-licensed rogueries—its corporate 
customs, or sins of course, which (like 
‘custom-house oaths), because they are 
customary, are, of course, no sins at all 
—acts extra conscientie, that, in strik- 
ing the balance of Debtor and Creditor 
in the ledger-book of conscience, never 
enter into the account, because they are 
never entered in the journal. Thus, 
your groom makes free ad libitum with 
your corn-bin and your hay-loft ; your 
servant girl with your tea and sugar ; 
your housekeeper with your pantry ; 
your butler with your wine cellar, &c.— 
though they would hold it atrocious 
robbery to steal your money. And, by 
the same salvo-rule of conscience, the 
high-born statesman has his customary 
perquisites also, and dips his hand into 
the public purse; though he would 
shudder with indignant horror at the 
idea of picking a pocket. Your con- 
tractors, also, it is very generally under- 
stood, have their customary accommo- 
dations with store-keepers and higher 
functionaries: as the baker, the butcher, 
the fishmonger, and the very milkman, 
have with the superintendants of the 
larder, buttery and store closet; and 
poundage is not confined to the stewards 
of domestic establishments. Yet these 
respective parties would, all of them, 
deem it a point of conscience to pro- 
secute a conmon swindler. Nor would 
the barrister (that member of a learned 
and liberal profession—-that minister at 
the shrine of justice and equity) blush 
to hold the brief and argue the cause 
against him, though the very day before 
he had pocketed a client’s fees, and 
never appeared in the court to plead 
that client’s cause. 
But, if the looser corporationisms of 
Individual and Corporate Character. 
[June I, 
profession, rank and calling have their 
specific casuistries, which render the 
individual a different character, and sub- 
stitute. different. principles. of moral 
honesty in and out of his trade; what 
is the influence of that closer affiliation 
which links a certain number of men 
into one confederacy or. conspiracy, 
called a-corporation? Here it is that 
the duality of character appears in all 
the mystery of incomprehensibility : 
here it is that moral calculation seems 
actually at fault, arithmetic bafiled, and 
analogy set at defiance. No one, that 
put a hundred good guineas into the 
same purse, would expect to find them 
converted, so long as they remained 
together, into so many brass farthings ? 
or, who poured so many buckets of pure 
element into the same vessel, would 
expect to be greeted from the aggre- 
gate contents with fcetid effluvia of 
putrescent fermentation. Yet, bring 
sO many upright, conscientious and 
honourable individuals together in any 
corporate capacity,—makethema Court 
of Directors; a Board, asit is called, 
of Commissioners ; or any other cor- 
porate body, for the management of 
any joint, or aggregate, interest or con- 
cern, and it is a question whether your 
hundred honest individuals do not make 
one aggregate rogue. In other words, 
whether they do not, in innumerable 
instances, by common vote and- consent, 
sanction such acts, and proceed uponsuch 
principles, in their aggregate capacity, as 
each and every of them, in his indivi- 
dual character, and in his individual 
concerns, would be ashamed even to 
contemplate. It seems as if what was 
distinctly good became evil in association 
—as if a sort of deleterious fermenta- 
tion took place among the chemical ecle- 
ments of human character, in the pre- 
ternatural attempt to compound moral 
individualities into that sophistical 
heterogeneity, a corporate unity, or 
aggregate individual. 
There is a good story told by Dr. 
Gilchrist, in his last report to the 
Honourable East-India Company : = 
*“ That on some occasion, a faithful old 
and useful servant of the Company con- 
ceived himself repeatedly ill-treated by the 
Court of Directors, for whom, as indivi- 
duals, he nevertheless felt the highest 
esteem; and being an intimate and boon 
companion of the majority of that Honour- 
able Body, he gaye them a general inyita- 
tion to his hospitable board, and regaled 
them with the most delicious viands, well 
washed down with copious and frequent 
libations of the choicest wines of every 
kind. The cloth being removed, when the 
whole 
