ON THE MANAGEMENT OF MONEY. 87 



Hamilton, " although ignorant now as previously of the cause of gravi- 

 tation." 



But man in himself is a world ; and in man's moral organization there 

 are also first principles, on which the more we would dispute the more 

 likely we are to be led astray. All things can be argued upon ; and 

 therefore, if we so choose, we may be argued out of all things the best for 

 us. There are some things for men and nations which it is safest never 

 to submit to an argument. I would not, as an Englishman, permit trial 

 by jury, or the right of habeas corpus, or the honour of the national flag, 

 or the privilege of asylum to political exiles to become open questions for 

 the casuists of other lands to refine into ignorant prejudices on the part of 

 my old-fashioned country. So, as a human being, in myself integral and 

 independent as sovereign in free-will as any state on earth, however 

 numerous its citizens, however imperial its sceptre there are certain 

 things which I will not allow to be open questions ; I assume them as 

 indispensable to my own completeness of human being. I grant that a 



it deal may be said against them, as there may be against trial by 

 jury and the honour of our flag; but I have made up my mind to main- 

 tain and not to discuss them, not because I doubt that all hostile argu- 

 ments could be triumphantly answered, but because I may not be such a 

 proficient in casuistry as to be able to satisfy others ; and in striving to 

 do so I may unsettle in my own mind the foundation of all that I know 

 to be both the temples and bulwarks of my existence as man. I will not 

 consent to make open questions of aught without which I should think it 

 a UK -re}- if I were hanged as a dog. I have read very subtile arguments 



.inst the probabilities that my frame holds a soul that my present life 

 involves a hereafter. I have read arguments no less subtile against the 



loin and almost against the existence of every conceivable virtue. I 



ll quote, pair's by writers of no mean ability to show that common 

 honesty is a vulgar error. So that, in fact, if I were to deliver up mv 

 whole s'-lf to the arbitrament of special pleaders, to-day I mi_dit )> argued 

 into an atheist, and to-morrow into a piek-poekct. Th I say to 



.\\X man about i Whenever you 



i to do soup-thin^ which you have IK-.-II brought up by h- I 



know to be wnn^, do not argue about it you 



hold your tongue. Without an til you may commit 



fault, repent, and Atone it, because you have not frittered away the 



)ii that you have done wrong; hut. if you oner make the wrong 



in Open question, and mn^-nt to argue with perhaps a more prai't 



casuist thai, rgument taking prirt with \<>ur i -n 



