36 Moral Responsibility. 



But simpler instances are far more obvious and common. 

 For the same principle extends as far as the meaning of the 

 word moral — to all man's manners, customs, and acts. Fire is 

 destructive of his bodily tissues. The first experiment convinces 

 him of it, and if he be wise he will not even try a second. If he 

 fight with his neighbours, he is hurt ; and suffers, though he 

 conquer. Peace therefore is moral, and war is immoral ; but 

 as man, when ignorant, acts from impulse and habit and not 

 from principle, war is still only too frequent. If he break 

 the laws of his nation, society avenges itself upon him for 

 the offence ; but I wish to draw a distinction here between 

 the offence against society — which it seems to me consists in 

 the breach of its laws — and the offence against the natural 

 rights of any individual, both being included in the same 

 act. It strikes me that man's responsibility, or certain 

 amenability, to natural consequences, should be distinguished 

 from his responsibility or liability to social consequences, 

 though the act be one and the same. The natural conse- 

 quences of any act are in themselves amply retributive, 

 which in many cases is not recognised ; the fact being lost 

 sight of behind the more plainly perceptible penalties 

 inflicted by society for the infringement of its laws alone. 

 Take the case of a liar. Society punishes merely false oaths, 

 which impair its judicial administration. The general con- 

 tempt, avoidance, and other detrimental results of having 

 the reputation of a liar, are natural, not social consequences; 

 for they spring from the spontaneous, self-defensive action of 

 individuals, not from the organised action of the social body. 

 But natural evil consequences are inevitable for the 

 slightest infraction of truth, and are eventually far more 

 severe, indeed all the greater in proportion to its apparent 

 success; to the extent to which the lie is believed. For when 

 a man utters a falsehood, and is thus led to regard it as 

 advantageous to him, he doubly misrepresents and inverts 

 facts to himself, and acquires a fatal misconception as to the 

 relative value of truth and falsehood ; his judgment becomes 

 distorted ; every repetition of the offence against himself 

 and nature increases the perversion of facts ; he soon loses 

 all power of representing things correctly to himself, or of 

 judging accurately of the probable effects of his words or 

 acts ; unless extraordinary circumstances forcibly impress 

 upon him the true cause of his insidious error, his mental 

 degeneration becomes complete ; and whatever may have 

 been his original intellectual capacity, he is nearly sure to 



