lowed in every cottage. But this
furnishes no practical guide for moral election which a man had not,
before he ever thought of this _nexus_. In the sense in which it is
true, we need not go to the professor's chair for this maxim; in the
sense in which it would serve Paley, it is absolutely false.

On the other hand, as against Coleridge, it is certain that many acts
could be mentioned which are judged to be good or bad only because
their consequences are known to be so, whilst the great catholic acts
of life are entirely (and, if we may so phrase it, haughtily)
independent of consequences. For instance, fidelity to a trust is a
law of immutable morality subject to no casuistry whatever. You have
been left executor to a friend--you are to pay over his last legacy to
X, though a dissolute scoundrel; and you are to give no shilling of it
to the poor brother of X, though a good man, and a wise man,
struggling with adversity. You are absolutely excluded from all
contemplation of results. It was your deceased friend's right to make
the will; it is yours simply to see it executed. Now, in opposition to
this primary class of actions stands another, such as the habit of
intoxication, which are known to be wrong only by observing the
consequences. If drunkenness did not terminate, after some years, in
producing bodily weakness, irritability in the temper, and so forth,
it would _not_ be a vicious act. And accordingly, if a transcendent
motive should arise in favour of drunkenness, as that it would enable
you to face a degree of cold, or contagion, else menacing to life, a
duty would arise, _pro hac vice_, of getting drunk. We had an amiable
friend who suffered under the infirmity of cowardice; an awful coward
he was when sober; but, when very drunk, he had courage enough for the
Seven Champions of Christendom. Therefore, in an emergency, where he
knew himself suddenly loaded with the responsibility of defending a
family, we approved highly of his getting drunk. But to violate a
trust could never become right under any change of circumstances.
Coleridge, however, altogether overlooked this distinction; which, on
the other hand, stirring in Paley's mind, but never brought out to
distinct consciousness, nor ever investigated, nor limited, has
undermined his system. Perhaps it is not very important how a man
_theorizes_ upon morality; happily for us all, God has left no man in
such questions practically to the guidance of his under