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Serious Reflections During the Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe: With His Vision of the Angelick World
Secondly, some by ignorance and want of judgment to manage their affairs are brought to poverty and distress. These may be honest men, notwith standing their weakness, for I won’t undertake that none of our honest men shall be fools. ‘Tis true the good man is the wise man as to the main part of wisdom, which is included in his piety; but many a religious man, who would not do any wrong wilfully to his neighbour, is obliged at last to injure both his own family and other people’s for want of discretion to guide him in his affairs, and to judge for himself; and therefore I dare not tax all our fools with being knaves, nor will I say but such a man may be honest. Some will say that such a man should not venture into business which he is not able to manage, and therefore ‘twas the vice of his understanding, and, like the case in the first article, is excusing a fault with a fault.
I cannot allow this, for if I am asked why a fool ventures into trade, I answer, because he is a fool, not because he is a knave.
If fools could their own ignorance discern,
They’d be no longer fools, because they’d learn.
If you would convince a man that he wants discretion, you must give him discretion to be convinced; till then he cannot know he has it not, because he has it not. No man is answerable either to God or man for that which he never was master of. The most proper expression that ever I met with in this nature, was of a certain idiot or natural which a gentleman of my acquaintance kept in his family, who being on his deathbed, was observed to be very pensive and much concerned about dying. The gentleman sent a minister to him, who, as well as he could to his understanding, discoursed with him about death and judgment to come. The poor creature, who was hardly ever able to give a rational answer to a question before, after hearing him very attentively, broke out into tears with this expression – that he hoped God would not require anything of him that He had not given him judgment to understand. Whatever it may be as to the soul, I am positive, in the case of human affairs, no man is answerable to man for any more than his discretion. Events are not in our power; a man may be nicely honest in life, though he may be weak enough in judgment.
Thirdly, some are ruined, and are yet merely passive, being either defrauded and cheated by knaves, or plundered and rifled by thieves, or by immediate casualties, as fire, enemies, storms, floods, and the like; these are things which neither touch the man’s honesty nor his discretion. Thus Job was, by God’s permission and the agency of the devil, reduced in a moment from a plentiful estate to be as naked as he came out of his mother’s womb. I would fain ask those who say no man can be an honest man if he does not pay his debts, who paid Job’s debts if he owed any, and where was his dishonesty if he did not pay them? I still readily grant that he cannot be an honest man who does not pay his debts if he can; but if otherwise, then the words ought to be altered, and they should say, he cannot be an honest man who borrows any money, or buys anything upon his credit; and this cannot be true.
But since I have led myself into the argument, I cannot but make a small digression concerning people who fail in trade. I conceive the greatest error of such is their terror about breaking, by which they are tempted while their credit is good, though their bottom be naught, to push farther in, expecting, or at least hoping, by the profits of some happy voyage, or some lucky hit, as they call it, to retrieve their circumstances, and stand their ground.
I must confess I cannot vindicate the honesty of this; for he who, knowing his circumstances to be once naught, and his bottom worn out, ought not in justice to enter into any man’s debt, for then he trades on their risk, not on his own, and yet trades for his own profits, not theirs. This is not fair, because he deceives the creditor, who ventures his estate on that bottom which he supposes to be good, and the other knows it not. Nay, though he really pays this creditor, he is not honest; for, in conscience, his former creditors had a right to all his effects in proportion to their debts; and if he really pays one all, and the rest but a share, ‘tis a wrong to the whole.
I would therefore advise all tradesmen who find their circumstances declining, as soon, at least, as they first discern themselves to be incapable of paying their debts, if not while yet they can pay every one all, make a full stop, and call all people together; if there is enough to pay them all, let them have it; if not let them have their just shares of it. By this means you will certainly have God’s blessing, and the character of an honest man left to begin again with; and creditors are often prevailed with, in consideration of such a generous honesty, to throw back something to put such a man in a posture to live again, or by further voluntary credit and friendship to uphold him. This is much better also with respect to interest, as well as honesty, than to run on to all extremities, till the burden falls too heavy either for debtor or creditor to bear. This would prevent many of the extremities, which, I say, puts the honesty of a man to so extraordinary a trial.
An honest principle would certainly dictate to the man, if it were consulted with, that when he knows he is not able to pay, it is not lawful for him to borrow. Taking credit is a promise of payment: a promise of payment is tacitly understood, and he cannot be honest who promises what he knows he cannot perform, as I shall note more at large on another head. But if the man be paid, yet it was not an honest act; ‘twas deceiving the man, and making him run a greater risk than he knew of, and such a risk as he would not have run had he known your circumstances and bottom as you do; so that here is deceit upon deceit.
This I know is a disputed point, and a thing which a great many practise who pass for very honest men in the world, but I like it not the better for that; I am very positive, that he who takes my goods on the foot of his credit, when, if he should die the next day, he knows his estate will not pay me five shillings in the pound, though he should not die, but does pay me at the time appointed, is as much guilty of a fraud as if he actually robbed my house. Credit is a received opinion of a man’s honesty and ability, his willingness to pay, and his having wherewith to pay; and he who wants either of these, his credit is lame. Men won’t sell their goods to a litigious, quarrelsome man, though he be never so rich, nor to a needy man, though he be never so honest. Now if all the world believe that I am honest and able, and I know that I am not the last, I cannot be the first if I take their goods upon credit; ‘tis vain to pretend men trade upon the general risk of men’s appearance, and the credit of common fame, and all men have an equal hazard. I say no; men may venture their estates in the hands of a flourishing bankrupt, and he by virtue of his yet unshaken credit is trusted; but he cannot be honest that takes this credit, because he knows his circumstances are quite otherwise than they are supposed to be, that the man is deceived, and he is privy to the deceit.
This digression is not so remote from the purpose as I expected when I began it: the honesty that I am speaking of chiefly respects matters of commerce, of which credit and payment of debt are the most considerable branches.
There is another article in trade, which many very honest men have made familiar to themselves, which yet, I think, is in no case to be defended, and that is relating to counterfeit money. Custom, before the old money was suppressed in England, had prevailed so far upon honesty, that I have seen some men put all their brass money among their running cash, to be told over in every sum they paid, in order to have somebody or other take it; I have heard many people own they made no scruple of it, but I could never find them give one good reason to justify the honesty of it.
First, they say it comes for money, and it ought to go so: to which I answer, that is just as good a reason as this: A has cheated me, and therefore I may cheat B. If I have received a sum of money for good, and knowing not that any of it is otherwise offer it in payment to another, this is just and honest; but if, on this other man’s telling it over, he returns me a piece of brass or counterfeit money which I change again, and afterwards, knowing this to be such, offer the same piece to another, I know no worse fraud in its degree in the world, and I doubt not to prove it so beyond contradiction.
If the first person did not take this piece of money, it was because, being both watchful and skilful, he could discover it; and if I offer it to another, ‘tis with an expectation that he, being either less watchful or less skilful, shall overlook it, and so I shall make an advantage of my neighbour’s ignorance, or want of care.
I’ll put some parallel cases to this, to illustrate it. Suppose a blind man comes into a shop to buy goods of me, and giving me a guinea to change, I shall give him the remainder in bad money, would not everybody say ‘twas a barbarous thing? Why, the other is all one, for if the person be ignorant of money, he is blind as to the point in hand; and nothing can be more unfair than to take the advantage.
Suppose, again, a young boy or a servant newly entered in trade is sent to buy goods, and by his master’s order he asks for such a commodity; and you, presuming upon the rawness of the messenger, deliver a sort of a meaner quality, and take the full price of him; would you grudge to be used scurvily for such a trick? Why, no less or better is offering brass for silver, presuming only the want of care or skill in the receiver shall pass it unobserved.
“Ay, but,” says a learned tradesman, who would be thought honester than ordinary, “ I always change it again, if it be brought back.” Yes, sir, so does a pickpocket give you your handkerchief again when you have fastened on him, and threatened him with the mob. The matter, in short, is this: if the man whom you have cheated can cheat nobody else, then no thanks to you; when he comes to you, and charges the fraud upon you, you ‘11 make satisfaction, because, if you won’t, the law will compel you to it.
But if the fraud may be earned on, as you are manifestly willing, consenting, and instrumental in it that it should, behold the consequence: your first sin against honesty is multiplied in all the hands through whom this piece of bad money knowingly so passes, till at last it happens to go single to a poor man that can’t put it off, and the wrong and injury may issue where it was wanted to buy bread for a starving family.
All the excuses I could ever meet with could never satisfy me that it can consist with honesty to put brass or copper away for gold or silver, any more than it would to give a blind messenger sand instead of sugar, or brown bread instead of white.
Of Honesty in Promises
“A man is known by his word, and an ox by his horns,” says an old English proverb. If I understand the true meaning of it, ‘tis that the honesty of a man is known by his punctually observing his word, as naturally and plainly as any creature is known by the most obvious distinction. ‘Tis the peculiar quality of an honest man, the distinguishing mark to know him by. His word or promise is as sacred to him in all his affairs in the world as the strongest obligation which can be laid on him; nor is it a thing formed by him from settled resolutions, or measures of policy taken up of course to raise or fix his reputation, but it is the native produce of his honest principle; ‘tis the consequence, and his honesty is the cause; he ceases to be honest when he ceases to preserve this solemn regard to his word.
If he gives his word, any man may depend upon it for the safety of his life or estate; he scorns to prevaricate or shift himself off from the punctual observance of it, though it be to his loss.
I can’t abate an honest man an inch in the punctual observance of a promise made upon parole if it be in the man’s possible power to perform it, because there seems to be something too base to consist with honesty in the very nature of a man that can go back from his word.
The reverence our ancestors paid to their promises, or word passed, I am of the opinion, gave that remarkable brand of infamy and scandal upon the affront of giving the lie. A gentleman, which is, in short, the modern term for an honest man, or a man of honour, cannot receive a greater reproach than to be told he lies; that is, that he forfeits his word, breaks his veracity; for the minute he does that he ungentlemans himself, disgraces the blood of his family, degenerates from his ancestors, and commences rake, scoundrel, and anything.
Some people, who have run their points of honour to the extremes, are of the opinion that this affront of the lie ought not to be given to anything they call a gentleman, or that calls himself so, till he has so far exposed himself to all other degrees of infamy as to bear kicking or caning, and the like; that after this, when he breaks his word, he may be told he lies, or anything else; but till then the very thing itself is so intolerable an abuse, that the person who ventures to trespass so foully on the rules of good manners deserves not the honour of fair play for his life; but as some beasts of prey are refused the fair law of the field, and are knocked down in every hedge, so these, like bullies and mere rakes, may be pistolled in the dark and stabbed at the corner of an alley; that is to say, any measure may be used with them to dismiss them from the society of mankind, as fellows not sufferable in the commonwealth of good manners.
I do not argue for these extremes; but I instance in this to testify the veneration all good men have for the word or promise of an honest man, and the esteem which the integrity of the mind, expressed by a zealous regard to the words of the mouth, has obtained in the world. The French, when they express themselves in vindication of their honour, always bring it about by this, Je suis homme de parole, I am an honest man, or a man of my word; that is, I am a man that may be trusted upon my parole, for I never break my word.
Such was the value put upon the promises of men in former time, that a promise of payment of money was recoverable in our courts by law, till the inconveniences proved so many that an Act was made on purpose to restrain it to a sum under ten pounds. But to this day if a man promises marriage to a woman, especially if she has granted him any favours upon that condition, the laws of the land, which therein have regard to the laws of honour, will oblige him to make it good, and allow it to be a sufficient plea to forbid his marrying with anybody else.
There are innumerable instances of the veneration all nations pay to the expressive article of human veracity. In the war you meet with frequent instances of prisoners dismissed by a generous enemy upon their parole, either to pay their ransom, or to procure such or such conditions, or come back and surrender themselves prisoners; and he that should forfeit this parole would be posted in the enemy’s army, and hissed out of his own.
I know nothing a wise man would not choose to do rather than, by breaking his word, give the world such an undeniable testimony of his being a knave. This is that good name which Solomon says is better than life, and is a precious ointment, and which when a man has once lost he has nothing left worth keeping. A man may even hang himself out of the way, for no man that looks like a man will keep his company.
When a man has once come to breaking his word, no man that has any value for his reputation cares to be seen in his company; but all good men shun him, as if he were infected with the plague.
There are men, indeed, who will be exceeding punctual to their words and promises, who yet cannot be called honest men, because they have other vices and excursions that render them otherways wicked. These give their testimony to the beauty of honesty by choosing it as the best mask to put a gloss upon their actions, and conceal the other deformities of their lives; and so honesty, like religion, is made use of to disguise the hypocrite, and raise a reputation upon the shadow, by the advantage it takes of the real esteem the world has of the substance. I say of this counterfeit honesty, as is said of religion in like cases. If honesty was not the most excellent attainment, ‘t would not be made use of as the most specious pretence; nor is there a more exquisite way for a man to play the hypocrite, than to pretend an extraordinary zeal to the performance of his promises; because, when the opinion of any man’s honesty that way has spread in the thoughts of men, there is nothing so great but they will trust him with, nor so hard but they will do it for him.
All men reverence an honest man: the knaves stand in awe of him, fools adore him, and wise men love him; and thus is virtue its own reward.
Honest men are in more danger from this one hypocrite than from twenty open knaves; for these have a mark placed upon them by their general character, as a buoy upon a rock to warn strangers from venturing upon it. But the hypocrites are like a pit covered over, like shoals under water, and danger concealed which cannot be seen. I must confess I have found these the most dangerous, and have too deeply suffered by throwing myself on their protestations of honesty. The esteem I always entertained of the most beautiful gift God has bestowed, or man could receive, has made me the easier to be deceived with the resemblance of it.
So much as I, or any one else, by the viciousness of our own nature, or the prevailing force of accidents, snares, and temptations, have deviated from this shining principle, so far as we have been foolish as well as wicked, so much we have to repent of towards our Maker, and be ashamed of towards our neighbour.
For my part, I am never backward to own, let who will be the reader of these sheets, that to the dishonour of my Maker, and the just scandal of my own honesty, I have not paid that due regard to the rectitude of this principle which my own knowledge has owned to be its due; let those who have been juster to themselves, and to the Giver of it, rejoice in the happiness, rather than triumph over the infirmity. But let them be sure they have been juster on their own parts; let them be positive that their own integrity is untainted, and would abide all the trials and racks that a ruined fortune, strong temptations, and deep distresses, could bring it into; let them not boast till these dangers are past, and they put their armour off; and if they can do it, then I will freely acknowledge they have less need of repentance than I.
Not that I pretend, as I noted before, and shall often repeat, that these circumstances render my failing, or any man’s else, the less a sin, but they make the reason why we that have fallen should rather be pitied than reproached by those who think they stand, because, when the same assaults are made upon the chastity of their honour, it may be every jot as likely to be prostituted as their neighbour’s.
And such is the folly of scandal, as well as the blindness of malice, that it seldom fixes reproach upon the right foot. I have seen so much of it, with respect to other people, as well as to myself, that it gives me a very scoundrel opinion of all those people whom I find forward to load their neighbours with reproach. Nothing is more frequent in this case than to run away with a piece of a man’s character, in which they err, and do him wrong, and leave that part of him untouched which is really black, and would bear it; this makes me sometimes, when with the humblest and most abasing thoughts of myself I look up, and betwixt God and my own soul, cry out, “What a wretch am I!” at the same time smile at the hare-brained enemy, whose tongue, tipped with malice, runs ahead of his understanding, and missing the crimes for which I deserve more than he can inflict, reproaches me with those I never committed. Methinks I am ready to call him back, like the huntsman, when the dogs run upon the foil, and say, “Hold, hold, you are wrong; take him here, and you have him.”
I question not but ‘tis the same with other people; for when malice is in the heart, reproach generally goes a mile before consideration, and where is the honesty of the man all this while? This is trampling upon my pride, sed majori fastu, but with greater pride; ‘tis exposing my dishonesty, but with the highest knavery; ‘tis a method no honest man will take, and when taken, no honest man regards; wherefore, let none of these sons of slander take satisfaction in the frequent acknowledgments I am always ready to make of my own failing, for that humility with which I always find cause to look into my own heart, where I see others worse, and more guilty of crimes than they can lay to my charge, yet makes me look back upon their weakness with the last contempt, who fix their impotent charges where there is not room to take hold, and run away with the air and shadow of crimes never committed.
I have instanced this, not at all on my own account, for ‘tis not worth while, for if I am injured, what ‘s that to troubling the world with when I am forgotten? But while I am examining the nicest article in the world, honesty, I cannot but lay down these three heads from the preceding observations: –
He who is forward to reproach the infirmities of other men’s honesty, is very near a breach of his own.
He that hastily reproaches another without sufficient ground, cannot be an honest man.
Where there may be sufficient ground of reproach, yet an honest man is always tender of his neighbour’s character from the sense of his own frailty.
But I return to honesty, as it affects a man’s pledging his word, which is the counterpart of his principle, and this because, as I said, I should chiefly regard this honesty as it concerns human affairs, conversation, and negotiation.
And here I meet with a tradesman come just in from dunning one of his neighbours. “Well, I have been at a place for money,” says he, “but I can get none. There ‘s such an one, he passes for an honest man, but I am sure he is a great rogue to me, for he has promised me my money a long time, but puts me off still from time to time; he makes no more of breaking his word, than of drinking a glass of beer. I am sure he has told me forty lies already. This is one of your honest men; if all such honest men were hanged, we should have a better trade.” And thus he runs on.
If all such honest men were hanged, they that were left might have a better trade; but how many of them would there be?
Now, though I shall in no way vindicate men’s hasty promises absolutely to perform what is doubtful in the event, yet I cannot agree that every man who, having promised a payment, does not perform it to his time, is a knave or a liar. If it were so, the Lord have mercy upon three parts of the city.
Wherefore, to state this matter clearly, it must be taken a little to pieces, and the articles spoken to apart.
First. Without question, when a man makes a promise of payment to another on a set day, knowing in his own thoughts that it is not probable he should be capable to comply with it, or really designing not to comply with it, or not endeavouring to comply with it, ‘tis a deceit put upon the party, ‘tis a premeditated formal lie, the man that made it is a stranger to honesty; he is a knave, and everything that is base and bad. But,
Secondly. Promises ought to be understood, both by the person to whom and the person by whom they are made, as liable to those contingencies that all human affairs and persons are liable to, as death, accidents, disappointments, and disorder. Thus, if a man who ought to pay me to-day tells me, “Sir, I cannot comply with you to-day; but if you call for it next week, you shall have it;” if I may put this answer into plainer English, and I suppose the man to be an honest man, I cannot understand his meaning otherwise than thus: –
“Sir, I acknowledge your money is due. I have not cash enough by me to pay you to-day, but I have several running bills, and several persons who have promised me money, which I doubt not I shall receive against such a time; and if you call then, I make no question but I shall be able to do it; and if it is possible for me to pay you, I will do it at that time without fail.”
I confess it were as well to express themselves thus at large in all the appointments people make for payment, and would the persons who make them consider it, they would do so; but custom has prevailed in our general way of speaking, whereby all things that are subject to the common known contingents of life, or visible in the circumstances of the case, are understood without being expressed. For example: –
I make an appointment of meeting a man positively at such a town, such a certain day or hour. If I were talking to a Turk or a pagan that knows nothing, or believes nothing of supreme Providence, I would say – If the Lord of heaven and earth, that governs all my actions, please to preserve and permit me. But when I am talking to a Christian, it should seem to be so universally supposed that every appointment is subjected and submits to the government of Providence, that the repetition would be needless; and that when a man promises positively to meet, ‘tis with a general sub-intellig-itur, a reserve as natural as Nature itself, to the Divine permission. All men know, that unless I am alive I cannot come there, or if I am taken sick, both which may easily happen, I shall disappoint him. And, therefore, if he should urge me again to come without fail, and I should reply, “I won’t fail if I am alive and well,” the man ought to take it for an affront, and ask me if I take him for a fool, to think if I am taken sick, I should come with my bed at my back, or if death should intervene, he had occasion to speak with my ghost.
In this sense, a tradesman who promises payment of money at a set time; first, ‘tis supposed he has it not now in his hands, because he puts off the person demanding to a further day, and promises to comply with it then. This promise, therefore, can be understood no otherwise than that he expects to receive money by that time. Now, if this man, by the like disappointments from other men, or any other involuntary casualty, is really and bonâ fide unable to comply with the time of promised payment, I can not see but this may befall an honest man, and he neither designing to fail when he promised, not being able to prevent the accident that obliged him to do it, nor in any way voluntary in the breach, is not, in my opinion, guilty of a lie, or breach of his honour, though he did not make those verbal reserves in the promises he had given.
If every man who cannot comply with promised payments should be thus branded with lying and dishonesty, then let him who is without the sin cast the stone, for nobody else ought to do it.
‘Tis true, there is a difference between an accident and a practice; that is, in short, there is a difference between him who meets with a great many occasions thus to break his word, and he that meets with but few; but if it be a crime, he that commits it once is no more an honest man than he that commits it forty times; and if it be not a crime, he that does it forty times is as honest as he that has occasion to do it but once.
But let no man take encouragement from hence to be prodigal of his word, and slack in his performance; for this nice path is so near the edge of the pit of knavery, that the least slip lets you fall in.
These promises must have abundance of circumstances to bring the honest man out of the scandal.
As, first. The disappointments which occasioned this breach of his word must have been unforeseen and unexpected, otherwise the expectation of performing his promise was ill grounded, and then his honesty is answerable for the very making the promise, as well as the breaking it.
Second. No endeavours must be wanting to comply with the promise, otherwise ‘tis wrong to say, “I am disappointed, and can’t make good my word.” The man ought to say, “Sir, I have disappointed myself by my negligence or wilfulness, and have obliged myself to break my word;” or, in English, “Sir, I am a knave; for though I made you a promise which I might have performed, I took no care about it, not valuing the forfeiture of my word.”
If, then, the case is so nice, though, in the strictness of speaking, such a disappointment may oblige an honest man to break his word, yet every honest man, who would preserve that character to himself, ought to be the more wary, and industriously avoid making such absolute unconditional promises, because we are to avoid the circumstances of offence.
But as to the nature of the thing, ‘tis plain to me that a man may in such cases be obliged to break his word unwillingly; and nothing can be a fraud or dishonest action in that case, which is not either voluntary in itself, or the occasion voluntarily procured.
Of Relative Honesty
As honesty is simple and plain, without gloss and pretence, so it is universal. He that may uphold an untainted reputation in one particular, may be justly branded with infamy in another. A man may be punctual in his dealings, and a knave in his relations; honest in his warehouse, and a knave at his fireside; he may be a saint in his company, a devil in his family; true to his word, and false to his friendship; but whosoever he be, he is no honest man. An honest man is all of a piece the whole contexture of his life; his general conduct is genuine, and squared according to the rules of honesty; he never runs into extremes and excesses on one hand or other.
