and that those who speak of acts, as absolutely right, are in errour. In the common use of language, we speak of actions as expedient, when they promote some end which we have selected, and which we do not intend to have questioned. If we are prepared to put forwards the end of our actions as the Proper End of action, we call them, not expedient, but right. It may be expedient for a man to lie, in order to free himself from captivity. He may stay in captivity, because he will not tell a lie; but in this case, we say, he does what is right, and rejects what is expedient. Expedient implies, according to its etymology, a way out of difficulties. But Morality places before us a higher object than merely to escape from difficulties. She teaches us to aim at what is right. What is expedient, may be expedient as a means to what is right. It may be expedient to tell the truth, in order to rescue an innocent person from death. But we do not describe such an action properly by calling it expedient. It is much more than expedient, it is right: it is recommended, not by Expediency, but by Duty. In such cases, we can speak approvingly, not only of the action, as a right means, but of the end, as a right end. Truth is not properly commended, when it is described as a good of getting out of a difficulty, or of gaining our ends. Those who use this term, Expediency, to describe the proper end of human action, are prompted to do so by a wish to reject Terms which imply a Supreme Rule of action; they wish to recognize none but subordinate Rules determined by the Objects at which men aim. And it is true, in this sense, that whatever is expedient with a view to an end, is the right way to the end: but this does not justify the Moralist in confounding what is relatively expedient with what is absolutely right: nor in speaking of things as expedient absolutely, without pointing out the purpose which they are expedient for.

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CHAPTER XXVI.

MORAL EDUCATION.

556. THE Laws of each Community lay down certain Rules of Action, commands or prohibitions, for the members of the Community. But they do more: they direct that certain Punishments shall be inflicted on those who transgress the Law; as Fine, Imprisonment, Bodily Pain, Mutilation, Infamy, Exile, Death. And the Community, by its officers, inflicts these Punishments. It is in this manner, that the Laws become real Rules of action; and that in the minds of all men, Law-keeping and Law-breaking become objects which are sought and avoided, with the same earnestness and care as the other objects of the most powerful desires and aversions of men. The Punishment which thus gives reality to the Law, is the Sanction of the Law.

557. The Laws command what is in the community deemed right, and hence, Punishments are inflicted upon actions which are deemed wrong: although all wrong actions are not necessarily punished by Law. We have already explained (457, 458) the relation between the National Law and the National Morality. The National Law expresses certain fixed and fundamental portions of the National Morality but not the whole. Law deals with external and visible acts, such as affect men's Rights; Morality deals, besides, with acts which are right or wrong, though they do not directly affect Rights; and with internal springs of action. The Law must always be just; but there may be many things which are just, and which yet cannot be enforced by Law. The Law must prohibit only what is wrong, though it may not prohibit all that is morally wrong.

558. Since the Law must always be just, Punishments must be inflicted only on what is morally wrong. It is

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sometimes said that the sole object of Punishment is the prevention of harm to the members of the community; but this is not the conception of Punishment. Punishment implies moral transgression. Crimes are violations of Law; but Crimes are universally understood to be offenses against Morality also. If, in enforcing any law, of which the sole object were the prevention of harm to the community, some individuals were subjected to pain, these individuals being morally blameless, the pain would not be conceived as Punishment; if the infliction were to take the character of Punishment, the proceeding would be considered as intolerable. When persons, afflicted with or suspected of contagious disorders, are put in constraint for the good of the community (as in quarantine), this constraint is not called Punishment. A Law that such persons should be put to death, even though the health of the community might be so best secured, would be rejected by all men as monstrous. An object of Punishment is the prevention of Crime; but it is the prevention of Crime as Crime, and not merely as Harm.

559. Thus the Laws, with their Sanctions, express in some measure the moral judgment of the Community; and by expressing it, they impress it upon the minds of individual members of the Community. That which the Law condemns and punishes, is understood by all to be wrong; and thus, each person who lives under the Law, has a number of fixed points, which direct his mind in the determination of right and wrong. The Laws, with their Sanctions, are a part of the Moral Education of each citizen's mind.

560. As we have said, there is a National Morality, which is of wider extent, and more deeply seated in men's minds, than the written Law. The expressions of moral judgments respecting actions and characters, which are put

forth in speeches upon public occasions, in the poetry and literature of the nation, and the like, take for granted a general agreement of men on points of Morality: and such expressions of moral judgments also produce their impression on individuals; they diffuse and perpetuate the judgment which they express; and form a part of the Moral Education of the citizens.

This Moral Education of the members of a community, must be such as tends to bring the moral judgments of individuals into harmony with those of the community. In order that the business of any community may be carried on, the citizens must have their moral judgments, in a great measure at least, in harmony with the Laws, and with the general jural and moral maxims which prevail, and have prevailed, in the community. If Judges and Litigants, Governors and Subjects, Magistrates and Legislators, all believed the Laws, and the usual procedures of the State, to be unjust and wrong; they would no longer go on executing and obeying them. They would no longer speak of them with respect and magistrates who should speak disrespectfully of the Law, would not themselves be respected. The Laws being disregarded, the State would tend to dissolution. Thus, without some harmony between the moral judgments of the Community, as expressed in its Laws and Customs, and those of individuals, the continued and coherent existence of the State is impossible.

561. But though the Laws, with their Sanctions, and the public currency of moral sentiments and opinions in harmony with the Laws, form an important part of the moral education of the citizens, the moral judgments of each person are, for the most part, formed, in a still greater degree, by the influence of Parents, and other Friends, among whom childhood and youth are spent. This Domestic Teaching is the most effective portion of every one's moral

education. The moral judgments respecting actions, characters, virtues, vices, objects and rules of action, which prevail in the domestic sphere, are so mingled with the moral conceptions, in every stage of their development, that they cannot be separated and dissevered by any subsequent operations; and thus, such moral judgments are imparted to each person in his earliest years, and transmitted from generation to generation.

562. In general, this Domestic Moral Education must be in harmony with the National Morality, and the National Law; for otherwise, as we have said, men would not perform their business as citizens in such a manner as to keep up the life of the State. But yet domestic education may often be something much more varied and peculiar, than it would be, if it were the mere echo of the Law, or the repetition of public formularies of morality, with explanations and commentaries. The Morality of different nations is very different in its Rules; and still more, in the doctrines and beliefs which form the foundation of the Rules. These doctrines and beliefs are transmitted to successive generations, mainly by domestic teaching. But it may happen that a Family, belonging to one nation, dwells, even for several generations, in the country of another State; as the Jews dwell in the various states of Europe, and Christian merchants in China. In such cases, the domestic teaching may not agree with the morality of the nation among which the Family resides; but will rather be derived from the belief of the nation to which the Family belongs. Such a Family will commonly teach to its children obedience to the laws of the State of their abode; but it will instil such moral sentiments and opinions as are usual in the Nation of its origin. For such persons, the belief belonging to the scattered Nation, supersedes the doctrines locally prevalent in the State. In this case, the moral education of each person fits him, it may