Laftly, He explains the difference between adoption and

chase.

pur

The 12th chapter turns upon the fubject of promes; what they are, how far they are obligatory: that they al ways relate to future time; that they do not affect the heirs of the promifer. That there is no obligation from promises where there is no liberty; or where the thing promifed cannot poffibly be performed; where it is unlawful, or arbitrary, or contrary to a former promife. He demonftrates that the obligation of a promise may be in fufpence; that promises are not to be evaded by a fuppofed tacit condition of circumstances continuing the fame, that is, when the time of performance comes, it shall be as convenient to the promiser to make good his word, as it was at the time of promifing: That promifes of infants, ideots, and madmen are not binding: That promises become binding by acceptance; fo that a promife, after it is made, may be recalled without injustice, provided this revocation is made before the promife is accepted. That figns of confent, in promises, and acceptance, are ne ceffary; and the best established declarations of either, are words or writing: That fear makes a promise void in fome inftances and not in others: That where fome mistake inthe promiser is the only real and true caufe of his making the promise, the obligation of fuch promife is void: That we are obliged to ftand to a promife which another perfon makes for us, where we have given him, either a general commiffion to act for us in all things, or a particular commiffion to act in this affair, Then he describes what promifes may and what may not be recalled, when they pass through a third hand; and points out the effects of acceptance by another, either with or without commiffion.

From promises he proceeds to the confideration of contracts, including the nature and obligations of a loan of inconfumable goods, of a commiffion, of a charge. He obferves, that contracts of mutual benefit, either fhare the matter or make it common that the incapacity of either party to be obliged, voids a contract: that if either party has received more than he has given an equivalent for, he has received what the other

never defigned or confented should be his, conesequently he has no claim to what he has fo received, and the contract is either void, or must be corrected: That equality in the previous acts, relates to knowledge and freedom; in the principal act, to knowledge of the price: that equality in the matter relates to faults in the goods, or errors in the price, unknown to either party. He confiders the notion of price, and the variations of it; and concludes, that the want of a thing is the foundation of its price, confequently the price will vary, as the want varies. He fums up the advantages arifing from the introduction of money; proves that metals are the most proper materials for money; and that the use of money varies the price of goods, by being in itself either scarce or in plenty. Then he enlarges upon the nature of buying and felling, letting and renting, letting and hiring of labour, and the loan of confumable goods. He afterwards defends the practice of taking intereft for money, though contrary to the Mofaic law. Explains a question relating to a loan, when the value of money is changed before the day of payment. Having difcuffed this point, he makes a tranfition to the nature of infurance, mixed contracts, lofs and gain in partnership, and partnership mixed with infurance. He confiders a contract of one party's bearing the whole lofs without any share in the gain; he compares work and money in partnerfhip: fhews how contracts are diffolved; explains the nature and obligations of contracts of chance, fuch as wagers or gaming of any fort: Demonftrates the invalidity of contracts by which we engage to give money, or fome other thing of value, or to do some beneficial act, in confideration, that he, to whom we so engage, fhall give us, or shall do for us, what we might have claimed without any such contract; as well as the invalidity of thofe contracts where the matter is unlawful.

In the 14th chapter we find a very curious differtation on the nature of oaths, the obligation to fidelity and veracity, the concealments that are not inconfiftent with this obligation. We are allowed by our filence to conceal what we have no mind to discover, provided the perfon who wants to make the

discovery

difcovery had no previous right to know the truth.

We

are at liberty in directing our difcourfe to a man, as if we defigned to inform him of the truth, to speak what we know is untrue, provided we are fure that he waves his right of knowing it; thus a prifoner may plead not guilty to a crime, though he is confcious of having committed it, because the court does not defire to know the truth, unless they can make it out without his immediate confeffion. A phyfician is not bound to tell the truth to his patient, nor a commander to his foldiers; nor is it unlawful to deceive infants, ideots, and madmen, for their own benefit, or that of others; nor for an author to write fables; nor for a man to diffemble for certain purposes, such as shutting his door for the fake of being private, that people may imagine he is not at home. Thus a ftudent may lawfully fecure himself from interruption, an author from duns and bailiffs; and a general may fairly foil his adversary by the ftratagems of war. A man may deceive an impertinent intruder, who liftens to private conversation, and an impudent fellow who infifts upon knowing what he has no right to know. In confidering the nature of oaths, the Doctor obferves, It was not uncommon, amongst the an-, ⚫tients, for persons to fwear by other things, without the ' mention of God, as by the fun, the stars, or the heaven; C by their own life, the life of their children, or the life of their prince. Oaths by the fun, the stars, or the heavens, feem to have been introduced, when these were imagined to be divinities. But fuch an oath in the mouth of a ⚫ christian looks like profaneness: and I fhould not so much enquire, whether he was guilty of perjury in not keeping. it, as whether he was not guilty of affronting God in taking it. Unless indeed where a person, out of reverence to the name of God, abstains from using it, and means, when <he fwears by heaven, to fwear by that God, whom we have 'been taught to call our father, who is in heaven. Sander'fon imagines, that to fwear by our own life, or the life of our children, or the life of our prince, is tacitly swearing by that God, from whom these bleffings were received. But, certainly amongst the antients, who used these forms, this,

I

was

was not supposed to be the import of them. The juror ⚫ meant indeed to invoke the divine vengeance upon himself, if he falfified; but he did this by devoting to deftruction what was, or what he pretended to be, of all things most dear to him. This, which is the opinion of Grotius, appears to be true from fome paffages, that Puffendorf has cited from the antients for this purpofe. When Regulus, as the ftory is related by Pliny, had perfuaded Verania, that she would recover from her illness; fhe called for her will, and made • Regulus her heir; it appears from the fequel by what sort of an oath he had attefted the certainty of her recovery; for when Verania was foon after this in her laft extremities, fhe exclaimed against him as a perjured villain, who had forfworn himself by the life and fafety of his fon. Pliny's reflection upon it, explains the intent of fuch an oath. Regulus, fays he, makes ufe of this ftratagem not more frequently than wickedly; whilft he every day deceives the gods, to whose wrath he has devoted this unhappy son of his. Lyfias, in one of his orations, introduces the daughter of Diagiton, and widow of Diodotus, offering to fwear by the children both of her former and her fecond marriage, • that Diodotus had committed to the truft of Diagiton five talents; to which fhe adds, I am neither fo abandoned nor fo covetous, as to leave the curfe of perjury upon my children for the fake only of leaving them a maintenance. • When the king of the Scythians is fick, he fends, fays Hero• dotus, for three of the most approved public diviners to enquire into the occafion of his diftemper: and their ufual anfwer is, that fuch or fuch a perfon has forfworn himself by the royal palace; for amongst the Scythians, this oath by the king's palace is reckoned of all others the moft facred. From this last mentioned form we may collect, both that swearing by the king's palace was understood to be the fame as fwearing by the king's perfon; in like manner as our Sa⚫viour interprets an oath by the temple to be an oath by him that dwelleth therein. And we may from thence collect likewife, that fuch an oath, by the king's perfon, was understood to devote his perfon to fome calamity, if the juror • falfified.'

He

He fays, credit is due to an idolater's oath, provided the juror is firmly perfuaded that the being by which he fwears is the true God; that oaths may be taken by proxy; and then he fettles the difference between an oath and a vow. By an oath God is called upon to fee the performance of what we promife, or to the truth of what we affirm, and to punish us if we are found to be perfidious and falfe: fo that an oath does not, properly, contain in it any new and diftinct obligation, but only confirms the obligation of fome other act. But a vow is a pact, in which there are no others concerned, befides God and the perfon who makes the vow. It is a promise made directly to God himfelf, and is therefore fuch an act, as produces a diftinct obligation upon the maker of it. He allows that an oath is void, when the pact is fo with which it is joined: that an oath to a robber is binding, if there is nothing unlawful in the matter of the oath, nor any injuftice in the manner of procuring it. That the effect of an oath does not extend to the heirs of the juror; and that oaths to do harm, are not binding as vows.

The 15th chapter concerning marriage, we, in a particular manner, recommend to the perufal of our readers of all denominations, whether married or unmarried, whether difpofed or averse to matrimony. They will find that polygamy is inconfiftent with the notion of marriage; that the principal end of each party in marriage, is the production of children from the body of the other, and the happiness that each expects in the conjugal affection of the other. Therefore that in contracting marriage they make over the full poffeffion of their bodies to one another; so that a man cannot enter into the fame contract with two or more women at the fame time, because he must make over his whole body as an indivisible property to each, confequently be guilty of a palpable contradiction. Nor can his engagement, of confulting the happinefs of his first wife, be fulfilled, if he bestows any part of his affection upon another woman, or alienates any part of his fortune from the children of the first marriage. Dr. Rutherforth feems to think that polygamy was forbidden in the mofaic law, notwithstanding that precept in Deuternomy; if a

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man