Даниэль Дефо - Serious Reflections During the Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe - With His Vision of the Angelick World

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 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.