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

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.

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.

I confess I find this thing which they call relative honesty very little thought of in the world, and that which is still worse, ‘tis very little understood. I ‘11 bring it down to but a few examples, some of which frequently happen among us, and will therefore be the more familiarly received.

There are relative obligations entailed on us in our family circumstances, which are just debts, and must be paid, and which, in a word, a man can no more be honest if he does not make conscience of discharging, than he can in the case of the most unquestionable debts between man and man.

The debts from children to parents, and from wives to their husbands, are in a manner relatively changed, and the obligation transferred into the order of religious duties. God, the guide and commander of all subordination, has, as it were, taken that part into His own hand. ‘Tis rather called a duty to Him than a relative duty only. But if men take this for a discharge to them of all relative obligations to wives and to children, or that God had less required one than the other, they must act upon very wrong principles.

Nature, indeed, dictates in general a man’s providing subsistence for his family, and he is declared to be so far from a Christian that he is worse than an infidel that neglects it. But there are other parts of our obligations which honesty calls upon us to perform.

A wife and children are creditors to the father of the family, and he cannot be an honest man that does not discharge his debt to them, any more than he could if he did not repay money borrowed to a stranger; and not to lead my reader on to intricate and disputed particulars, I instance principally in those that nobody can dispute, as, first, education. By this I mean, not only putting children to school, which some parents think is all they have to do with or for their children, and indeed with some is all that they know how to do, or are fit to do; I say, I do not mean this only, but several other additional cares, as: (1.) Directing what school, what parts of learning are proper for them, what improvements they are to be taught; (2.) studying the genius and capacities of their children in what they teach them. Some children will voluntarily learn one thing, and can never be forced to learn another, and for want of which observing the genius of children we have so many learned blockheads in the world, who are mere scholars, pedants, and no more. (3.) But the main part of this debt which relative honesty calls upon us to pay to our children, is the debt of instruction, the debt of government, the debt of example. He that neglects to pay any of these to his family is a relative knave, let him value himself upon his honesty in paying his other debts as much as he will.

‘Tis a strange notion men have of honesty and of their being honest men, as if it related to nothing but tradesmen or men who borrow and lend, or that the title was obtained by an ordinary observance of right and wrong between man and man. Tis a great mistake; the name of an honest man is neither so easily gained, nor so soon lost as these men imagine. David was a very honest man, notwithstanding his passion and revenge in the case of Nabal, his murder in the case of Uriah, or his adultery in the case of Bathsheba. The intent and main design of his life was upright; and whenever he fell by the power of that temptation that overcame him, he rose again by repentance.