MORALITY MADE EASY.

I WONDER if anybody nowadays reads Pascal's Provincial Letters? Much comfort may be drawn therefrom for the worldly-minded. Here the writer of other men's themes finds spiritual comfort, nor is any one so gifted with a talent for lying that he may not here find a sufficient excuse. I mean, of course, in the arguments of the Jesuits therein quoted, which are certainly irrefragable, unless you choose to believe the contrary.

I was first apprised of the usefulness of this scheme of ethics by the explanation of the moral principle on which one of my friends wrote themes for the less-favored members of his class. His argument is in this wise:-

There are only two men whom the action can harm, and in so far as it harms them it is wrong (vide Locke). Now, if we can prove that it actually produces more pleasure than pain in the long run, or, in other words, that it produces less harm than good towards these two, we shall be justified in the action.

Now the argument naturally divides itself into two parts: the effects on the writer and on the "writee." First, of the latter.

The person for whom the theme is written has, it is to be presumed, either less ability or less power of application than the person whom he employs, therefore he might, should he be thrown on his own resources, get conditioned in the subject, and the result of this would be a decrease of self-respect. Now, this would bring about more moral injury than the other alternative, and, therefore, the conduct of the buyer of themes is morally justifiable.

Second, the conduct of the writer is justifiable. Let me give the instance of my friend, for whose spiritual comfort this is partly written, though partly, of course, to encourage others to go and do likewise. I will give it in his own words. He says:-

"My circumstances are not affluent, and were it not for the pecuniary emolument of my present employment I should have to deny myself many aids to the spiritual life, e. g. I find that I can enjoy fashionable church privileges in Boston, which I should otherwise be obliged to forego, to the very great detriment of my moral nature; and many other things of like sort. Now, can any one doubt," he went on, "that the spiritual gain more than outweighs the spiritual loss in this case, to say nothing of the fine example of my public acts of virtue, while these private peccadilloes (only so when considered per se) are confined to the sight of but two at most?"

Writing themes for others is highly moral, and beneficial to all concerned, and concerns no one else. Q. E. D.

This is only one illustration of the marvellous virtues of casuistry as it may be learned from M. Pascal's book. Other applications may be made to almost all cases where it is desirable. For example, lying to all members of the Faculty is justifiable; and consider for a moment, O reader!

how "important, if true," this assertion will be to you. I proceed to demonstrate.

Lying to the Faculty cannot injure the Faculty, for it, being a corporation, has no soul, and therefore is incapable of moral harm. It does not injure the individual, but on the contrary puts him, in the true spirit of democracy, on a level with his brothers who spread a veil before the glaring light of truth for fear of injury to their eyes. The person who tells the truth to the Faculty suffers yet another moral injury, for, seeing himself suffering for the same thing for which others escape scot-free, he loses his sense of immutable justice, and regards himself as a wronged person, which state, I suppose, no one will deny, is unfavorable to good morals.

Again, it being presupposed that we are not as simple in our conversation as a Memorial lunch, if we tell the truth we are supposed to mean much more than we really say, and so really and knowingly allow a falsehood to be inferred. As a matter of fact, the only way to convince certain people of the truth of a statement, as is well known, is to violently affirm the contrary.

In order to allow persons to infer the truth we must often "prevaricate." And when the advantage is undoubted we are perfectly justified.

But it would be idle to enumerate the many advantages of this system of ethics. In brief, by means of it a man may realize the glorious rule of the convent of the Thelemites in Rabelais, -

DO WHAT THOU WILT;and I will engage to prove that any action that any one may take a fancy to is at least not wrong according to the glorious doctrine of probabilities, the last apotheosis of this philanthropic system.

B. W. W.BY the kindness of Miss Eliza Susan Quincy, of Boston, the Institute of 1770 has been in receipt of five volumes of records which have been missing for some time. Some of the records are very interesting from their antiquity, and contain autographs of many eminent men who were members of the Society when in College. The volumes are of the following dates: 1770 to 1777, 1781 to 1790, 1791 to 1803, 1803 to 1813, and 1861 to 1864. About fifty years are still missing, and it is to be hoped that they may be recovered.