be all enumerated in the defcription, feldom all meet in the fame fubject. In the inftance under confideration, the age and temperature of one drunkard may have little to fear from inflammations of luft or anger; the fortune of a second may not be injured by the expence; a third may have no family to be difquieted by his irregularities; and a fourth may poffefs a constitution fortified against the poifon of ftrong liquors. But if, as we always ought to do, we comprehend within the consequences of our conduct the mischief and tendency of the example, the above circumftances, however fortunate for the individual, will be found to vary the guilt of his intemperance, lefs, probably, than he supposes. The moralift may expoftulate with him thus: Although the waste of time and money be of finall importance to you, it may be of the utmost to fome one or other whom your fociety corrupts, Repeated, or long continued exceffes, which hurt not your health, may be fatal to your companion. Although you have neither wife, nor child, nor parent, to lament your absence from home, or expect your return to it with terror; other families, in which hufbands and fathers have been invited to share in your ebriety, or encouraged to imitate it, may juftly lay their misery or ruin

at

at your

door. This will hold good, whether the perfon feduced be feduced immediately by you, or the vice be propagated from you to him through feveral intermediate examples. All these confiderations it is neceffary to affemble, to judge truly of a vice, which ufually meets with milder names, and more indulgence, than it deferves.

I omit thofe outrages upon one another, and upon the peace and safety of the neighbourhood, in which drunken revels often end; and alfo. those deleterious and maniacal effects, which ftrong liquors produce upon particular conftitutions; becaufe, in general propofitions concern ing drunkenness, no confequences fhould be included, but what are conftant enough to be generally expected. '.

Drunkenness is repeatedly forbidden by St.Paul; "Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excefs.' "Let us walk honeftly as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness." "Be not deceived: "neither fornicators--nor drunkards, nor re"vilers, nor extortioners, fhall inherit the king“dom of God." Epb. v. 18. Rom. xiii. 13, I Cor. vi. 9, 10. The fame Apostle likewife condemns drunkenness, as peculiarly inconfiftent with the Chriftian profeffion: They that be "drunken, are drunken in the night; but let

us

us,

who are of the day, be fober." 1. Theff. v. 7,8. We are not concerned with the argument; the words amount to a prohibition of drunken, nefs; and the authority is conclufive.

It is a question of fome importance, how far drunkenness is an excufe for the crimes which the drunken perfon commits.

In the folution of this question, we will first fuppofe the drunken person to be altogether déprived of moral agency, that is to fay, of all reflection and forefight. In this condition, it is evident that he is no more capable of guilt than a madman; although, like him, he may be extremely mischievous. The only guilt with which he is chargeable, was incurred at the time when he voluntarily brought himself into this fituation. And as every man is refponfible for the confequences which he foresaw, or might have forefeen, and for no other, this guilt will be in proportion to the probability of fuch confequences ensuing. From which principle results the following rule, viz. that the guilt of any action in a drunken man bears the fame proportion to the guilt of the like action in a fober man, that the probability of its being the confequence of drunkenness bears to abfolute certainty. By virtue of this rule, those vices, which are the known effects

of

of drunkennefs, either in general, or upon particular conftitutions, are, in all, or in men of fuch conftitutions, nearly as criminal, as if committed with all their faculties and fenfes about them.

If the privation of reafon be only partial, the guilt will be of a mixt nature. For fo much of his felf-government as the drunkard retains, he is as refponfible then, as at any other time. He is entitled to no abatement, beyond the ftrict proportion in which his moral faculties are impaired. Now I call the guilt of the crime, if a fober man had committed it, the whole guilt. A perfon in the condition we defcribe, incurs part of this at the inftant of perpetration; and by bringing himself into fuch a condition, he incurred that fraction of the remaining part, which the danger of this confequence was of an integral certainty. For the fake of illuftration, we are at liberty to fuppofe, that a man lofes half his moral faculties by drunkennefs: this leaving him but half his refponsibility, he incurs, when he commits the action, half of the whole guilt. We will also suppose that it was known beforehand, that it was an even chance, or half a certainty, that this crime would follow his getting drunk. This makes him chargeable with half of the remainder; fo that, altogether, he is refponfible in three

three-fourths of the guilt which a fober man would have incurred by the fame action.

I do not mean that any real cafe can be reduced to numbers, or the calculation be ever made with arithmetical precifion; but these are the principles, and this the rule, by which our general adineasurement of the guilt of fuch offences fhould be regulated.

The appetite for intoxicating liquors appears to me to be almost always acquired. One proof of which is, that it is apt to return only at particular times, and places; as after dinner, in the evening, on the market day, at the market town, in fuch a company, at fuch a tavern. And this may be the reafon that, if a habit of drunkennefs be ever overcome, it is upon fome change of place, fituation, company, or profession. A man funk deep in a habit of drunkennefs, will upon fuch occafions as thefe, when he finds himself loofened from the affociations which held him faft, fometimes make a plunge, and get out. a matter of so great importance, it is well worth while, where it is in any degree practicable, to

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