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

There is a kind of murder that may be committed with the tongue, that is in its nature as cruel as that of the hand. This can never be the practice of an honest man; nay, he that practises it cannot be an honest man.

But perhaps I may come to this again, but I must go back to explain myself upon the subject a little farther in the general, and then you shall hear more of me as to the particulars.

Of Honesty in General

I have always observed, that however few the real honest men are, yet every man thinks himself and proclaims himself an honest man. Honesty, like heaven, has all men’s good word, and all men pretend to a share of it; so general is the claim, that like a jest which is spoiled by the repetition, ‘tis grown of no value for a man to swear by his faith, which is, in its original meaning, by his honesty, and ought to be understood so.

Like heaven, too, ‘tis little understood by those who pretend most to it; ‘tis too often squared according to men’s private interest, though at the same time the latitude which some men give themselves is inconsistent with its nature.

Honesty is a general probity of mind, an aptitude to act justly and honourably in all cases, religious and civil, and to all persons, superior or inferior; neither is ability or disability to act so any part of the thing itself in this sense.

It may be distinguished into justice and equity, or, if you will, into debt and honour, for both make up but one honesty.

Exact justice is a debt to all our fellow-creatures; and honourable, generous justice is derived from that golden rule, Quod tibi fieri non vis alteri ne feceris; and all this put together, makes up honesty; honour, indeed, is a higher word for it, but ‘tis the same thing, and

Differs from justice only in the name,
For honesty and honour are the same.

This honesty is of so qualifying a nature, that ‘tis the most denominative of all possible virtues; an honest man is the best title can be given in the world; all other titles are empty and ridiculous without it, and no title can be really scandalous if this remain. Tis the capital letter, by which a man’s character will be known, when private qualities and accomplishments are worm-eaten by time; without it a man can neither be a Christian or a gentleman. A man may be a poor honest man, an unfortunate honest man; but a Christian knave, or a gentleman knave, is a contradiction. A man forfeits his character and his family by knavery, and his escutcheon ought to have a particular blot, like that of bastardy. When a gentleman loses his honesty, he ceases to be a gentleman, commences rake from that minute, and ought to be used like one.

Honesty has such a general character in the minds of men, that the worst of men, who neither practise or pretend to any part of it, will yet value it in others; no man ever could be so out of love with it as to desire his posterity should be without it; nay, such is the veneration all men have for it, that the general blessing of a father to his son is, “ Pray God make thee an honest man.”

Indeed, so general is the value of it, and so well known, that it seems needless to say anything in behalf of it. So far as it is found upon earth, so much of the first rectitude of nature and of the image of God seems to be restored to mankind.

The greatest mischief which to me seems to attend this virtue, like the thorn about the rose, which pricks the finger of those who meddle with it, is pride; ‘tis a hard thing for a man to be very honest, and not be proud of it; and though he who is really honest has, as we say, something to be proud of, yet I take this honesty to be in a great deal of danger who values himself too much upon it.

True honest honesty, if I may be allowed such an expression, has the least relation to pride of any view in the world; ‘tis all simple, plain, genuine, and sincere; and if I hear a man boast of his honesty, I cannot help having some fears for him, at least, that ‘tis sickly and languishing.

Honesty is a little tender plant, not known to all who have skill in simples, thick sowed, as they say, and thin come up; ‘tis nice of growth, it seldom thrives in a very fat soil, and yet a very poor ground, too, is apt to starve it, unless it has taken very good root. When it once takes to a piece of ground, it will never be quite destroyed; it may be choked with the weeds of prosperity, and sometimes ‘tis so scorched up with the droughts of poverty and necessity, that it seems as if it were quite dead and gone; but it always revives upon the least mild weather, and if some showers of plenty fall, it makes full reparation for the loss the gardener had in his crop.

There is an ugly weed, called cunning, which is very pernicious to it, and which particularly injures it, by hiding it from our discovery, and making it hard to find. This is so like honesty, that many a man has been deceived with it, and has taken one for t’ other in the market; nay, I have heard of some who have planted this wild honesty, as we may call it, in their own ground, have made use of it in their friendships and dealings, and thought it had been the true plant, but they always lost credit by it. And that was not the worst neither, for they had the loss who dealt with them, and who chaffered for a counterfeit commodity; and we find many deceived so still, which is the occasion there is such an outcry about false friends, and about sharping and tricking in men’s ordinary dealings in the world.

This true honesty, too, has some little difference in it, according to the soil or climate in which it grows, and your simplers have had some disputes about the sorts of it; nay, there have been great heats about the several kinds of this plant, which grows in different countries, and some call that honesty which others say is not; as, particularly, they say, there is a sort of honesty in my country, Yorkshire honesty, which differs very much from that which is found in these southern parts about London; then there is a sort of Scots honesty, which they say is a meaner sort than that of Yorkshire; and in New England I have heard they have a kind of honesty which is worse than the Scottish, and little better than the wild honesty called cunning, which I mentioned before. On the other hand, they tell us that in some parts of Asia, at Smyrna, and at Constantinople, the Turks have a better sort of honesty than any of us. I am sorry our Turkey Company have not imported some of it, that we might try whether it would thrive here or no. ‘Tis a little odd to me it should grow to such a perfection in Turkey, because it has always been observed to thrive best where it is sowed with a sort of grain called religion; indeed, they never thrive in these parts of the world so well apart as they do together. And for this reason, I must own, I have found that Scots honesty, as above, to be of a very good kind.

How it is in Turkey I know not, for, in all my travels, I never set my foot in the Grand Seignior’s dominions.

But to waive allegories; disputes about what is or is not honesty are dangerous to honesty itself, for no case can be doubtful which does not border upon the frontiers of dishonesty; and he that resolves not to be drowned had best never come near the brink of the water.

That man who will do nothing but what is barely honest, is in great danger. It is certainly just for me to do everything the law justifies, but if I should only square my actions by what is literally lawful, I must throw every debtor, though he be poor, in prison, and never release him till he has paid the uttermost farthing; I must hang every malefactor without mercy; I must exact the penalty of every bond, and the forfeiture of every indenture. In short, I must be uneasy to all mankind, and make them so to me; and in a word, be a very knave too, as well as a tyrant, for cruelty is not honesty.

Therefore, the Sovereign Judge of every man’s honesty has laid us down a general rule, to which all the particulars are resolved, Quod tibi fieri, non vis alteri ne feceris. This is a part of that honesty I am treating of, and which indeed is the more essential of the two; this is the test of behaviour, and the grand article to have recourse to when laws are silent.

I have heard some men argue, that they are not bound to any such considerations of the indigence of persons as lead to concessions of time, or compositions with them for debts; that ‘tis all ex gratia, or the effects of policy, because circumstances lead them to judge it better to take what they can get than lose the whole.

Speaking of the letter of the law, I allow that they may be in the right.

On the other hand, a man who gives a bond for a debt, pleads he is answerable for no more than the law will force him to; that is, he may defend a suit, stand out to the last extremity, and at last keep out of the way, so as not to have judgment or execution served on him; he may secure his estate from the execution, as well as his person, and so never pay the debt at all, and yet in the eye of the law be an honest man; and this part of legal literal honesty is supported only by the other, namely, the cruel part; for really such a man, speaking in the sense of common justice, is a knave; he ought to act according to the true intent and meaning of his obligation, and in the right of a debtor to a creditor, which is to pay him his money when it became due, not stand out to the last, because he cannot be forced to it sooner.

The laws of the country indeed allow such actions as the laws of conscience can by no means allow, as in this case of the creditor suing for his debt, and the debtor not paying it till he is forced by law. The argument made use of to vindicate the morality of such a practice, stands thus: –

If a man trusts me with his money or goods upon my common credit, or upon my word, he then takes me for his money, and depends both upon my ability and my honesty; but if he comes and demands my bond, he quits his dependence upon my honesty, and takes the law for his security; so that the language of such an action is, he will have a bond, that it may be in his power to make me pay him whether I will or no; and as for my honesty, he ‘11 have nothing to do with it; what relief, then, I can have against this bond by the same law to which the person refers himself, is as legal an action on my side as the other man’s suing for his own is on his.

And thus the letter of the law will ruin the honesty of both debtor and creditor, and yet both shall be justified too.

But if I may give my opinion in this case, neither of these are the honest man I am speaking of; for honesty does not consist of negatives, and ‘tis not sufficient to do my neighbour no personal injury in the strict sense and letter of the law; but I am bound, where cases and circumstances make other measures reasonable, to have such regard to these cases and circumstances as reason requires. Thus, to begin with the creditor to the debtor, reason requires that where a man is reduced to extremities, he should not be destroyed for debt; and what is unreasonable cannot be honest.

Debt is no capital crime, nor ever was; and starving men in prison, a punishment worse than the gallows, seems to be a thing so severe as it ought not to be in the power of a creditor to inflict it. The laws of God never tolerated such a method of treating debtors as we have since thought proper, I won’t say honest, to put in practice; but since the politics of the nation have left the debtor so much at mercy by the letter of the law, ‘tis honest, with respect to the law, to proceed so; yet compassion is in this case thought reasonable – why shouldst thou take his bed from under him? says the text; which implies, ‘tis unnatural and unreasonable.

I have heard some men insist upon it, that if a man be sued wrongfully at law, he ought rather to submit to the injury than oppose the wrong by the same law; and yet I never found those gentlemen so passive in matters of law, but they would sue a debtor at law if they could not otherwise obtain their right.

I confess I cannot blame them for the last, but I blame them for pretending to the first. I am not arguing against recovering a just debt by a just law, where the person is able but unwilling to be honest; but I think pursuing the debtor to all extremities, to the turning his wife and children into the street, expressed in the Scripture by taking his bed from under him, and by keeping the debtor in prison when really he is not able to pay it – there is something of cruelty in it, and the honest man I am speaking of can never do it.

But some may object, if I must serve all mankind as I would be served in like case, then I must relieve every beggar and release every poor debtor; for if I was a beggar I would be relieved, and if I was in prison I would be released; and so I must give away all I have. This is inverting the argument; for the meaning is in the negative still, do not to another anything, or put no hardship upon another, which you would not allow to be just if you were in their case.

Honesty is equity, every man is lord-chancellor to himself; and if he would consult that principle within him would find reason as fair an advocate for his neighbour as for himself. But I proceed.

Of the Trial of Honesty

Necessity makes an honest man a knave; and if the world was to be the judge according to the common received notion, there would not be an honest poor man left alive.

A rich man is an honest man – no thanks to him; for he would be a double knave to cheat mankind when he had no need of it: he has no occasion to press upon his integrity, nor so much as touch upon the borders of dishonesty. Tell me of a man that is a very honest man, for he pays everybody punctually, runs into nobody’s debt, does no man any wrong; very well – what circumstances is he in? Why, he has a good estate, a fine yearly income, and no business to do. The devil must have full possession of this man if he should be a knave, for no man commits evil for the sake of it; even the devil himself has some farther design in sinning than barely the wicked part of it. No man is so hardened in crimes as to commit them for the mere pleasure of the fact – there is always some vice gratified; ambition, pride, or avarice makes rich men knaves, and necessity the poor. But to go on with this rich honest man; his neighbour, a thriving merchant, and whose honesty had as untainted a character as he can pretend to, has a rich ship cast away, or a factor abroad broke in his debt, and his bills come back protested, and he fails – is fain to abscond and make a composition. Our rich honest man flies out upon him presently he is a knave, a rogue, and don’t pay people what he owes them; and we should have a law that he that runs into debt farther than he is able to pay should be hanged, and the like. If the poor man is laid hold on by some creditor, and put in prison – ay, there let him lie, he deserves it; ‘t will be an example to keep others from the like. And now, when all is done, this broken merchant may be as honest a man as the other.

You say you are an honest man: how do you know it? Did you ever want bread, and had your neighbour’s loaf in your keeping, and would starve rather than eat it? Was you ever arrested, and being not able by yourself or friends to make peace with your plaintiff, and at the same time having another man’s money in your cash chest committed to your keeping, suffered yourself to be carried to gaol rather than break bulk and break in upon your trust? God Himself has declared that the power of extremity is irresistible, and that so, as to our integrity, that He has bid us not despise the thief that steals in such a case; not that the man is less a thief, or the fact less dishonest. But the text is most remarkably worded for instruction in this point; don’t you despise the man, but remember, if you were driven to the same exigence, you would be the same man and do the same thing, though now you fancy your principle so good; therefore, whatever his crime may be as to God, don’t reproach him with it here; but you that think you stand, take heed lest you fall.

I am of the opinion that I could state a circumstance in which there is not one man in the world would be honest. Necessity is above the power of human nature, and for Providence to suffer a man to fall into that necessity is to suffer him to sin, because nature is not furnished with power to defend itself, nor is grace itself able to fortify the mind against it.

What shall we say to five men in a boat at sea, without provision, calling a council together, and resolving to kill one of themselves for the others to feed on, and eat him? With what face could the four look up and crave a blessing on that meat? With what heart give thanks after it? And yet this has been done by honest men, and I believe the most honest man in the world might be forced to it; yet here is no manner of pretence, but necessity, to palliate the crime. If it be argued it was the loss of one man to save the four, it is answered, but what authority to make him die to save their lives? How came the man to owe them such a debt? ‘T was robbery and murder; ‘twas robbing him of his life, which was his property, to preserve mine; ‘tis murder, by taking away the life of an innocent man; and at best ‘twas doing evil that good may come, which is expressly forbidden.

But there is a kind of equity pleaded in this case. Generally, when men are brought to such a pass, they cast lots who shall be the man, and the voluntary consent of the party makes it lawful (God Himself being supposed to determine who shall be the man), which I deny; for it is in no man’s power legally to consent to such a lot; no man has a right to give away his own life; he may forfeit it to the law and lose it, but that ‘s a crime against himself, as well as against the law; and the four men might by our law have been tried and hanged for murder. All that can be said is, that necessity makes the highest crimes lawful, and things evil in their own nature are made practicable by it. From these extremes of necessity we come to lighter degrees of it, and so let us bring our honest man to some exigencies. He would not wrong any man of a farthing; he could not sleep if he should be in anybody’s debt; and he cannot be an honest man that can.

That we may see now whether this man’s honesty lies any deeper than his neighbour’s, turn the scale of his fortune a little. His father left him a good estate; but here come some relations, and they trump up a title to his lands, and serve ejectments upon his tenants, and so the man gets into trouble, hurry of business, and the law. The extravagant charges of the law sink him of all his ready money, and, his rents being stopped, the first breach he makes upon his honesty (that is, by his former rules), he goes to a friend to borrow money, tells him this matter will be over, he hopes, quickly, and he shall have his rents to receive, and then lie will pay him again; and really he intends to do so. But here comes a disappointment; the trial comes on, and he is cast, and his title to the estate proves defective; his father was cheated, and he not only loses the estate, but is called upon for the arrears of the rent he has received; and, in short, the man is undone, and has not a penny to buy bread or help himself, and, besides this, cannot pay the money he borrowed.

Now, turn to his neighbour the merchant, whom he had so loudly called knave for breaking in his trade; he by this time has made up with his creditors and got abroad again, and he meets him in the street in his dejected circumstances. “Well,” says the merchant, “ and why don’t you pay my cousin, your old neighbour, the money you borrowed of him?” – “Truly,” says he, “because I have lost all my estate, and can’t pay; nay, I have nothing to live on.” – “Well, but,” returns the merchant, “wan’t you a knave to borrow money, and now can’t pay it?” “Why, truly,” says the gentleman, “when I borrowed it I really designed to be honest, and did not question but I should have my estate again, and then I had been able also, and would have paid him to a penny, but it has proved otherwise; and though I would pay him if I had it, yet I am not able.” – “Well, but,” says the merchant again, “ did you not call me knave, though I lost my estate abroad by unavoidable disasters, as you have lost yours at home? Did you not upbraid me because I could not pay? I would have paid everybody, if I could, as well as you.” – “Why, truly,” says the gentleman, “I was a fool; I did not consider what it was to be brought to necessity; I ask your pardon.”

Now, let’s carry on this story. The merchant compounds with his creditors, and paying every one a just proportion as far as ‘twill go, gets himself discharged; and being bred to business, and industrious, falls into trade again, and raises himself to good circumstances, and at last a lucky voyage or some hit of trade sets him above the world again. The man, remembering his former debts, and retaining his principle of honesty, calls his old creditors together, and though he was formerly discharged from them all, voluntarily pays them the remainder of their debts. The gentleman being bred to no business, and his fortune desperate, goes abroad and gets into the army, and behaving himself well, is made an officer, and, still rising by his merit, becomes a great man; but in his new condition troubles not his head with his former debts in his native country, but settles in the court and favour of the prince under whom he has made his fortunes, and there sets up for the same honest man he did before.

I think I need not ask which of these two is the honest man, any more than which was the honest penitent, the Pharisee or the publican.

Honesty, like friendship, is tried in affliction; and he that cries out loudest against those who in the time of this trial are forced to give ground, would perhaps yield as far in the like shock of misfortune.

To be honest when peace and plenty flow upon our hands, is owing to the blessing of our parents; but to be honest when circumstances grow narrow, relations turbulent and quarrelsome, when poverty stares at us, and the world threatens, this blessing is from Heaven, and can only be supported from thence. God Almighty is very little beholding to them who will serve Him just as long as He feeds them. Twas a strong argument the devil used in that dialogue between Satan and his Maker about Job. “ Yes, he is a mighty good man, and a mighty just man, and well he may while you give him everything he wants: I would serve you myself, and be as true to you as Job, if you would be as kind and as bountiful to me as you are to him: but now, do but lay your finger on him; do but stop your hand a little, and cut him short; strip him a little, and make him like one of those poor fellows that now bow to him, and you will quickly see your good man be like other men; nay, the passion he will be in at his losses will make him curse you to your face.”

‘Tis true the devil was mistaken in the man, but the argument had a great deal of probability in it, and the moral may be drawn, both from the argument and from the consequences:

That ‘tis an easy thing to maintain the character of honesty and uprightness when a man has no business to be employed in, and no want to press him.

That when exigencies and distresses pinch a man, then is the time to prove the honesty of his principle.

The prosperous honest man can only by boasting tell the world he is honest, but the distressed and ruined honest man hears other people tell him he is honest.