BOOK III PART II
trate is requisite to preserve order and concord
in society. To perform promises is requisite to
beget mutual trust and confidence in the com-
mon offices of life. The ends, as well as the
means, are perfectly distinct; nor is the one sub-
ordinate to the other.
To make this more evident, let us con-
sider, that men will often bind themselves by
promises to the performance of what it would
have been their interest to perform, indepen-
dent of these promises; as when they would
give others a fuller security, by super-adding
a new obligation of interest to that which they
formerly lay under. The interest in the perfor-
mance of promises, besides its moral obliga-
tion, is general, avowed, and of the last conse-
quence in life. Other interests may be more par-
ticular and doubtful; and we are apt to enter-