The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-12-20

Among the symtomatic phenomena of the
times nothing is more startling and ominous
than the extent to which men highly reputed
for worldly wisdom are given to doubling
the existence of common honesty. The
clammy and Shiny track of this skepticism
may be seen more distinctly every day in the
pages of contemporary journalism, and the
same serpent trail may be found traversing
with greater and greater frequency all the
walks of public life. 1t was not long ago that
the chief of an important financial bureau
virtually admitted the impossibility of collect
ing certain tax, because it was SO high as to
create temptations to corruption which the
amount of integrity diffused among the body
of revenue officers was insufficient to resist
Upon this argument the whisky excise was
reduced, in the hope that the producer would
no longer find it cheaper to bride the tax
gatherers than to pay the tax. No one can
take up newspaper without perceiving some
manifestation of q widespread belief in the
compatibility of Congressman, of State legis-
lators, of city councilmen. For example, a
New York paper, the Tribune, having charged
venality upon the common council of that
city, another paper, the World, retorts that,
however venal that body may be, the Legisla-
ture at Albany is still more grossly stepped
in this vice and while the propositions of
both journals appear to receive the
public assent, third intervenes-the Round
Table-and, protesting to treat the subject in
its philosophical breadth, insists that not only
do cupidity and prohigacy pervade Congress
and the whole federal government, as well
as State Legislatures and city councils, but
that this general depravity has its source in
the people, whose average virtue councils,
legislatures, Congress and the government as
totality represent. This disbelief in COM
mon honesty has the sanction, according to
the author of a clever essay now before us, on
1.-THE Education of the Detective Faculty."
of "three representative men, Of long ex-
perience in human affairs, at different times
and places; one of them a distinguished
jurist, on the bench of our highest court;
another great and powerful political leader,
the most powerful of his day; and the third a
wealthy man of business, whose adventures
have carried him for many years through
various kinds of traffic and commercial en-
terprise. 'One does not know where to look
for an honest man, said the first; man is a
failure, said the second; Il never saw
an honest man., said the third"
, Now, we do not deny that such doctrine as
this has look of vast worldly wisdom about
it. But, nevertheless, it is profoundly, radi-
cally, we may almost add diabolically, un-
sound. The most egregious, the most per-
nicious, fools on the face of the earth are
those who have only used their experience to
perfect themselves in what is called "sharp-
ness" with regard to men and women and
their ways, without cultivating either a COM
prehensive philosophy, or a sympathetic in
sight. 1t is impossible, indeed, that they
can, in their Utmost consciousness, uphold
their own theory. They may fancy that they
believe it. but they don't and can't.
1t resolves itself into social despair.
The integrity and continuity of society
are due, first to the existence of common
honesty, and next to the common be-
lief in its existence. The simplest processes
Of commerce would come to stand-still if
these facts were reversed. Thieves and swind-
lers even would be brought to the desolate
condition of society in general if everybody
acted upon the knavish assumption of Fall
STATS saying: "There's nothing but roguery
in this villainous world" Where all were un-
principled and suspicious, cunning would be
disarmed. All governments would fail. The
best of laws would go for nothing. For all
jurisprudence presupposes that wrong doing
is exceptional, and that the public conscience
is disposed to do the right thing, when
the right thing is perceived, without compul-
sion. But if common honesty did not
exist, there would be no public conscience
upon which jurisprudence could be based.
There would be neither honesty nor dis
honesty, neither right nor.wrong But there
would be moral nihilism and social dissolu-
ton. "Such," says Kant, are the despond-
ing conclusions as to human affairs to which
we are inevitably driven if we do not cherish
firm conviction that the pure abstract princi-
Piles of right have an objective reality-that
is, are susceptible of execution and that
the transactions either of the people of a
state, or of states with another, rust be in
accordance with these principles. let empiri-
cal policy oppose to them what it may" In a
word, if common honesty were not to be
truthfully assumed as both subjective and
objective fact, all craftsmanship would be
doomed to confusion, and every social organ
ization to wreck.