PROMISE, in ordinary cases, is a declaration of some intention to be put in execution; but in morals is a solemn affirmation by which one pledges his veracity that he shall perform, or cause to be performed, the thing which he mentions.
As such a declaration excites expectations in the minds of those to whom it is made; and as to frustrate these expectations might rouse indignation, and be followed by consequences injurious to the person, the character, or interest, of him who made it—it becomes a matter of prudence in the promiser to keep his word. And farther, as a certain degree of confidence is found necessary to the very existence of civil society, and as others may have acted on the faith of his promise, it is now not a matter of prudence only to keep his word—it is a duty which he owes to all who have spent their time, their money, or their labour, in consequence of those expectations which he has warranted them to entertain.
It, then, being consonant to sound reason, necessary to the existence of civil society, and in general the interest of both the promiser and promisee, that the words of the promise should be fulfilled, it has become a maxim in morals that a man is obliged to perform his promise.
In many instances, the great difficulty concerning a promise is, how to explain it; for although the grounds of its obligation be those expectations which it has raised, a question will occur, Is the promiser bound to answer
Promises. answer fully all the expectations to which the different constructions of his words may have given birth? Should I, for instance, desire a man to run with a letter to such a place, and engage to satisfy him upon his return; and if on his return I gave him double of the usual hire in like cases; but if he be not satisfied with less than the triple of such a sum, am I obliged to grant his demands? This will lead us to consider the rules by which a promise should be interpreted.
4 Whether the meaning of the promiser or promisee ought to be taken. If a promise were always to be deemed obligatory in the sense in which the promisee receives it, a man would not know what he had promised; the promisee, from a difference of views, associations, and interests, might conceive a sense of which the promiser had never dreamed; might suppose engagements which were never intended, which could not be foreseen, and, although foreseen, could not be performed. For these reasons it is natural to think that the sense of the promiser should rather direct the interpretation. He knows precisely what it is he has undertaken, and is unquestionably the best judge of what meaning he affixed to his words. His explanation should therefore be admitted, if information alone could give him a title to decide in the affair.
But something more than mere information, or a knowledge of the cause, is expected from a judge, as integrity is equally essential to his character. Doubts may arise when the words will admit of various meanings, whether the promiser will be so candid as impartially to own the precise meaning which he had actually annexed to his expressions: At any rate, if he wished to deceive, he might purposely use an ambiguous phraseology, and perform the promise in a sense of his own without satisfying the reasonable hopes of the promisee.
When the daughter of Tarpeius bargained with Tatius to betray the citadel for what he and his Sabines wore on their left hands, meaning their rings and their golden bracelets, Tatius probably performed his promise in the way which he intended, when he caused her to be buried under their shields, which they carried also on their left hands. But who will say that here was not treachery and a dishonourable abuse of that confidence which had been reposed in him?
5 In doubtful cases the interpretation of neither is to be trusted. It must therefore be obvious, that the import of a promise, where its meaning is disputed, is not to be determined by the sense of the promiser nor by the expectations of the promisee; and if it was said that the obligation of a promise arose from those expectations which had been raised by it, the assertion now must be limited to those expectations which were intentionally raised by the promiser, or those which to his knowledge the promisee was induced to entertain in consequence of that declaration which had been made to him. Should there still be a doubt about what expectations were intentionally raised, and what should have been reasonably entertained, recourse must be had to the judgment of those who are allowed to be persons of candour, and who are acquainted with the characters of the men, and with those circumstances in which the promise was made.
6 Cases where a promise is not binding. The following are some of the cases in which a promise is not binding. As the obligation to perform the promise arises from those expectations which are intentionally raised by the promiser; it is plain that no promise can be binding before acceptance, before the promise has been communicated to the promisee, and be-
fore he has entertained hopes of its performance. The promisee is familiar where a promise is released, that is, where the performance is dispensed with by the promisee, and where he entertains no expectations on account of any thing that the promiser has said to him. Should a third person entertain hopes on account of the promise, he is to cherish these hopes at his own hazard, having no encouragement from the promiser to do so: yet if this person has been warranted to hope by the promisee, the promisee has renounced his privilege of releasing the promisee, and along with the promiser becomes bound for its performance.
7 When it is released by the promisee. A promise is not binding where the performance is unlawful; and the performance is unlawful where it is contrary to former promises, or to any moral and religious precept, which from the beginning to the end of time is of perpetual and unalterable obligation. Thus no man is bound by his promise to give to me what he has already promised to another; and no man is bound by his promise to blaspheme God, to commit murder, or to criminate the innocent. Such promises are unlawfully made, and cannot be otherwise than unlawfully performed.
8 Where its performance is unlawful. Some have even carried their scruples so far as to doubt, whether any promise, unlawfully made, can be lawfully performed. Should a man, during the lifetime of his wife, happen to promise marriage to another, such a man (they say) by the Christian religion has already committed adultery in his heart; and should he afterwards become a widower, he is not bound, and he even ought not, to fulfil his engagements, as this would be putting his criminal intention into execution. This species of reasoning, we must confess, is to us unintelligible. — As the wife is dead, what now should prevent the man from marrying the object of his affections? Why, say the casuists, he already is under a promise to marry her, and his promise was made at a time when it should not have been made. It is true, the performance, considered by itself, is opposed by no law human or divine; but then it originated in what was wrong; and however much the Supreme Being and the bulk of the creation may be out of the secret, we have discovered by the ingenious logic of casuistry, that evil can never spring out of good, nor good out of evil; but that the means and the end, the motive and the action are always of the same complexion in morals.
9 A case where doubts have arisen. When a promise is made, the particular circumstances in which it is to be deemed obligatory are sometimes mentioned. "I promise (for instance) to lend my friend 200 pounds within three days, provided a certain creditor which I name do not make a demand on me before that time. In other cases no circumstance is foreseen by the promiser to prevent the fulfilling of his engagement; and hence we have erroneous promises, which proceed on the supposition that things are true, possible, and lawful, which are not so. An erroneous promise, which proceeds on the false representation of the promisee, is not binding.
10 Erroneous promises. A London gentleman lately purchased an estate in the south of England at a public sale, believing the description which he saw in the newspapers, and which likewise was given by the auctioneer, to be true; but finding afterwards that the estate nowise corresponded to the description, the law freed him from his engagement, because the seller had evidently been guilty of