re solemn declarations made, with an appeal to God or to some superior being, for the truth of what is affirmed, or for the honesty of what is promised. It is always to be presumed, in the taking of an oath, that the person imposing it believes that the swearer expects the superior being whom he calls to witness will visit him with punishment in the event of his violating that oath. On no other supposition can an oath be conceived of any value or significance. The person making the oath may or may not fear the evil consequences of perjury; but the individual imposing the oath is supposed to believe that the swearer is apprehensive of those consequences. Oaths are assentory, or those by which something is affirmed as true; and promissory, or those by which something is promised to be done. Oaths are again either voluntary or compulsory.

It would appear, from all that can be gathered on the subject, that the practice of using oaths on certain important occasions has been observed in all nations where any definite idea of a superior being has prevailed. This practice is found as early as the days of Abraham, who charges his servant: "Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh; and I will make thee swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that," &c. (Gen.xxiv. 2, 3, 37). This oath was private rather than judicial or national. Instances of public or national oaths, in which an entire kingdom or a large body of people were involved, are to be found in Judges xxii.; also in 1 Kings xviii. 10; and the first example of a strictly judicial oath is to be found in Levit. vi. 3-5. This custom of oath-making, which had been in use amongst the Jews from the earliest times, was sanctioned by Moses, and employed by him in connection with his code of laws. Other beings besides God were sometimes invoked in taking an oath, among the Hebrews and certain other nations of the East; as the soul (2 Kings ii. 2; 1 Sam. xx. 3, &c.); the head or life of a king (Gen. xlii. 15). The most solemn oath among the Persians, according to Hanway, is, "By the king's head," and Aben Ezra informs us that this oath was common in Egypt in his time (A.D. 1170) among the khaliphs. Sometimes the oath-taker swore by some precious part of his own body, as the head (Matt. v. 36); by the earth, the heaven, and the sun (Matt. v. 34, 35); by angels (Josephus, De Bell. Jud. ii. 16, 4); by the temple (Matt. xxiii. 16); and by Jerusalem (Matt. v. 35; compare Lightfoot, p. 281). The levity of the Jewish nation with regard to oaths became notorious; and while we find some of their doctors sharply reproving this vice (Orthon, Lex., p. 351; Philo, ii. 194), it is nevertheless notorious that the rabbinical writers, by their nice distinctions, subtle casuistry, and perverse ingenuity on the subject of swearing, did much in effect to countenance open falsehood, and lessen the enormities of perjury and profanation. The heathen satirists poisoned their shafts against the Jew with the blasphemous perjury of that race (Martial, xi. 9); and when we come down to Christian times, we find a growing disposition to discontinue a practice which had been prostituted to the worst of purposes. Some contend that the language of Christ respecting oaths (Matt. v. 34-37) is absolutely prohibitory of that practice; while others, with perhaps greater justice, suppose that his words apply to profane and wanton swearing, rather than to solemn and judicial oaths. Not a few of the early fathers held oaths to be unchristian; and some modern sects, such as the Quakers, &c., decline, on Scriptural grounds, to take oaths in courts of law.

Among the Greeks, oaths seem to have been taken both between individuals and nations, on certain solemn occasions, oaths, from a very early period. When the fate of the Trojan war was to be decided by single combat, the agreement was ratified by oath. (Iliad, iii. 276.) A similar practice was observed in other treaties and alliances, as appears from Herod. i. 69, 74, 146, 165; Thucyd. v. 47. As is abundantly obvious from their writers, the Greeks held in great reverence the sanctity of oaths. Illustrations of this are to be found especially in Homer, Æschylus, Pindar, Euripides, and Sophocles. The ingenious prevarication and mental reservation of a Jew or a Jesuit was precisely what Homer's great hero, in his noble heathenish indignation, hated "like the gates of hell" (Iliad, ix. 313). The story of Glaucus the Spartan, who was annihilated with his whole family for simply entertaining the question as to whether or not he should fulfil an oath, affords a good illustration of Greek feeling upon the crime of perjury. (See Herodotus, vi. 86; Juvenal, xiii. 202.) It is but too well known, however, that, with the decay of everything great and noble among the Grecian states, the crime of perjury became an every-day occurrence; and a Greek became among the Romans only another name for a liar. Each nation or people swore by its own deity or hero; as the Thebans by Hercules, the Lacedemonians by Caster and Pollux, and the Corinthians by Neptune. An oath was often suggested by office, character, place, or sex. Thus Iphigenia the priestess swore by Artemis; Antilochus, in talking of horses, is told to swear by Poseidon, the equestrian deity; Achilles swears by his sceptre; Telemachus by his father's sorrows; Demosthenes by the heroes of Marathon; and Pythagoras by the number Four. If the men found it necessary to swear by Hercules and Apollo, the women felt called upon to give weight or ornament to their words by invoking Aphrodite and Demeter. Citizenship was ratified by oath in Athens, and public functionaries were sworn in to their office. It is supposed that the oaths occasionally taken by witnesses in judicial proceedings were, for the most part, voluntary among the Greeks. Oaths with the Greeks were frequently accompanied by sacrifice and libation, and the swearer placed his hands upon the victim, the altar, or some other sacred thing, while he was taking the oath. (Livy, xxxi. 50.)

Among the Romans, magistrates and other dignitaries had to come under an oath, in entering upon the public service, to protect and observe the laws. All Roman soldiers, on their enlistment for a campaign, had to take the military oath (sacerdatum), binding themselves to be faithful to the commands of their superior officers. (Livy, xxii. 38.) In transactions with other nations, oaths were taken in the name of the Roman republic. Livy has recorded (i. 24) the most ancient form of this kind of oath, in a treaty struck between the Romans and the Albans. Jupiter was invoked, while the priest struck the victim with a flint-stone (lapis sidus); and from the important part played by this instrument in oath-taking, the god himself came to be called Jupiter Lapis. During the latter years of the republic, the early reverence for international oaths became well nigh forgotten; and in perjury, both individual and national, the Roman came to rival the Jew and the Greek.

The remarks already made respecting the conversational oaths of the Greeks apply pretty correctly to those of the Romans: Hercules, Pollux, Jove, and Bacchus were the favourites of the men; while women, lovers, and exquisites garnished their soft speech by appeals to Juno and Venus. Examples of this practice are endless among the classical writers. In Roman judicial proceedings, oaths were occasionally required from the plaintiff or defendant, or both. The oath of calumny (jurandum calumniæ) was taken by the plaintiff in solemn declaration that there was no malice or dishonesty in his suit. It does not seem to have been always necessary to examine prisoners on oath in civil cases; but in the criminal proceedings of the judicia publica, oaths appear to have been administered. (Cicero, Pro Q. Rose, Com. c. 15; Noordt, Op. Om. ii. 479; Digest De Testibus.)

As a general rule, all testimony in English judicial proceedings requires to be given on oath. This custom is said to have been introduced into England by the Saxons A.D. 600. Only those can be sworn as witnesses, however, who will profess their belief in the existence of Deity, in a future state of rewards and punishments, and that perjury will be punished by God. A Jew, a Mohammedan, or a Hindu may be sworn as witnesses by the oath which they severally consider binding. All other persons, such as professed atheists, &c., cannot be admitted to give evidence on oath in judicial proceedings. Young children, imbeciles, &c.; are also incompetent, from deficient intelligence. Quakers and others, who object to taking judicial oaths on Scriptural grounds, are allowed to give their evidence on affirmation, both in civil and criminal proceedings. A peer or lord of Parliament, when a dependant in Chancery, is required to give his answer to a bill upon honour only; and the members of a corporation give in their answer under the seal of their body. Oaths are also required by English law on admission to offices of public trust, as the oath of princes to rule constitutionally, the oath of supremacy, the oath of allegiance, and the oath of office. All who hold offices of any kind under the government, as members of the House of Commons, ecclesiastics, members of colleges, schoolmasters, sergeants-at-law, councillors, attorneys, &c., are required by statute to take the oaths of allegiance, &c. The oath of supremacy was first administered to British subjects (26 Hen. VIII.) in 1535; that of allegiance was framed (3 James I.) in 1605; and the oath of abjuration (13 Will. III.) in 1701. A solemn affirmation or declaration may be substituted for an oath in certain cases by the Lords of the Treasury, according to the Act 5 and 6 William IV., c. 62. (See Knight's Political Cyclopaedia, vol. iii., p. 436.) The principal sanctions against mendacity in a witness are—(1.) The legal punishment incidental to a conviction of false swearing; (2.) The influence of public opinion; (3.) The dread of future punishment from the Deity. Bentham, in his famous attack upon the taking of oaths in his Rationale of Evidence, denies that the third of those considerations has the force of a sanction at all, and maintains that the first and second alone have influence. But it must be obvious to every one, that while the third sanction may not be so universal in its influence as the first and second, it may be, and in point of fact is, in the case of not a few, regarded as a consideration of infinitely greater weight than any other whatever. And, as was said already, it is the opinion of the person who takes the oath that gives it value in the eyes of the person administering or imposing it. Nothing can be more obvious, however, than the very great abuses to which the practice of oath-taking is liable. So long as the moral and religious sense of a nation is sound and pure, its public or private oaths will carry with them a becoming awe and reverence; but no sooner does the national morality begin to decline than perjury becomes an every-day occurrence, and men swear to anything that suits their interest or pleases their caprice. Such, at least, is the lesson taught us by the history of the Jew, of the Greek, and of the Roman. (See Ugolino's Thesaurus Antiq. Sacr., vol. 26; Grotius, De Jure, &c., lib. iii. c. 13; Tyler's Oaths, their Origin, Nature, and History; the Cyclopaedia of Political Knowledge; and Smith's Dict. of Antiquities.)