Socrates was accused as a corruptor of youth.What was meant by this accusation, I know not.But this I know, that to instruct the young in falsehood and perjury, is to corrupt them; and that the benefit of all the other lessons they can learn can never equal the mischief of this instruction.{See Appendix (A.)}
6.It may be inquired, whether rewards or other advantages ought to be offered for the defence of any opinion in matters of theory or science, or any other subject upon which opinions are divided?
{See Appendix (B.)} If the question be one of pure curiosity, the worst that can happen will be that the reward will be expended in waste.But if the opinion thus favoured happen to be a false one, and at the same time mischievous, the reward will be productive of unmixed evil.But whether it be a question of curiosity or use, if truth be the object desired, the chance of obtaining it is not so great as when the candidates for reward are allowed to seek it wheresoever it may be to be found.If error be to be defended, to offer a reward for its defence would be one, if not the only, method to be adopted.Who is there that does not perceive, that to obtain true testimony, it is inexpedient to offer a reward to the witness who shall depose upon a given side?---who does not know that the constant effect of such an offer is to discredit the cause of him who makes it?
If then, anything be to be gained by such partiality, it can only be by error: truth can only be a loser by such partial reward.
This practice is attended with another and more manifest inconvenience: it is that of causing opinions to be professed which are not believed---of inducing a truculent exchange, not only of truth, but of sincerity, for money.I do not know if governments ought even to permit individuals to offer rewards upon these conditions.To establish error, to repudiate truth, to suborn falsehood;---these, in a few words, are the effects of all rewards established in favour of one system to the exclusion of all others.
7.Charity is ever an amiable virtue; but if injudiciously employed, it is liable to produce more evil than good.Hospitals inconsiderately multiplied, regular distributions of provisions, such as were formerly made at the doors of many convents in Spain and Italy, tend to habituate a large proportion of the people to idleness and beggary.A reward thus offered to indolence, impoverishes the state and corrupts the people.Luxury (and I annex to this word whatever meaning, except that of prodigality, people choose to give to it) luxury, that pretended vice so much reprobated by the envious and melancholic, is the steady and natural benefactor of the human species; it is a master who is always doing good, even when he aims not at it; he rewards only the industrious.Charity is also a benefactor, but great circumspection is required that it may prove so.
8.There is another manner in which reward may be mischievous: by acting in opposition to the service required---when, for example, the emoluments attached to an office are such as to afford the means and temptation not to fulfil the duties of it.In such a case, what may appear a paradox is not the less a great truth: the whole does less than a part ; by paying too much, the sovereign is less effectually served.But this subject belongs naturally to the head of salaries.
