Chapter X. Of Veracity. Like most writers on morals, Hutcheson breaks in upon the strict rule of veracity by various necessary, but ill-defined, exceptions. Expressions of courtesy and etiquette are exempted, so also artifices in war, answers extorted by unjust violence, and some cases of peculiar necessity, as when a man tells a lie to save thousands of lives.
Chapter XI. Oaths and Vows.
Chapter XII. belongs rather to Political Economy. Its subject is the values of goods in commerce, and the nature of coin.
Chapter XIII. enumerates the various classes of contracts, following the Roman Law, taking up Mandatum, Depositum, Letting to Hire, Sale, &c.
Chapter XIV. adds the Roman quasi-contracts.
Chapter XV. Rights arising from injuries or wrongs (torts). He condemns duelling, but admits that, where it is established, a man may, in some cases, be justified in sending or accepting a challenge.
Chapter XVI. Rights belonging to society as against the individual. The perfect rights of society are such as the following:—(1) To prevent suicide; (2) To require the producing and rearing of offspring, at least so far as to tax and discourage bachelors; (3) To compel men, though not without compensation, to divulge useful inventions; (4) To compel to some industry, &c.
Chapter XVII. takes up some cases where the ordinary rights of property or person are set aside by some overbearing necessity.
Chapter XVIII. The way of deciding controversies in a state of nature by arbitration.
Book III.—Civil Polity, embracing Domestic and Civil Rights.