Note 414 — Chapter V

Archbishop Whately says, what hardly any thinking man will now deny, ‘If oaths were abolished—leaving the penalties for false witness (no unimportant part of our security) unaltered—I am convinced that, on the whole, testimony would be more trustworthy than it is.’ Whately's Elements of Rhetoric, 8vo. 1850, p. 47. See also on the amount of perjury caused by English legislation, Jeremy Bentham's Works, edit. Bowring, vol. ii. p. 210, vol. v. pp. 191–229, 454–466, vol. vi. pp. 314, 315; Orme's Life of Owen, p. 195; Locke's Works, vol. iv. p. 6; Berkeley's Works, vol. ii. p. 196; Whiston's Memoirs, pp. 33, 411–413; Hamilton's Discussions on Philosophy and Literature, pp. 454, 522, 527, 528. Sir W. Hamilton sums up: ‘But if the perjury of England stands pre-eminent in the world, the perjury of the English Universities, and of Oxford in particular, stands pre-eminent in England,’ p. 528. Compare Priestley's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 374 and Baker's Life of Sir Thomas Bernard, 1819, pp. 188, 189.