Now  I  call  the  guilt  of  the  crime,  if  a  sober  man
had  committed  it,  the  ii^hole  guilt.  A  person  in
the  condition  we  describe,  incurs  part  of  this  at
the  instant  of  perpetration  ;  and  by  bringing  hun-
self  into  such  a  condition,  he  incurred  that  fraction
of  the  remaining  part,  which  the  danger  ol'  this
consequence  was  of  an  integral  certainty.  For
the  sake  of  illustration,  we  are  at  liberty  to  sup-
pose, that  a  man  loses  half  liis  moral  faculties  by
drunkenness ;  this  leaving  him  but  half  his  re-
b-ponsibility ,  he  incurs,  when  he  commits  the  action,
half  of  the  whole  guilt.  We  will  also  suppose
that  it  was  known  beforeliand,  that  it  was  an  even
chance,  or  half  a  certainty,  that  this  crime  would
tbllow  his  getting  drunk.  This  makes  him  charge-
able with  half  of  the  remainder;  so  that  alto-
gether, he  is  responsible  in  three-fourths  of  the
guilt  which  a  sober  man  would  have  incurred  by
the  same  action.
I  do  not  mean  that  any  real  case  can  be  reduced
to  numbers,  or  the  calculation  be  ever  made  with
arithmetical  precision ;  but  these  are  the  princi-
ples, and  this  the  rule  by  which  our  general  ad-
measurement of  the  guilt  of  such  offences  should
be  regulated.
