If the benefactor’s bounty must extend to the bad as well as the good; put the case, that I promise a good office to an ungrateful man; we are first to distinguish (as I said before) betwixt a _common benefit_ and a _personal_; betwixt what is given for _merit_ and what for _company_. Secondly, Whether or not we know the person to be ungrateful, and can reasonably conclude, that this vice is _incurable_. Thirdly, A consideration must be had of the promise, how far that may oblige us. The two first points are cleared both in one: we cannot justify any particular kindness for one that we conclude to be a hopelessly wicked man: so that the force of the promise is in the single point in question. In the promise of a good office to a wicked or ungrateful man, I am to blame if I did it knowingly; and I am to blame nevertheless, if I did it otherwise: but I must yet make it good, (under due qualifications,) because I promised it; that is to say, matters continuing in the same state, for no man is answerable for accidents. I will sup at such a place though it be cold; I will rise at such an hour though I be sleepy; but if it prove tempestuous, or that I fall sick of a fever, I will neither do the one nor the other. I promise to second a friend in a quarrel, or to plead his cause; and when I come into the field, or into the court, it proves to be against my father or my brother: I promise to go a journey with him, but there is no traveling upon the road for robbing; my child is fallen sick; or my wife is in labor: these circumstances are sufficient to discharge me; for a promise against law or duty is void in its own nature.