VOUSSOIR, one of the stones of an arch. [Agee.] VOW (from the Latin " votum," through the French), a promise to perform some future act, or to pursue some future lioe of conduct, confirmed by an appeal to the Supreme Being, or at least to some supernatural power, to punish or be propitious to the maker of the promise according as he breaks or keeps his word. Abraham made his steward swear that he would faithfully discharge the mission to seek out a wife for Isaac; this is an example of the vow which is supposed to bind a man to perform one definite act or incur some supernatural punishment ; and the oath taken by witnesses, in courts of justice, at the present day, to speak the truth, belongs to the same claaa. [Wan.] Some vows again are understood to bind those who make them to the performance of certain limited duties for the whole of their future life—sueh are the marriage vow, as contemplated by the Church of Rome and the law of England, and the coronation oaths of kings. Some vows are even intended to give a particular form and direction to the whole of a man's future emotions, thoughts, and actions—such are the priestly and monastic vows. The view enter tained of the character and operation of a vow has differed materially at different periods. The vow originated in a religious conception, iu the recognition of seine unseen power superior to and exercising a control over visible nature and man's destinies. But as the moral faculties of society expanded, the vow came to be regarded as a solemn form of making a promise, in which the appeal to the Divinity was meant to remind the utterer of the oath of what too apt to forget, that the eye of God was upon him, and that His universal and unfailing law punishes crime and falsehood. The operation of a vow is different upon two different classes of minds. To the ignorant and superstitious it affords a motive (their fears) for adhering to a course of action that their fickleness or dishonesty 'might have tempted them to swerve from. In the more enlightened it awakens a stronger sense of the importance of the act they are about to undertake, reudere them more cautious to pledge themselves beforehand, more resolute in performing a promise once made.
The instances in which, in a rude state of society, advantages are derived from vows or promissory oaths, are perhaps not few in number, but they are still exceptional. The bad influence of the superstitious view of the nature of a vow is permanent : it perverts men s moral opinions by leading them to regard actions as vicious and virtuous, not because of their own inherent character, but because of their being consistent or inconsistent with a promise made beforehand. Men have thus been led to see criminality in the non-performance of a crime they had pledged themselves to commit. The danger with regard to vows, understood in the more rational sense, consists in their too frequent use, or in their employment upon trivial occasions. The public promise of a king ascending the throne to govern with equity— the pledge of man and wife to know one undivided interest till death —the promise to give true and faithful evidence where the property, life, or honour of a fellow-being are at stake—are worthily and usefully accompanied by an appeal to the Divinity, that reminds the makers of these promises of the importance of the engagement they have taken upon them, and brings the religious sentiment to strengthen and confirm the dictates of expediency. But custom-house oaths, masonic
vows, and such trivialities and mummeries, degrade the vow to the level of a mere theatrical show, or of the thoughtless habit of inter jectional swearing in common discourse. The addition of a vow does not render a promise more binding, or alter the reason why it is binding. A promise affords a ground of belief that a man will act in a certain pre-determined manner, instead of being carried away by the whim of the moment. It is of advantage to the individual who makes promises that he should, except in extreme cases, contract the habit of adhering to them, because it imparts consistency and power to his character; and it is of advantage to all with whom he may have dealings that he should contract this habit, for it renders their trans actions with him safe. Hence the universal feeling that, except in very extreme cases, promises ought to be kept, even to the maker's disadvantage. Vows are exactly on the same footing : the superadded appeal to the Divinity by its solemnity renders men more cautious in binding themselves, and more earnest and unwavering in the performance of their promise. The danger of making vows frequently and on trivial occasions has been inferred from the nature of the religious sentiment called into play : a further restriction of their admissibility may be deduced from he nature of the simple promise. It limits man's freedom of action, and so far is a disadvantage. It ought to be confined to actions : for a man to pledge himself to feel and think only in a certain manner is to undertake an impossibility. It pledges him to an nnhealthy struggle against the order of nature. The promise ought moreover to be restricted to actions meritorious in themselves, and of some consequence. If to commit a crime is bad, to promise to commit one, and deliberately to keep the promise when aware of the criminality of the act, is worse. To tie a man's self up by a promise from the commission of an action indifferent in itself is a wilful waste of the power of self-denial, of which man at the best has no more than barely serves his necessities : the mind worn out with struggling against harmless propensities falls an easy prey to temptation in more important matters. The whole history of the monastic orders, a history attractive from the grandeur of its irregular and imaginative struggles, is an illustration of these views. With regard to simple promises, the rule of action is to make as few as possible, and exert every effort to keep them unless convinced that to do so would be a crime. With regard to vows, the same rule holds if possible with more force, because fickleness in regard to them implies a profane trifling with the most sublime emotions of our nature.