It might be well to remark here that one is not obliged to make restitution for more than the damages call for.  Earnestness is a good sign, but it should not blind us or drive us to an excess of zeal detrimental to our own lawful interests.  When there is a reasonable and insolvable doubt as to the amount of reparation to be made, it is just that such a doubt favor us.  If we are not sure if it be a little more or a little less, the value we are to refund, we may benefit by the uncertainty and make the burden we assume as light as in all reason it can be made.  And even if we should happen to err on the side of mercy to ourselves, without our fault, justice is satisfied, being fallible like all things human.

CHAPTER XCVIII.  WHAT EXCUSES FROM RESTITUTION.

Those who do not obtain full justice from man in this world will obtain it in the next from God.  If we do not meet our obligations this side of the tribunal of the just Judge, He will see to it that our accounts are equitably balanced when the time for the final reckoning comes.  This supposes, naturally, that non-fulfilment of obligations is due on our part to unwillingness—­a positive refusal, or its equivalent, wilful neglect, to undo the wrongs committed.  For right reason and God’s mercy must recognize the existence of a state of unfeigned and hopeless disability, when it is impossible for the delinquent to furnish the wherewithal to repair the evils of which he has been guilty.  When this condition is permanent, and is beyond all remedy, all claims are extinguished against the culprit, and all losses incurred must be ascribed to “an act of God,” as the coroner says.  For no mart can be held to what is impossible.

Chief among these moral, as well as legal, bankrupts is the good-for-nothing fellow who is sorry too late, who has nothing, has no hopes of ever having anything, and who therefore can give nothing.  You cannot extract blood from a beet, nor shekels from an empty purse.  Then a man may lose all his belongings in a catastrophe, and after striving by labor and economy to pay off his debts, may see himself obliged to give up the task through sickness, misfortune or other good causes.  He has given all he has, he cannot give more.  Even though liabilities were stacked up mountain-high against him, he cannot be held morally responsible, and his creditors must attribute their losses to the misfortune of life—­a rather unsubstantial consolation, but as good a one as the poor debtor has.

There are other cases where the obligations of restitution are not annulled, but only cancelled for the time being, until such a time as circumstances permit their being met without grave disaster to the debtor.  The latter may be in such a position that extreme, or great, want would stare him in the face, if he parted with what he possesses to make restitution.  The difficulty here is out of all proportion with the injustice committed for, after all, one must live, and charity begins at home, our first duty is toward ourselves.  The creditors of this man have no just claim against him until he improves his circumstances; in the meantime, the burden of responsibility is lifted from his shoulders.