If, in the instance given above, Dr. Smyth means that "the sound human understanding, in spite of the moralists," will approve lying, or falsifying with the intention to deceive, he ought to know that the sound human understanding will not justify such a course, and that it is unfair to intimate such a thing.[1] And when he asks, in connection with this suggestion, "Who is right,—Kant, or the common moral sense? Which should be followed, the philosophic morality, or the practice of otherwise most truthful men?" his own preliminary assertions are his conclusive answer. He says specifically, "Kant was profoundly right when he regarded falsehood as a forfeiture of personal worth, a destruction of personal integrity;" and the "common moral sense" of humanity is with Kant in this thing, in accordance with Dr. Smyth's primary view of the case, as over against the intimation of Dr. Smyth's question. As to the suggested "practice of otherwise most truthful men" in this thing,—if men who generally tell the truth, lie, or speak falsely, or deceive, under certain circumstances, they are much like men who are generally decent, but who occasionally, under temptation, are unchaste or dishonest; they are better examples in their uprightness than in their sinning.

[Footnote 1: See pp. 9-32, supra.]

It would seem, indeed, that, notwithstanding his sound basis of principles, which recognizes the incompatibility of falsehood with true manhood and with man's duty to his fellows, Dr. Smyth does not carry with him in his argument the idea of the essential sinfulness of a lie, and therefore he is continually inconsistent with himself. He says, for example, in speaking of the suspension of social duties in war time: "If the war is justifiable, the ethics of warfare come at once into play. It would be absurd to say that it is right to kill an enemy, but not to deceive him. Falsehood, it may be admitted, as military strategy, is justifiable, if the war is righteous."

Here, again, is the interchange of the terms "deception" and "falsehood." But unless this is an intentional jugglery of words, which is not to be supposed, this means that it would be absurd to say that it is right to kill an enemy, but not right to tell him a falsehood. And nothing could more clearly show Dr. Smyth's error of mind on this whole subject than this declaration. "Absurd" to claim that while it is right to take a man's life in open warfare, in a just cause, it would not be right to forfeit one's personal worth, and to destroy one's personal integrity, which Dr. Smyth says are involved in a falsehood! "Absurd" to claim that while God who is the author of life can justify the taking of life, he cannot justify the sin of lying! No, no, the absurdity of the case is not on that side of the line.

There is no consistency of argument on this subject in Dr. Smyth's work. His premises are sound. His reasoning is confused and inconsistent. "Not only in some cases of necessity is falsehood permissible, but we may recognize a positive obligation of love to the concealment of the truth," he says. Here again is that apparent confounding of unjustifiable "falsehood" with perfectly proper "concealment of truth." He continues: "Other duties which under such circumstances have become paramount, may require the preservation of one's own or another's life through a falsehood. Not only ought one not to tell the truth under the supposed conditions, but, if the principle assumed be sound, a good conscience may proceed to enforce a positive obligation of untruthfulness.... There are occasions when the interests of society and the highest motives of Christian love may render it much more preferable to discharge the duty of self-defense through the humanity of a successful falsehood, than by the barbarity of a stunning blow or a pistol-shot. General benevolence demands that the lesser evil, if possible, rather than the greater, should be inflicted on another."

Just compare these conclusions of Dr. Smyth with his own premises. "Truthfulness ... is an obligation which every man owes to himself. It is a primal personal obligation.... Truthfulness is the self-consistency of character; falsehood is a breaking up of the moral integrity." "The liar is rightly regarded as an enemy to mankind. A lie is not only an affront against the person to whom it is told, but it is an offense against humanity." But what of all that? "There are occasions when the interests of society and the highest motives of Christian love may render it much more preferable to discharge the duty of self-defense through the humanity of a successful falsehood, than by the barbarity of a stunning blow or a pistol-shot. General benevolence demands that the lesser evil, if possible, rather than the greater, should be inflicted on another." Better break up one's moral integrity, and fail in one's primal personal obligation to himself,—better become an enemy of mankind, and commit an offense against humanity,—than defend one's self against an outlaw by the barbarity of a stunning blow or a bullet!

Would any one suppose from his premises that Dr. Smyth looked upon personal truthfulness as a minor virtue, and upon falsehood as a lesser vice? Does he seem in those premises to put veracity below chastity, and falsehood below personal impurity? Yet is he to be understood as intimating, in this phase of his argument, that unchastity, or dishonesty, or any other vice than falsehood, is to be preferred, in practice, over a stunning blow or a fatal bullet against a would-be murderer?[1] The looseness of Dr. Smyth's logic, as indicated in this reasoning on the subject of veracity, would in its tendency be destructive to the safeguards of personal virtue and of social purity; and his arguments for the lie of exigency are similar to those which are put forward in excuse for common sins against chastity, by the free-and-easy defenders of a lax standard in such matters. "Some moralists," says the average young man of the world, "in their extreme regard for personal purity, will not admit that any act of unchastity is necessary, even to protect one's health, or as an act of love. But the men of virility and strong feeling will let down occasionally at this point, in spite of the moralists. Which should be followed,—the philosophic morality, or the practice of many otherwise decent and very respectable men?"

[Footnote 1: See Augustine's words on this point, quoted at p. 100, supra.]

Confounding, as always, a wise and right concealment of truth with actual falsehood, Dr. Smyth says of the duty of a teacher in the matter of imparting truth to a pupil according to the measure of the pupil's ability to receive it: "An occasional friendly use of truth as a crash towel may be wholesome; but ordinarily there is a more excellent way." That is a counting of truth precious, with a vengeance!

Dr. Smyth seems inclined to accept in the main the conclusions, on this whole subject, of Rothe, but without Rothe's measure of consistency in the argument. Rothe starts wrong, and of course ends wrong. Dr. Smyth, like Dr. Hodge, starts right and ends wrong. No sorer condemnation of Dr. Smyth's position can be made, than by the simple presentation of his own review of his own argument, when he says: "To sum up, then, what has been said concerning the so-called lies of necessity, the principle to be applied with wisdom is simply this: give the truth always to those who in the bonds of humanity have the right to the truth; conceal it or falsify it only when it is unmistakably evident that the human right to the truth from others has been forfeited, or temporarily is held in abeyance by sickness, weakness, or some criminal intent: do not in any case prevaricate, unless you can tell the necessary falsehood deliberately and positively, from principle, with a good conscience void of offense toward men, and sincere in the sight of God." What says the moral sense of humanity to such a position as that?

As over against the erroneous claim, made by Richard Rothe, and Newman Smyth, and others, that the "moral sense" of mankind is at variance with the demands of "rigid moralists," in regard to the unjustifiableness of falsehood, it is of interest to note the testimony of strong thinkers, who have written on this subject with the fullest freedom, from the standpoint of speculative philosophy, rather than of exclusively Christian ethics. For example, James Martineau, while a Christian philosopher, discusses the question of veracity as a philosopher, rather than as a Christian, in his "Types of Ethical Theory;"[1] and he insists that "veracity is strictly natural, that is, it is implied in the very nature which leads us to intercommunion in speech."

[Footnote 1: Martineau's Types of Ethical Theory, II., 255-265.]

As he sees it, a man is treacherous to himself who speaks falsely at any time to any one, and the man's moral sense recoils from his action accordingly. Dr. Martineau says: "It is perhaps, the peculiar treachery of this process which fixes upon falsehood a stamp of meanness quite exceptional; and renders it impossible, I think, to yield to its inducements, even in cases supposed to be venial, without a disgust little distinguishable from compunction. This must have been Kant's feeling when he said: 'A lie is the abandonment, or, as it were, the annihilation of the dignity of man.'"

Dr. Martineau is not so rigid a moralist but that he is ready to agree with those easy-going theologians who find a place for exceptional falsehoods in their reasoning; yet he is so true a man in his moral instincts that his nature recoils from the results of such reasoning. "After all," he says, "there is something in this problem which refuses to be thus laid to rest; and in treating it, it is hardly possible to escape the uneasiness of a certain moral inconsequence. If we consult the casuist of Common Sense he usually tells us that, in theory, Veracity can have no exceptions; but that, in practice, he is brought face to face with at least a few; and he cheerfully accepts a dispensation, when required, at the hands of Necessity.

"I confess rather to an inverse experience. The theoretic reasons for certain limits to the rule of veracity appear to me unanswerable; nor can I condemn any one who acts in accordance with them. Yet when I place myself in a like position, at one of the crises demanding a deliberate lie, an unutterable repugnance returns upon me, and makes the theory seem shameful. If brought to the test, I should probably act rather as I think than as I feel,[1] without, however, being able to escape the stab of an instant compunction and the secret wound of a long humiliation. Is this the mere weakness of superstition? It may be so. But may it not also spring from an ineradicable sense of a common humanity, still leaving social ties to even social aliens, and, in the presence of an imperishable fraternal unity, forbidding to the individual of the moment the proud right of spiritual ostracism?..."

[Footnote 1: No, a man who feels like that would be true in the hour of temptation. His doubt of himself is only the tremulousness of true courage.]

"How could I ever face the soul I had deceived, when perhaps our relations are reversed, and he meets my sins, not with self-protective repulse, but with winning love? And if with thoughts like these there also blends that inward reverence for reality which clings to the very essence of human reason, and renders it incredible, a priori, that falsehood should become an implement of good, it is perhaps intelligible how there may be an irremediable discrepancy between the dioptric certainty of the understanding and the immediate insight of the conscience: not all the rays of spiritual truth are refrangible; some there are beyond the intellectual spectrum, that wake invisible response, and tremble in the dark."

Dr. Martineau's definition of right and wrong is this:[1] "Every action is right, which, in presence of a lower principle, follows a higher: every action is wrong, which, in presence of a higher principle, follows a lower;" and his moral sense will not admit the possibility of falsehood being at any time higher than truth, or of veracity ever being lower than a lie.

[Footnote 1: Types of Ethical Theory, II., 270.]

Professor Thomas Fowler, of the University of Oxford, writing as a believer in the gradual evolution of morals, and basing his philosophy on experience without any recognition of a priori principles, is much more nearly in accord, at this point,[1] with Martineau, than with Rothe, Hodge, and Smyth. Although he is ready to concede that a lie may, theoretically, be justifiable, he is sure that the moral sense of mankind is, at the present state of average development, against its propriety. Hence, he asserts that, even when justice might deny an answer to an improper question, "outside the limits of justice, and irrespectively of their duty to others, many persons are often restrained, and quite rightly so, from returning an untruthful or ambiguous answer by purely self-regarding feelings. They feel that to give an untruthful answer, even under such circumstances as I have supposed, would be to burden themselves with the subsequent consciousness of cowardice or lack of self-respect. And hence, whatever inconvenience or annoyance it may cost them, they tell the naked truth, rather than stand convicted to themselves of a want of courage or dignity."

[Footnote 1: Principles of Morals, II., 159-161.]

"Veracity, though this was by no means always the case," Professor Fowler continues, "has become the point of honor in the upper ranks of modern civilized societies, and hence it is invested with a sanctity which seems to attach to no other virtue; and to the uninstructed conscience of the unreflective man, the duty of telling the truth appears, of all duties, to be the only duty which never admits of any exceptions, from the unavoidable conflict with other duties." He ranges the moral sense of the "upper ranks of modern civilized societies," and "the uninstructed conscience of the unreflective man," against any tolerance of the "lie of necessity," leaving only the locality of Muhammad's coffin for those who are arrayed against the rigid moralists on this question.

While he admits the theoretical possibility of the "lie of necessity," Professor Fowler concludes as to its practical expediency: "Without maintaining that there are no conceivable circumstances under which a man will be justified in committing a breach of veracity, it may at least be said that, in the lives of most men, there is no case likely to occur in which the greater social good would not be attained by the observation of the general rule to tell the truth, rather than by the recognition of an exception in favor of a lie, even though that lie were told for purely benevolent reasons." That is nearer right than the conclusions of many an inconsistent intuitionist!

Leslie Stephen, a consistent agnostic, and a believer in the slow evolution of morals, in his "Science of Ethics,"[1] naturally holds, like Herbert Spencer, to the gradual development of the custom of truthfulness, as a necessity of society.[2] The moral sense of primitive man, as he sees it, might seem to justify falsehood to an enemy, rather than, as Rothe and Smyth would claim, to those who are wards of love. In illustration of this he says: "The obligation to truthfulness is [primarily] limited to relations with members of the same tribe or state; and, more generally, it is curious to observe how a kind of local or special morality is often developed in regard to this virtue. The schoolboy thinks it a duty to his fellows to lie to his master, the merchant to his customer, and the servant to his employer; and, inversely, the duty is often recognized as between members of some little clique or profession, as soon as it is seen to be important for their corporate interest, even at the expense of the wider social organization. There is honor among thieves, both of the respectable and other varieties."

[Footnote 1: Leslie Stephen's Science of Ethics, pp. 202-209.]

[Footnote 2: See pp. 26-32, supra.]

But Leslie Stephen sees that, in the progress of the race, the importance of veracity has come to a recognition, "in which it differs from the other virtues." While the law of marriage may vary at different periods, "the rule of truthfulness, on the other hand, seems to possess the a priori quality of a mathematical axiom.... Truth, in short, being always the same, truthfulness must be unvarying. Thus, 'Be truthful' means, 'Speak the truth whatever the consequences, whether the teller or the hearer receives benefit or injury.' And hence, it is inferred, truthfulness implies a quality independent of the organization of the agent or of society." While Mr. Stephen would himself find a place for the "lie of necessity" under conceivable circumstances, he is clear-minded enough to perceive that the moral sense of the civilized world is opposed to this view; and in this he is nearer correct than those who claim the opposite.

It is true that those who seek an approbation of their defense of falsehoods which they deem a necessity, assume, without proof, their agreement with the moral sense of the race. But it is also true that there stands opposed to their theory the best moral sense of primitive man, as shown in a wide area of investigation, and also of thinkers all the way up from the lowest moral grade to the most rigorous moralists, including intuitionists, utilitarians, and agnostics. However deficient may be the practice of erring mortals, the ideal standard in theory, is veracity, and not falsehood.

As to the opinions of purely speculative philosophers, concerning the admissibility of the "lie of necessity," they have little value except as personal opinions. This question is one that cannot be discussed fairly without relation to the nature and law of God. It is of interest, however, to note that a keen mind like Kant's insists that "the highest violation of the duty owed by man to himself, considered as a moral being singly (owed to the humanity subsisting in his person), is a departure from truth, or lying."[1] And when a man like Fichte,[2] whom Carlyle characterizes as "that cold, colossal, adamantine spirit, standing erect like a Cato Major among degenerate men; fit to have been the teacher of the Stoa, and to have discoursed of beauty and virtue in the groves of Academe," declares that no measure of evil results from truth-speaking would induce him to tell a lie, a certain moral weight attaches to his testimony. And so with all the other philosophers. No attempt at exhaustiveness in their treatment is made in this work. But the fullest force of any fresh argument made by them in favor of occasional lying is recognized so far as it is known.

[Footnote 1: See Semple's Kant's Metaphysic of Ethics, p. 267.]

[Footnote 2: See Martensen's Christian Ethics (Individual), sec. 97.]

One common misquotation from a well-known philosopher, in this line, is, however, sufficiently noteworthy for special mention here. Jacobi, in his intense theism, protests against the unqualified idealism of Fichte, and the indefinite naturalism of Schelling; and, in his famous Letter to Fichte,[1] he says vehemently: "But the Good what is it? I have no answer if there be no God. As to me, this world of phenomena—if it have all its truth in these phenomena, and no more profound significance, if it have nothing beyond itself to reveal to me—becomes a repulsive phantom, in whose presence I curse the consciousness which has called it into existence, and I invoke against it annihilation as a deity. Even so, also, everything that I call good, beautiful, and sacred, turns to a chimera, disturbing my spirit, and rending the heart out of my bosom, as soon as I assume that it stands not in me as a relation to a higher, real Being,—not a mere resemblance or copy of it in me;—when, in fine, I have within me an empty and fictitious consciousness only. I admit also that I know nothing of 'the Good per se,' or 'the True per se,' that I even have nothing but a vague notion of what such terms stand for. I declare that it revolts me when people seek to obtrude upon me the Will which wills nothing, this empty nut of independence and freedom in absolute indifference, and accuse me of atheism, the true and proper godlessness, because I show reluctance to accept it."

[Footnote 1: F.H. Jacobi's Werke, IIIter Band, pp. 36-38.]

Insisting thus that he must have the will of a personal God as a source of obligation to conform to the law of truth and virtue, and that without such a source no assumed law can be binding on him, Jacobi adds: "Yes I am the atheist, and the godless man who, in opposition to the Will that wills nothing, will lie as the lying Desdemona lied; will lie and deceive as did Pylades in passing himself off as Orestes; will commit murder as did Timoleon; break law and oath as did Epaminondas, as did John De Witt; will commit suicide as did Otho; will undertake sacrilege with David; yes and rub ears of corn on the Sabbath merely because I am an hungered, and because the law is made for man and not man for the law."

Jacobi's reference, in this statement, to lying and other sins, was taken by itself as the motto to one of Coleridge's essays;[1] and this seems to have given currency to the idea that Jacobi was in favor of lying. Hence he is unfairly cited by ethical writers[2] as having declared himself for the lie of expediency; whereas the context shows that that is not his position. He is simply stating the logical consequences of a philosophy which he repudiates.

[Footnote 1: Coleridge's Works: The Friend, Essay XV.]

[Footnote 2: See, for instance, Martensen's Christian Ethics (Individual), sec. 97.]

Among the false assumptions that are made by many of the advocates of the "lie of necessity" is the claim that in war, in medical practice, and in the legal profession, the propriety of falsehood and deceit, in certain cases, is recognized and admitted on all sides. While the baselessness of this claim has been pointed out, incidentally, in the progress of the foregoing discussion,[1] it would seem desirable to give particular attention to the matter in a fuller treatment of it, before closing this record of centuries of discussion.

[Footnote 1: See pp. 71-75, supra.]

It is not true that in civilized warfare there is an entire abrogation, or suspension, of the duty of truthfulness toward an enemy. There is no material difference between war and peace in this respect. Enemies, on both sides, understand that in warfare they are to kill each other if they can, by the use of means that are allowable as means; but this does not give them the privilege of doing what is utterly inconsistent with true manhood.

Enemies are not bound to disclose their plans to each other. They have a duty of concealing those plans from each other. Hence, as Dorner has suggested, they proffer to each other's sight only appearances, not assurances; and it is for each to guess out, if he can, the real purpose of the other, below the appearance. An enemy can protect his borders by pitfalls, or torpedoes, or ambushes, carefully concealed from sight, in order to guard the life of his own people by destroying the life of his opponents, or may make demonstrations, before the enemy, of possible movements, in order to conceal his purposed movements; but in doing this he does only what is allowable, in effect, in time of peace.[1]

[Footnote 1: Several of the illustrations of Oriental warfare in the Bible record are to be explained in accordance with this principle. Thus with the ambush set by Joshua before Ai (Josh. 8: 1-26): the Canaanites did not read aright the riddle of the Israelitish commander, and they suffered accordingly. Yet Dr. Dabney (Theology, p. 424) cites this as an instance of an intentional deception which was innocent in God's sight. And again, in the case recorded at 2 Kings 7: 6, where the Lord "made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots, and a noise of horses, even the noise of a great host,... and they arose and ... fled for their life," thinking that Hittite and Egyptian forces were approaching, it is evident that God simply caused the Syrians, who were contending with his people, to feel that they were fighting hopelessly against God's cause. The impression God made on their minds was a correct one. He could bring chariots and horses as a great host against them. They did well to realize this fact. But the Syrians' explanation of this impression was incorrect in its details.]

A similar method of mystifying his opponent is adopted by the base-ball pitcher in his demonstrations with the ball before letting it drive at the batsman. The batsman holds himself responsible for reading the riddle of the pitcher's motions. Yet the pitcher is forbidden to deceive the batsman by a feint of delivering the ball without delivering it.

If an enemy attempts any communication with his opponent, he has no right to lie to, or to deceive him. He must not draw him into an ambuscade, or over concealed torpedoes, on the plea of desiring an amicable interview with him; and his every word given to an enemy must be observed sacredly as an obligation of truth.

Even before the Christian era, and centuries prior to the time when Chrysostom was confused in his mind on this point, Cicero wrote as to the obligations of veracity upon enemies in time of war, and in repudiation of the idea that warfare included a suspension of all moral relations between belligerents during active hostilities.[1]

[Footnote 1: Cicero's De Officiis, I., 12, 13.]

He said: "The equities of war are prescribed most carefully by the heralds' law (lex fetialis) of the Roman people," and he went on to give illustrations of the recognized duty of combatants to keep within the bounds of mutual social obligations. "Even where private persons, under stress of circumstances, have made any promise to the enemy," he said, "they should observe the exactest good faith, as did Regulus, in the first Punic war, when taken prisoner and sent to Rome to treat of the exchange of prisoners, having sworn that he would return. First, when he had arrived, he did not vote in the Senate for the return of the prisoners. Then, when his friends and kinsmen would have detained him, he preferred to go back to punishment rather than evade his faith plighted to the enemy.

"In the second Punic war also, after the battle of Cannae, of the ten Romans whom Hannibal sent to Rome bound by an oath that they would return unless they obtained an agreement for the redemption of prisoners, the censors kept disfranchised those who perjured themselves, making no exception in favor of him who had devised a fraudulent evasion of his oath. For when by leave of Hannibal he had departed from the camp, he went back a little later, on pretense of having forgotten something. Then departing again from the camp [without renewing his oath], he counted himself set free from the obligation of his oath. And so he was free so far as the words went, but not so in reality; for always in a promise we must have regard to the meaning of our words, rather than to the words themselves."

In modern times, when Lord Clive, in India, acted on the theory that an utter lack of veracity and good faith on the part of an enemy justified a suspension of all moral obligations toward him, and practiced deceit on a Bengalee by the name of Omichund, in order to gain an advantage over the Nabob of Bengal, he was condemned by the moral sense of the nation for which he thus acted deceitfully; and, in spite of the specious arguments put forth by his partisan defenders, his name is infamous because of this transaction.

"English valor and English intelligence have done less to extend and preserve our Oriental empire than English veracity," says Lord Macaulay. "All that we could have gained by imitating the doublings, the evasions, the fictions, the perjuries, which have been employed against us, is as nothing when compared with what we have gained by being the one power in India on whose word reliance can be placed. No oath which superstition can devise, no hostage however precious, inspires a hundredth part of the confidence which is produced by the 'yea, yea,' and the 'nay, nay,' of a British envoy." Therefore it is that Lord Macaulay is sure that "looking at the question of expediency in the lowest sense of the word, and using no arguments but such as Machiavelli might have employed in his conferences with Borgia, we are convinced that Clive was altogether in the wrong, and that he committed, not merely a crime but a blunder."[1]

[Footnote 1: Macaulay's Essay on Lord Clive.]

So again when an English vessel of war made signals of distress, off the coast of France, during the war with Napoleon, and thereby deceived men from the enemy into coming to its relief, and then held them as prisoners, the act was condemned by the moral sense of the world. As Woolsey says, in his "International Law:"[1] "Breach of faith between enemies has always been strongly condemned, and that vindication of it is worthless which maintains that, without an express or tacit promise to our enemy, we are not bound to keep faith with him."

[Footnote 1: Sect. 133, p. 213.]

The theologian who assumes that the duty of veracity is suspended between enemies in war time is ignorant of the very theory of civilized warfare; or else he fails to distinguish between justifiable concealment, by the aid of methods of mystifying, and falsehood which is never justifiable. And that commander who should attempt to justify falsehood and bad faith in warfare on the ground that it is held justifiable in certain works on Christian ethics, would incur the scorn of the civilized world for his credulity; and he would be told that it is absurd to claim that because he is entitled to kill a man in warfare it must be fair to lie to him.

In the treatment of the medical profession, many writers on ethics have been as unfair, as in their misrepresentation of the general moral sense with reference to warfare. They have spoken as if "the ethics of the medical profession" had a recognized place for falsehood in the treatment of the sick. But this assumption is only an assumption. There are physicians who will lie, and there are physicians who will not lie; and in each case the individual physician acts in this matter on his own responsibility: he has no code of professional ethics justifying a lie on his part as a physician, when it would not be justifiable in a layman.

Concealment of that which he has a right to conceal, is as clearly a duty, in many a case, on the part of a physician, as it is on the part of any other person; but falsehood is never a legitimate, or an allowable, means of concealment by physician or layman. As has been already stated[1] if it be once known that a physician is ever ready to speak words of cheer to a patient falsely, that physician is measurably deprived of the possibility of encouraging a patient by truthful words of cheer when he would gladly do so. And physicians would probably be surprised to know how generally they are estimated in the community according to their reputation in this matter. One is known as a man who will speak falsely to his patients as a means of encouragement, while another is known as a man who will be cautious about giving his opinion concerning chances of recovery, but who will never tell an untruth to a patient or to any other person. But in no case can a physician claim that the ethics of his profession as a profession justify him in a falsehood to any person—patient or no patient.

[Footnote 1: See p. 75 f., supra.]

A distinguished professor in one of the prominent medical colleges of this country, in denying the claim of a writer on ethics that it may become the duty of a physician to deceive his patient as a means of curing him, declares that a physician acting on this theory "will not be found in accord with the best and the highest medical teaching of the present day;" and he goes on to say:[1] "In my profession to-day, the truth properly presented, we have found, carries with it a convincing and adjusting element which does not fail to bring the afflicted person to that condition of mind that is most conducive to his physical well-being, and let me add also, I believe, to his spiritual welfare." This statement was made in connection with the declaration that in the hospital which was in his charge it is not deemed right or wise to deceive a patient as to any operation to be performed upon him. And there are other well-known physicians who testify similarly as to the ethics of their profession.

[Footnote 1: In a personal communication to the author.]

An illustration of the possible good results of concealing an unpleasant fact from a sick person, that has been a favorite citation all along the centuries with writers on ethics who would justify emergency falsehoods, is one which is given in his correspondence by Pliny the younger, eighteen centuries ago.[1]

[Footnote 1: Epistles of Pliny the Younger, Book III., Epis. 16. Pliny to Nepos.]

Caecinna Paetus and his son "were both at the same time attacked with what seemed a mortal illness, of which the son died.... His mother [Arria] managed his funeral so privately that Paetus did not know of his death. Whenever she came into his bedchamber, she pretended that her son was better, and, as often as he inquired after his health, would answer that he had rested well, or had eaten with an appetite. When she found she could no longer restrain her grief, but her tears were gushing out, she would leave the room, and, having given vent to her passion, return again with dry eyes and a serene countenance, as if she had dismissed every sentiment of sorrow."

This Roman matron also committed suicide, as an encouragement to her husband whom she desired to have put an end to his own life, when he was likely to have it taken from him by the executioner; and Pliny commends her nobleness of conduct in both cases. It is common among ethical writers, in citing this instance in favor of lying, to say nothing about the suicide, and to omit mention of the fact that the mother squarely lied, by saying that her dead boy had eaten a good breakfast, instead of employing language that might have been the truth as far as it went, while it concealed that portion of the truth which she thought it best to conceal. It is common to quote her as simply saying of her son" He is better;"[1] quite a different version from Pliny's, and presenting a different issue.

[Footnote 1: See Newman Smyth's Christian Ethics, p. 395, where this case is stated with vagueness of phrase, and as thus stated is approved.]

It was perfectly proper for that mother to conceal the signs of her sorrow from her sick husband, who had no right to know the truth concerning matters outside of his sick-room at such a time. And if, indeed, she could say in all sincerity, as expressive of her feelings in the death of her son, by the will of the gods, "He is better," it would have been possible for her to feel that she was entitled to say that as the truth, and not as a falsehood; and in that case she would not have intended a deceit, but only a concealment. But when, on the other hand, she told a deliberate lie—spoke falsely in order to deceive—she committed a sin in so doing, and her sin was none the less a sin because it resulted in apparent good to her husband. An illustration does not overturn a principle, but it may misrepresent it.

Another illustration, on the other side of the case, is worth citing here. Victor Hugo pictures, in his Les Miserables,[1] a sister of charity adroitly concealing facts from a sick person in a hospital, while refusing to tell a falsehood even for the patient's good. "Never to have told a falsehood, never to have said for any advantage, or even indifferently, a thing which was not the truth, the holy truth, was the characteristic feature of Sister Simplice." She had taken the name of Simplice through special choice. "Simplice, of Sicily, our readers will remember, is the saint who sooner let her bosom be plucked out than say she was a native of Segeste, as she was born at Syracuse, though the falsehood would have saved her. Such a patron saint suited this soul." And in speaking of Sister Simplice, as never having told even "a white lie," Victor Hugo quotes a letter from the Abbe Sicard, to his deaf-mute pupil Massieu, on this point: "Can there be such a thing as a white lie, an innocent lie? Lying is the absolute of evil. Lying a little is not possible. The man who lies tells the whole lie. Lying is the face of the fiend; and Satan has two names,—he is called Satan and Lying." Victor Hugo the romancer would seem to be a safer guide, so far, for the physician or the nurse in the sick-room, than Pliny the rhetorician, or Rothe the theologian.[2]

[Footnote 1: Book VII.]

[Footnote 2: Yet Victor Hugo afterwards represents even Sister Simplice as lying unqualifiedly, when sorely tempted—although not in the sick-room.]

A well-known physician, in speaking to me of this subject, said: "It is not so difficult to avoid falsehood in dealing with anxious patients as many seem to suppose. Tact, as well as principle, will do a good deal to help a physician out, in an emergency. I have never seen any need of lying, in my practice." And yet another physician, who had been in a widely varied practice for forty years, said that he had never found it necessary to tell a lie to a patient; although he thought he might have done so if he had deemed it necessary to save a patient's life. In other words, while he admitted the possible justification of an "emergency lie," he had never found a first-class opening for one in his practice. And he added, that he knew very well that if he had been known to lie to his patients, his professional efficiency, as well as his good name, would have suffered. Medical men do not always see, in their practice, the supposed advantages of lying, which have so large prominence in the minds of ethical writers.

Another profession, which is popularly and wrongly accused of having a place for the lie in its system of ethics, is the legal profession. Whewell refers to this charge in his "Elements of Morality" (citing Paley in its support). He says: "Some moralists have ranked with the cases in which convention supersedes the general rule of truth, an advocate asserting the justice, or his belief in the justice, of his client's cause." But as to an advocate's right in this matter, Whewell says explicitly: "If, in pleading, he assert his belief that his cause is just, when he believes it unjust, he offends against truth; as any other man would do who, in like manner, made a like assertion."[1]

[Footnote 1: Whewell's Elements of Morality, sec. 400.]

Chief-Justice Sharswood, of Pennsylvania, in his standard work on "Legal Ethics," cites this opinion of Whewell with unqualified approval; and, in speaking for the legal profession, he says: "No counsel can with propriety and good conscience express to court or jury his belief in the justice of his client's cause, contrary to the fact. Indeed, the occasions are very rare in which he ought to throw the weight of his private opinion into the scales in favor of the side he has espoused." Calling attention to the fact that the official oath of an attorney, on his admission to the bar, in the state of Pennsylvania, includes the specific promise to "use no falsehood," he says: "Truth in all its simplicity—truth to the court, client, and adversary—should be indeed the polar star of the lawyer. The influence of only slight deviations from truth upon professional character is very observable. A man may as well be detected in a great as a little lie. A single discovery, among professional brethren, of a failure of truthfulness, makes a man the object of distrust, subjects him to constant mortification, and soon this want of confidence extends itself beyond the Bar to those who employ the Bar. That lawyer's case is truly pitiable, upon the escutcheon of whose honesty or truth rests the slightest tarnish."[1]

[Footnote 1: Sharswood's Essay on Professional Ethics, pp. 57, 99,102,167 f.]

As illustrative of the carelessness with which popular charges against an entire profession are made the basis of reflections upon the ethical standard of that profession, the comments of Dr. Hodge on this matter are worthy of particular notice. In connection with his assertion that "the principles of professional men allow of many things which are clearly inconsistent with the requirements of the ninth commandment," he says: "Lord Brougham is reported to have said, in the House of Lords, that an advocate knows no one but his client. He is bound per fas et nefas, if possible, to clear him. If necessary for the accomplishment of that object, he is at liberty to accuse and defame the innocent, and even (as the report stated) to ruin his country. It is not unusual, especially in trials for murder, for the advocates of the accused to charge the crime on innocent parties and to exert all their ingenuity to convince the jury of their guilt." And Dr. Hodge adds the note that "Lord Brougham, according to the public papers, uttered these sentiments in vindication of the conduct of the famous Irish advocate Phillips, who on the trial of Courvoisier for the murder of Lord Russell, endeavored to fasten the guilt on the butler and housemaid, whom he knew to be innocent, as his client had confessed to him that he had committed the murder."[1]

[Footnote 1: Hodge's Systematic Theology, III., 439.]

Now the facts, in the two very different cases thus erroneously intermingled by Dr. Hodge, as given by Justice Sharswood,[1] present quite another aspect from that in which Dr. Hodge sees them, as bearing on the accepted ethics of the legal profession. It would appear that Lord Brougham was not speaking in defense of another attorney's action, but in defense of his own course as attorney of Queen Caroline, thirty years before the Courvoisier murder trial. As Justice Sharswood remarks of Lord Brougham's "extravagant" claims: "No doubt he was led by the excitement of so great an occasion to say what cool reflection and sober reason certainly never can approve." Yet Lord Brougham does not appear to have suggested, in his claim, that a lawyer had a right to falsify the facts involved, or to utter an untruth. He was speaking of his supposed duty to defend his client, the Queen, against the charges of the King, regardless of the consequences to himself or to his country through his advocacy of her cause, which he deemed a just one.

[Footnote 1: Sharswood's Legal Ethics, p. 86 f.]

And as to the charge against the eminent advocate, Charles Phillips, of seeking to fasten the crime on the innocent, when he knew that his client was guilty, in the trial of Courvoisier for the murder of Lord Russell, that charge was overwhelmingly refuted by the testimony of lawyers and judges present at that trial. Mr. Phillips supposed his client an innocent man until the trial was nearly concluded. Then came the unexpected confession from the guilty man, accompanied by the demand that his counsel continue in his case to the end. At first Mr. Phillips proposed to retire at once from the case; but, on advising with eminent counsel, he was told that it would be wrong for him to betray the prisoner's confidence, and practically to testify against him, by deserting him at that hour. He then continued in the case, but, as is shown conclusively in his statement of the facts, with its accompanying proofs, without saying a word or doing a thing that might properly be deemed in the realm of false assertion or intimations.[1]

[Footnote 1: See Sharswood's Legal Ethics, pp. 103-107, 183-196.]

The very prominence given in the public press to the charges against Mr. Phillips, and to their refutation, are added proof that the moral sense of the community is against falsehood under any circumstances or in any profession.

Members of the legal profession are bound by the same ethical obligations as other men; yet the civil law, in connection with which they practice their profession, is not in all points identical with the moral law; although it is not in conflict with any of its particulars. As Chancellor Kent says: "Human laws are not so perfect as the dictates of conscience, and the sphere of morality is more enlarged than the limits of civil jurisdiction. There are many duties that belong to the class of imperfect obligations, which are binding on conscience, but which human laws do not and cannot undertake directly to enforce. But when the aid of a Court of Equity is sought to carry into execution ... a contract, then the principles of ethics have a more extensive sway."[1]

[Footnote 1: Kent's Commentaries, Lect. 39, p. 490 f. (4th ed.); cited in Story's Equity Jurisprudence, VI., p. 229 (13th ed.).]

In the decisions of Equity courts, while the duty of absolute truthfulness between parties in interest is insisted on as vital, and a suppression of the truth from one who had a right to its knowledge, or a suggestion of that which is untrue in a similar case("suggestio falsi aut suppressio veri"), is deemed an element of fraud, the distinction between mere silence when one is entitled to be silent, and concealment with the purpose of deception, is distinctly recognized, as it is not in all manuals on ethics.[1] This is indicated, on the one hand, in the legal maxim Aliud est celare, aliud tacere,—"It is one thing to conceal, another to be silent;" silence is not necessarily deceptive concealment;[2] and on the other hand in such a statement as this, in Benjamin's great work on Sales: "The nondisclosure of hidden facts [to a party in interest] is the more objectionable when any artifice is employed to throw the buyer off his guard; as by telling half the truth."[3] It is not in any principles which are recognized by the legal profession as binding on the conscience, that loose ethics are to find defense or support.

[Footnote 1: See Bispham's Principles of Equity, p. 261, (3d ed.); Broom's Legal Maxims, p. 781 f. (7th Am. ed.); Merrill's American and English Encyclopedia of Law, art. "Fraud."]

[Footnote 2: See Anderson's Dictionary of Law, p. 220; Abbott's Law Dictionary, I., 53.]

[Footnote 3: Treatise on the Law of Sale of Personal Property, p. 451 f.]

But the profession that has most at stake in this discussion, and that, indeed, is most involved in its issue, is the ministerial, or clerical, profession. While it was Jewish rabbis who affirmed most positively, in olden time, the unwavering obligations of truthfulness, it was Jewish rabbis, also, who sought to find extenuation or excuse for falsehoods uttered with a good intention. And while it was Christian Fathers, like the Shepherd of Hermas, and Justin Martyr, and Basil the Great, and Augustine, who insisted that no tolerance should be allowed to falsehood or deceit, it was also Christian Fathers, like Gregory of Nyssa, and Chrysostom, who having practiced deceit for what they deemed a good end, first attempted a special plea for such falsities as they had found convenient in their professional labors. And it was other Christian Fathers, like Origen and Jerome, who sought to find arguments for laxity of practice, at this point, in the course of the Apostles themselves.

All the way along the centuries, while the strongest defenders of the law of truthfulness have been found among clergymen, more has been written in favor of the lie of necessity by clergymen than by men of any other class or profession. And if it be true, as many of these have claimed, that deceit and falsehood are a duty, on the part of a God-loving teacher, toward those persons who, through weakness, or mental incapacity, or moral obliquity, are in the relation to him of wards of love, or of subjects of guardianship, there is no profession in which there is more of a call for godly deception, and for holy falsehood, than the Christian ministry. If it be true that a lie, or a falsehood, is justifiable in order to the saving of the physical life of another, how much better were it to tell such a lie in the loving desire to save a soul.

If the lie of necessity be allowable for any purpose, it would seem to be more important as a means of good in the exercise of the ministerial profession, than of any other profession or occupation. And if it be understood that this is the case, what dependence can be put, by the average hearer, on the most earnest words of a preacher, who may be declaring a truth from God, and who, on the other hand, may be uttering falsehoods in love? And if it be true, also, as some of these clergymen have claimed, that God specifically approved falsehood and deception, according to the Bible record, and that Jesus Christ practiced in this line, while here on earth, what measure of confidence can fallible man place in the sacred text as it has come to him? The statement of this view of the case, is the best refutation of the claim of a possible justification for the most loving lie imaginable.

The only other point remaining untouched, in this review of the centuries of discussion concerning the possible justifiableness of a lie under conceivable circumstances, is in its relation to the lower animals. It has been claimed that "all admit" that there is no impropriety in using any available means for the decoying of fish or of beasts to their death, or in saving one's self from an enraged animal; hence that a lie is not to be counted as a sin per se, but depends for its moral value on the relation subsisting between its utterer and the one toward whom it is uttered.

Dr. Dabney, who is far less clear and sound than Dr. Thornwell in his reasoning on this ethical question, says: "I presume that no man would feel himself guilty for deceiving a mad dog in order to destroy him;"[1] and he argues from this assumption that when a man, through insanity or malice, "is not a rational man, but a brute," he may fairly be deemed as outside of the pale of humanity, so far as the obligations of veracity, viewed only as a social virtue, are concerned.

[Footnote 1: Dabney's Theology (second edition), p. 425 f.]

Dr. Newman Smyth expands this idea.[1] He says: "We may say that animals, strictly speaking, can have no immediate right to our words of truth, since they belong below the line of existence which marks the beginning of any functions of speech." He adds that animals "may have direct claims upon our humanity, and so indirectly put us under obligations to give them straightforward and fair treatment," and that "truthfulness to the domestic animal, to the horse or the dog, is to be included as a part of our general obligation of kindness to creatures that are entirely dependent upon our fidelity to them and their wants." But he cites the driving of horses with blinders,[2] and the fishing for trout with artificial flies, as evidence of the fact that man recognizes no sinfulness in the deceiving of the lower animals, and hence that the duty of veracity is not one of universal obligation.

[Footnote 1: Smyth's Christian Ethics, p. 398.]

[Footnote 2: Here is another illustration of Dr. Smyth's strange confusion of concealment with deception. It would seem as though a man must have blinders before his own eyes, to render him incapable of perceiving the difference between concealing a possible cause of fright from an animal, and intentionally deceiving that animal.]

If, indeed, the duty of truthfulness were only a social obligation, there might be a force in this reasoning that is lacking when we see that falsehood and deceit are against the very nature of God, and are a violation of man's primal nature. A lie is a sin, whenever and however and to whomsoever spoken or acted. It is a sin against God when uttered in his sight.

Man is given authority from God over all the lower animals;[1] and he is empowered to take their lives, if necessary for his protection or for his sustenance. In the exercise of this right, man is entitled to conceal from the animals he would kill or capture the means employed for the purpose; as he is entitled to conceal similarly from his fellow-man, when he is authorized to kill him as an enemy, in time of war waged for God. Thus it is quite proper for a man to conceal the hook or the net from the fish, or the trap or the pitfall from the beast; but it is not proper to deceive an animal by an imitation of the cry of the animal's offspring in order to lure that animal to its destruction; and the moral sense of the human race makes this distinction.

[Footnote 1: Gen. 1:28; 9:1-3.]

An illustration that has been put forward, as involving a nice question in the treatment of an animal, is that of going toward a loose horse with a proffered tuft of grass in one hand, and a halter for his capture concealed behind the back in the other hand. It is right to conceal the halter, and to proffer the grass, provided they are used severally in their proper relations. If the grass be held forth as an assurance of the readiness of the man to provide for the needs of the horse, and it be given to him when he comes for it, there is no deception practiced so far; and if, when horse and man are thus on good terms, the man brings out the halter for its use in the relation of master and servitor between the two, that also is proper, and the horse would so understand it. But if the man were to refuse the grass to the horse, when the two had come together, and were to substitute for it the halter, the man would do wrong, and the horse would recognize the fact, and not be caught again in that way.

Even a writer like Professor Bowne, who is not quite sure as to the right in all phases of the lying question, sees this point in its psychological aspects to better advantage than those ethical writers who would look at the duty of truthfulness as mainly a social virtue: "Even in cases where we regard truth as in our own power," he says, "there are considerations of expediency which are by no means to be disregarded. There is first the psychological fact that inexactness of statement, exaggeration, unreality in speech, are sure to react upon the mental habit of the person himself, and upon the estimate in which his statements are held by others. In dealing with children, also, however convenient a romancing statement might momentarily be, it is unquestionable that exact truthfulness is the only way which does not lead to mischief. Even in dealing with animals, it pays in the long run to be truthful. The horse that is caught once by false pretenses will not be long in finding out the trick. The physician also who dissembles, quickly comes to lose the confidence of his patient, and has thereafter no way of getting himself believed."[1]

[Footnote 1: Bowne's Principles of Ethics, p. 224.]

The main question is not whether it is fair toward an animal for a man to lie to him, but whether it is fair toward a man's self, or toward God the maker of animals and of men, for a man to lie to an animal. A lie has no place, even theoretically, in the universe, unless it be in some sphere where God has no cognizance and man has no individuality.

* * * * *

It were useless to follow farther the ever-varying changes of the never-varying reasonings for the justification of the unjustifiable "lie of necessity" in the course of the passing centuries. It is evident that the specious arguments put forth by young Chrysostom, in defense of his inexcusable lie of love fifteen centuries ago, have neither been added to nor improved on by any subsequent apologist of lying and deception. The action of Chrysostom is declared by his biographers to be "utterly at variance with the principles of truth and honor," one which "every sound Christian conscience must condemn;" yet those modern ethical writers who find force and reasonableness in his now venerable though often-refuted fallacies, are sure that the moral sense of the race is with Chrysostom.

Every man who recognizes the binding force of intuitions of a primal law of truthfulness, and who gives weight to a priori arguments for the unchanging opposition of truth and falsehood, either admits, in his discussion of this question, that a lie is never justifiable, or he is obviously illogical and inconsistent in his processes of reasoning, and in his conclusions. Even those who deny any a priori argument for the superiority of truthfulness over falsehood, and whose philosophy rests on the experimental evidence of the good or evil of a given course, are generally inclined to condemn any departure from strict truthfulness as in its tendencies detrimental to the interests of society, aside from any question of its sinfulness. The only men who are thoroughly consistent in their arguments in favor of occasional lying, are those who start with the false premise that there is no higher law of ethics than that of such a love for one's neighbor as will make one ready to do whatever seems likely to advantage him in the present life.

Centuries of discussion have only brought out with added clearness the essential fact that a lie is eternally opposed to the truth; and that he who would be a worthy child of the Father of truth must refuse to employ, under any circumstances, modes of speech and action which belong exclusively to the "father of lies."



VII.

THE GIST OF THE MATTER.

It would seem that the one all-dividing line in the universe, which never changes or varies, is the line between the true and the false, between the truth and a lie. All other lines of distinction, such even as those which separate good from evil, light from darkness, purity from impurity, love from hate, are in a sense relative and variable lines, taking their decisive measure from this one primal and eternal dividing line.

This is the one line which goes back of our very conception of a personal God, or which is inherent in that conception. We cannot conceive of God as God, unless we conceive of him as the true God, and the God of truth. If there be any falsity in him, he is not the true God. Truth is of God's very nature. To admit in our thought that a lie is of God, is to admit that falsity is in him, or, in other words, that he is a false god.

A lie is the opposite of truth, and a being who will lie stands opposed to God, who by his very nature cannot lie. Hence he who lies takes a stand, by that very act, in opposition to God. Therefore if it be necessary at any time to lie, it is necessary to desert God and be in hostility to him so long as the necessity for lying continues.

If there be such a thing as a sin per se, a lie is that thing; as a lie is, in its very nature, in hostility to the being of God. Whatever, therefore, be the temptation to lie, it is a temptation to sin by lying. Whatever be the seeming gain to result from a lie, it is the seeming gain from a sin. Whatever be the apparent cost or loss from refusing to lie, it is the apparent cost or loss from refusing to sin.

Man, formed in the moral image of God, is so far a representative of God. If a man lies, he misrepresents and dishonors God, and must incur God's disapproval because of his course. This fact is recognized in the universal habit of appealing to God in witness of the truthfulness of a statement, when there is room for doubt as to its correctness. The feeling is general that a man who believes in God will not lie unto God under the solemnity of an oath. If, however, it were possible for God to approve a lie on the part of one of his children, then that child of God might confidently make solemn oath to the truth of his lie, appealing to God to bear witness to the lie—which in God's mind is, in this case, better than the truth. In God's sight an oath is no more sacred than a yea, yea; and every child of God speaks always as in the sight of God. Perjury is no more of an immorality than ordinary lying; nor is ordinary lying any less a sin than formal perjury.

The sin of lying consists primarily and chiefly in its inconsistency with the nature of God and with the nature of God's image in man. It is not mainly as a sin against one's neighbor, but it is as a sin against God and one's self, that a lie is ever and always a sin. If it were possible to lie without harming or offending one's neighbor, or even if it were possible to benefit one's fellow-man by a lie, no man could ever tell a lie, under any circumstances or for any purpose whatsoever, without doing harm to his own nature, and offending against God's very being. If a lie comes out of a man on any inducement or provocation, or for any purpose of good, that man is the worse for it. The lie is evil, and its coming out of the man is harmful to him. "The things which proceed out of the man are those that defile the man,"[1] said our Lord; and the experience of mankind bears witness to the correctness of this asseveration.

[Footnote 1: Mark 7:15.]

Yet, although the main sin and guilt and curse of a lie are ever on him who utters that lie, whatever be his motive in so doing, the evil consequences of lying are immeasurable in the community as a community; and whoever is guilty of a new lie adds to the burden of evil that weighs down society, and that tends to its disintegration and ruin. The bond of society is confidence. A lie is inconsistent with confidence; and the knowledge that a lie is, under certain circumstances, deemed proper by a man, throws doubt on all that that man says or does under any circumstances. No matter why or where the one opening for an allowable lie be made in the reservoir of public confidence, if it be made at all, the final emptying of that reservoir is merely a question of time.

To-day, as in all the days, the chief need of men, for themselves and for their fellows, is a likeness to God in the impossibility of lying; and the chief longing of the community is for such confidence of men in one another as will give them assurance that they will not lie one to another. There was never yet a lie uttered which did not bring more of harm than of good; nor will there ever be a harmless lie, while God is Truth, and Satan is the father of lies.



TOPICAL INDEX.

Abbe Sicard: cited Abbott, Benjamin V.; cited Abohab, Isaac: quotation from Abraham: his deceiving Achilles, truthfulness of Act and speech, lying in Advantages of lying, supposed Africans, truthfulness among Ahab's false prophets Ahriman, father of lies American Indians, habits of Ananias and Sapphira Anderson, Rasmus B.: cited Animals, deception of Aquinas, Thomas: cited Arabs, influence of civilization on Aristotle: cited Army prison life, incidents in Augustine: cited Aurelius, Marcus: cited

Bailey: cited Barrow, Sir John: cited Base-ball, concealment in Basil, friend of Chrysostom Basil the Great: cited Baumgarten-Crusius: cited Benjamin, Judah P.: cited Bergk, Theodor: cited Bethlehem, Samuel at Bheels, estimate of truth by Bible: principles, not rules, in first record of lie in story of man's "fall" in standard of right forbids lying Bible teachings on lying Bingham, Joseph: cited Bispham, George T.: cited Bock, Carl: cited Bowne, B.P., quotation from Boyle, F.: cited Brahmans, estimate of truth by Briggs and Salmond: cited Broom, Dr. Herbert: cited Brougham, Lord: cited Budge, E.A.: cited Bunsen, C.K.J,; cited Burton, Richard: cited, 30.

Caecinna Paetus: cited Calvin, John: cited Carlyle, Thomas: cited Cartwright, William C.: cited Chastity, lying to save Children's right to truth Choosing between duties Christ, example of Christian ethics, basis of Christian Fathers, discussion by Christians, early, discussion by Chrysostom: cited Cicero: cited Clergymen, position of Clive, Lord: cited Coleridge, S.T.: cited Concealment, justifiable Concealment, unjustifiable Confidence essential to society Contract, overpressing theory of Conway, Moncure D.: cited Court, oath in Courvoisier, trial of Crime, lying to prevent Cyprian: cited

Dabney, Dr. R.L.: cited Darius, inscription of David: his deceiving "Deans, Jeanie," story of Deception: antagonistic to nature of God among Phoenicians by Hebrew midwives by Rahab by Jacob Samuel charged with Micah charged with by Abraham by Isaac by David by Ananias and Sapphira in speech and in act concealment not necessarily purposed and resultant of lower animals in medical profession of insane in flag of truce teaching of Talmudists as to Peter and Paul charged with teaching of Jesuits of the intoxicated Elisha charged with Joshua charged with in legal profession in ministerial profession, Definitions of lie Denham: cited De Wette: cited Dick, Dr., quotation from Dorner, Dr. Isaac A.: cited Drona, story of Yudhishthira and Duns Scotus: cited Duty: of truthfulness; of disclosure, conditional; choosing of more important; of right concealment; to God not to be counted out. Dyaks; their truthfulness

Earl, G.W.: cited Early Christians, temptations of East Africans, estimate of truth by Egyptian idea of deity synonymous with truth Elisha and Syrians Enemy, duty of truthfulness to Esau, deceit practiced on Eunomius: cited Evil as a means of good Exigency, lie of (see Lie of Necessity)

False impressions, limit of responsibility for Falsehood: estimate of, in India; in Ceylon; in Persia; in Egypt; "Punic faith," synonym of; in medical profession; its use as means of good; spoken in love; in legal profession. Family troubles, concealment of Fichte: cited Firmus, Bishop: cited Flag of truce, sending of Flatt: cited Forsyth, Capt. J.: cited Fowler, Professor: cited Frankness, brutal Fridthjof and Ingeborg, story of Fuerstenthal, R.J.: cited

German ideal of truth Glasfurd: cited God: killing, but not lying, a possibility with; cannot lie; his concealments from man; is truth; called to witness lie; Greeks, ancient: their estimate of truth Gregory of Nyssa: cited "Hall of two truths" Hamburger, Dr. I.: cited Hannibal: cited Harischandra, story of Harkness, Capt. Henry: cited Harless: cited Hartenstein: cited Heber, Bishop: cited Hebrew midwives Hebrew spies Hegel: cited Heralds' law Herbart: cited Hennas, Shepherd of: cited Herodotus: cited Hill Tribes of India: their estimate of truth Hindoo; estimate of truth; passion-play. Hodge, Dr. Charles; cited "Home of Song" "Home of the Lie" Hottentot, estimate of truth Hugo, Victor: cited Hunter, W.W.: cited

Ilai, Rabbi: cited Iliad, estimate of truth in Indians, American, influence of civilization on Ingeborg and Fridthjof of, story of Innocent III.: cited Insane: lying to their right to truth Inscription of Darius Intoxicated, the: their right to truth Isaac: his deceiving Isaac, Jacob, and Esau Ishmael, Rabbi: cited

Jackson, Prof. A.V.W.: cited Jacob: his deceiving his lie to Isaac Jacobi, F.H.: cited Javanese: their truthfulness Jehoshaphat and Ahab Jehuda, Rabbi: cited Jerome: cited Jesuits, teaching of Jewish Talmudists, discussions of Johnson's Cyclopaedia: cited Judith and Holofernes Justin Martyr: cited Juvenal: cited

Kant, Immanuel: cited Keating, W.H.: cited Kent, Chancellor: cited Khonds of Central India, truthfulness among Killing an enemy or lying to him Kirkbride, Dr. Thomas S., testimony of Kolben, P.: cited Krause: cited Kurtz, Prof. J.H.: cited

Lamberton, Prof. W.A.: cited Lecky, W.E.H.: cited Legal profession, ethics of Legends, Scandinavian Liar: an enemy of righteousness form of prayer for Liars, place of Libby Prison, incident of Lichtenberger, F.: cited Life, losing of truth to save Life insurance, truthfulness in Lightfoot, Bishop: cited Liguori: cited Livingstone, David: cited Logic swayed by feeling Loyola, Ignatius: cited Luther, Martin: cited

MA, symbol of Truth Macaulay, Lord, on Lord Clive's treachery Macpherson, Lieutenant: cited Mahabharata on lying Mahaffy, Prof. J.P.: cited Mandingoes: their estimate of truth Marcus Aurelius, quotation from Marheineke: cited Marriage, duty of truthfulness in connection with Marshman, Joshua: cited Martensen, Hans Lassen: cited Martineau, Dr. James, quotations from Martyrdom price of truth-telling Mead, Professor: cited Medical profession, no justifiable falsehood in Melanchthon: cited Menorath Hammaor, reference to Merrill, J.H.: cited Meyer, Dr. H.A.W.: cited Meyrick, Rev. F.: cited Micaiah, story of Midwives, Hebrew, lies of Mithra, god of truth Moore, William: cited Moral sense of man against lying Morgan: cited Mueller, Julius: cited Mueller, Prof. Max: cited Murderer, concealment from would-be Nathan, Rabbi: cited Neander: cited Nitzsch: cited

Oath of witness in court Omichund, deceit practiced on One all-dividing line Origen: cited Ormuzd, Zoroastrian god of truth

Paley, Dr.: definition of lie Palgrave, W.G.: cited Paradise, two pictures of Park, Mungo: cited Pascal: cited Passion-play, Hindoo Patagonians: their view of lying Patient, deception of, by physician Paul and Peter: suggestion of their deceiving Perjury justifiable, if lying be Persian ideals Peter and Paul: suggestion of their deceiving Phillips, Charles, misrepresented Philoctetes, tragedy of Phoenicians: their untruthfulness Physician, lying by Pindar: cited Place of liars Plato: cited Pliny the younger: cited Pope Innocent III.: cited Prayer, form of, for liar Principles, not rules, Bible standard Priscillianists, sect of Prophets, lying Plan, lord of truth "Punic faith," synonym of falsehood Pylades and Orestes

Quaker and salesman "Quaker guns," concealment by means of

Ra, symbol of light Raba: cited Raffles, Sir T.S.: cited Rahab the harlot, lying of Rawlinson, Prof. George: cited Reinhard: cited Responsibility, limit of Robber: concealment from lying to Roberts, Joseph, quotation from Rock of Behistun, inscription on Roman Catholic writers, views of Roman matron, story of: cited by Pliny Roman standard of truthfulness Rothe, Richard: cited

St. John, Sir Spencer: cited Samuel at Bethlehem Sapphira: her deceiving Satan, "father of lies" Sayce, Prof. A.H.: cited Scandinavian legends Schaff, Dr. Philip: cited Schaff-Hertzog: cited Schleiermacher: cited Schoolcraft, H.R.: cited Schwartz: cited Scott Sir Walter: cited Self-deception in others, limit of responsibility for Semple, J.W.: cited Sharswood, Chief-Justice: cited Shepherd of Hermas, quotation from Sherwill: cited Shorn, Dr. J.: cited Sick: their right to truth Simplice, Sister, story of Sin per se, lying Smith and Cheetham: cited Smith and Wace: cited Smyth, Dr. Newman: cited Sonthals, truthfulness among South, Dr. Robert: cited Sowrahs, truthfulness among Speech and act, lying in Spencer, Herbert: cited Spies, Hebrew, Rahab and Spy denied soldier's death Stephen, Leslie: cited Story, Justice: cited Surgeon's responsibility for his action testimony as to deceiving patient Symonds J.A.: cited Syrians, Elisha and

Talmud, teachings of Talmudists, discussion among Taylor, Jeremy; cited Teaching of Jesuits Temptations influencing decision Tertullian: cited Theognis: cited Thornwell, Dr. James H.: cited Tipperahs: their habit of lying Todas, truthfulness among Tragedy of Philoctetes Truce, flag of, use of Truth: universal duty of telling God is not every one entitled to full dearer than life justifiable concealment of unjustifiable concealment of Truth, estimate of: among Hindoos among Scandinavians in ancient Persia in ancient Egypt among Romans among ancient Greeks among ancient Germans among Hill Tribes of India among Arabs among American Indians among Patagonians among Africans among Dyaks among Veddahs among Javanese

Ueberweg, F.: cited Ulysses, reference to Urim and Thummim

Veddahs of Ceylon: their truthfulness Veracity: duty of of Greeks of Persians of primitive and civilized peoples compared of Hill Tribes of India of Arabs of American Indians of Africans of Dyaks of Veddahs of Javanese Viswamitra and Indra, story of Von Ammon: cited Von Hirscher: cited

Walker, Helen, example of War: justifiable concealment in duty of veracity in Westcott, Bishop: cited Wheeler, J. Talboys; cited Whewell, Dr. William: cited "White lie" Wig, concealment by Wilkinson, Sir J.G.: cited Witness, oath of, in court Woolsey, President: cited Wuttke, Dr. Adolf: cited

Yudhishthira and Drona, mythical story of

Zoroastrian designation of heaven and hell



SCRIPTURAL INDEX.

GENESIS. 1: 28 2 and 3 3: 6, 7 9: 1-3 12: 10-19 12: 14-20 16: 1-6 25: 27-34 26: 6-10 27: 1-40 27: 6-29 28: 1-22 39: 8-21

EXODUS. 1: 15-19 1: 15-21 1: 19, 20 1: 20, 21

LEVITICUS. 8: 8 18: 5 19: 2, 12, 13, 34-37 19: 11

NUMBERS. 23: 19

DEUTERONOMY. 29: 29

JOSHUA. 2: 1-21 8: 1-26 24: 3

1 SAMUEL. 7: 15-17 9: 22-24 11: 14, 15 13: 14 15: 29 16: 1, 2 16: 1-3 20: 29 21: 1, 2

2 SAMUEL. 11: 1-27

1 KINGS. 22: 1-23

2 KINGS. 6: 14-20 7: 6 20: 12-19

2 CHRONICLES. 18: 1-34 20: 7

PSALMS. 31: 5 58: 3 62: 4 63: 11 101: 7 116: 11 120: 2 146: 6

PROVERBS. 6: 16, 17 14: 5 19: 5, 9, 22

ISAIAH. 41: 8 51: 2

MATTHEW. 3: 9

MARK. 6: 48 7: 15

LUKE. 24: 28

JOHN. 7: 8 8: 44 14: 6 16: 12

ACTS. 5: 1-11 13: 22

ROMANS. 3: 4 3: 7, 8 4: 12

GALATIANS. 2: 11-14 3: 9

EPHESIANS. 4: 25

COLOSSIANS. 3: 9

TITUS. 1: 2

HEBREWS. 6: 18 11: 31

JAMES. 2: 23

1 JOHN. 5: 7

REVELATION. 21: 5-8 22

THE END