Quincunque turpi fraude semel innotuit,
Etiamsi verum dicit, amittit fidem.
PHAED. Lib. i. Fab. x. 1.
The wretch that often has deceiv'd,
Though truth he speaks, is ne'er believ'd.
WHEN Aristotle was once asked, what a man
could gain by uttering falsehoods? he replied,
"Not to be credited when he shall tell the truth."
The character of a liar is at once so hateful and
contemptible, that even of those who have lost
their virtue it might be expected that from the
violation of truth they should be restrained by
their pride. Almost every other vice that disgraces
human nature, may be kept in countenance by
applause and association: the corrupter of virgin
innocence sees himself envied by the men, and at
least not detested by the women; the drunkard may
easily unite with beings, devoted like himself to
noisy merriments or silent insensibility, who will
celebrate his victories over the novices of intemperance,
boast themselves the companions of his prowess,
and tell with rapture of the multitudes whom
unsuccessful emulation has hurried to the grave;
even the robber and the cut-throat have their
followers, who admire their address and intrepidity,
their stratagems of rapine, and their fidelity to the
gang.
The liar, and only the liar, is invariably and
universally despised, abandoned, and disowned: he has
no domestick consolations, which he can oppose to
the censure of mankind; he can retire to no fraternity,
where his crimes may stand in the place of
virtues; but is given up to the hisses of the
multitude, without friend and without apologist. It is
the peculiar condition of falsehood, to be equally
detested by the good and bad: "The devils," says
Sir Thomas Brown, "do not tell lies to one another;
for truth is necessary to all societies: nor can the
society of hell subsist without it."
It is natural to expect, that a crime thus generally
detested should be generally avoided; at least, that
none should expose himself to unabated and
unpitied infamy, without an adequate temptation;
and that to guilt so easily detected, and so severely
punished, an adequate temptation would not readily
be found.
Yet so it is, that in defiance of censure and
contempt, truth is frequently violated; and scarcely the
most vigilant and unremitted circumspection will
secure him that mixes with mankind, from being
hourly deceived by men of whom it can scarcely
be imagined, that they mean any injury to him or
profit to themselves: even where the subject of
conversation could not have been expected to put
the passions in motion, or to have excited either
hope or fear, or zeal or malignity, sufficient to
induce any man to put his reputation in hazard,
however little he might value it, or to overpower the
love of truth, however weak might be its influence.
The casuists have very diligently distinguished lies
into their several classes, according to their various
degrees of malignity: but they have, I think,
generally omitted that which is most common, and
perhaps, not least mischievous; which, since the
moralists have not given it a name, I shall distinguish
as the LIE OF VANITY.
To vanity may justly be imputed most of the
falsehoods which every man perceives hourly playing
upon his ear, and, perhaps, most of those that
are propagated with success. To the lie of
commerce, and the lie of malice, the motive is so
apparent, that they are seldom negligently or
implicitly received; suspicion is always watchful over
the practices of interest; and whatever the hope of
gain, or desire of mischief, can prompt one man to
assert, another is by reasons equally cogent incited
to refute. But vanity pleases herself with such slight
gratifications, and looks forward to pleasure so
remotely consequential, that her practices raise no
alarm, and her stratagems are not easily discovered.
Vanity is, indeed, often suffered to pass unpursued
by suspicion, because he that would watch her motions,
can never be at rest: fraud and malice are
bounded in their influence; some opportunity of
time and place is necessary to their agency; but
scarce any man is abstracted one moment from his
vanity; and he, to whom truth affords no gratifications,
is generally inclined to seek them in falsehoods.
It is remarked by Sir Kenelm Digby, "that every
man has a desire to appear superior to others, though
it were only in having seen what they have not seen."
Such an accidental advantage, since it neither
implies merit, nor confers dignity, one would think
should not be desired so much as to be counterfeited:
yet even this vanity, trifling as it is, produces
innumerable narratives, all equally false; but more or
less credible in proportion to the skill or confidence
of the relater. How many may a man of diffusive
conversation count among his acquaintances, whose
lives have been signalized by numberless escapes;
who never cross the river but in a storm, or take a
journey into the country without more adventures
than befel the knights-errant of ancient times in
pathless forests or enchanted castles! How many
must he know, to whom portents and prodigies are
of daily occurrence; and for whom nature is hourly
working wonders invisible to every other eye, only
to supply them with subjects of conversation.
Others there are that amuse themselves with the
dissemination of falsehood, at greater hazard of
detection and disgrace; men marked out by some lucky
planet for universal confidence and friendship, who
have been consulted in every difficulty, intrusted
with every secret, and summoned to every transaction:
it is the supreme felicity of these men, to
stun all companies with noisy information; to still
doubt, and overbear opposition, with certain knowledge
or authentick intelligence. A liar of this kind,
with a strong memory or brisk imagination, is often
the oracle of an obscure club, and, till time discovers
his impostures, dictates to his hearers with
uncontrouled authority; for if a publick question be
started, he was present at the debate; if a new
fashion be mentioned, he was at court the first day of
its appearance; if a new performance of literature
draws the attention of the publick, he has patronized
the author, and seen his work in manuscript;
if a criminal of eminence be condemned to die, he
often predicted his fate, and endeavoured his
reformation: and who that lives at a distance from
the scene of action, will dare to contradict a man,
who reports from his own eyes and ears, and to
whom all persons and affairs are thus intimately
known?
This kind of falsehood is generally successful for
a time, because it is practised at first with timidity
and caution: but the prosperity of the liar is of short
duration; the reception of one story is always an
incitement to the forgery of another less probable;
and he goes on to triumph over tacit credulity, till
pride or reason rises up against him, and his
companions will no longer endure to see him wiser than
themselves.
It is apparent, that the inventors of all these
fictions intend some exaltation of themselves, and are
led off by the pursuit of honour from their
attendance upon truth: their narratives always imply
some consequence in favour of their courage, their
sagacity, or their activity, their familiarity with the
learned, or their reception among the great; they
are always bribed by the present pleasure of seeing
themselves superior to those that surround them,
and receiving the homage of silent attention and
envious admiration.
But vanity is sometimes excited to fiction by less
visible gratifications: the present age abounds with
a race of liars who are content with the consciousness
of falsehood, and whose pride is to deceive others
without any gain or glory to themselves. Of this
tribe it is the supreme pleasure to remark a lady in the
playhouse or the park, and to publish, under the
character of a man suddenly enamoured, an advertisement
in the news of the next day, containing a
minute description of her person and her dress. From
this artifice, however, no other effect can be
expected, than perturbations which the writer can
never see, and conjectures of which he never can be
informed; some mischief, however, he hopes he has
done; and to have done mischief, is of some importance.
He sets his invention to work again, and produces
a narrative of a robbery or a murder, with all
the circumstances of time and place accurately
adjusted. This is a jest of greater effect and longer
duration: if he fixes his scene at a proper distance, he
may for several days keep a wife in terrour for her
husband, or a mother for her son; and please himself
with reflecting, that by his abilities and address some
addition is made to the miseries of life.
There is, I think, an ancient law of Scotland, by
which LEASING-MAKING was capitally punished. I am,
indeed, far from desiring to increase in this kingdom
the number of executions; yet I cannot but think,
that they who destroy the confidence of society,
weaken the credit of intelligence, and interrupt the
security of life; harass the delicate with shame, and
perplex the timorous with alarms; might very properly
be awakened to a sense of their crimes, by
denunciations of a whipping-post or pillory: since
many are so insensible of right and wrong, that they
have no standard of action but the law; nor feel
guilt, but as they dread punishment.