We are told the devil is the father of lies, and was a liar from the
beginning; so that, beyond contradiction, the invention is old: and,
which is more, his first Essay of it was purely political, employed in
undermining the authority of his prince, and seducing a third part of
the subjects from their obedience: for which he was driven down from
heaven, where (as Milton expresses it) he had been viceroy of a great
western province; and forced to exercise his talent in inferior
regions among other fallen spirits, poor or deluded men, whom he still
daily tempts to his own sin, and will ever do so, till he be chained
in the bottomless pit.
But although the devil be the father of lies, he seems, like other
great inventors, to have lost much of his reputation by the continual
improvements that have been made upon him.
Who first reduced lying into an art, and adapted it to politics, is
not so clear from history, although I have made some diligent
inquiries. I shall therefore consider it only according to the modern
system, as it has been cultivated these twenty years past in the
southern part of our own island.
The poets tell us that, after the giants were overthrown by the gods,
the earth in revenge produced her last offspring, which was Fame. And
the fable is thus interpreted: that when tumults and seditions are
quieted, rumours and false reports are plentifully spread through a
nation. So that, by this account, lying is the last relief of a
routed, earth-born, rebellious party in a state. But here the moderns
have made great additions, applying this art to the gaining of power
and preserving it, as well as revenging themselves after they have
lost it; as the same instruments are made use of by animals to feed
themselves when they are hungry, and to bite those that tread upon
them.
But the same genealogy cannot always be admitted for political lying;
I shall therefore desire to refine upon it, by adding some
circumstances of its birth and parents. A political lie is sometimes
born out of a discarded statesman's head, and thence delivered to be
nursed and dandled by the rabble. Sometimes it is produced a monster,
and licked into shape: at other times it comes into the world
completely formed, and is spoiled in the licking. It is often born an
infant in the regular way, and requires time to mature it; and often
it sees the light in its full growth, but dwindles away by degrees.
Sometimes it is of noble birth, and sometimes the spawn of a
stock-jobber. Here it screams aloud at the opening of the womb, and
there it is delivered with a whisper. I know a lie that now disturbs
half the kingdom with its noise, [of] which, although too proud and
great at present to own its parents, I can remember its whisperhood.
To conclude the nativity of this monster; when it comes into the world
without a sting it is still-born; and whenever it loses its sting it
dies.
No wonder if an infant so miraculous in its birth should be destined
for great adventures; and accordingly we see it has been the guardian
spirit of a prevailing party for almost twenty years. It can conquer
kingdoms without fighting, and sometimes with the loss of a battle. It
gives and resumes employments; can sink a mountain to a mole-hill, and
raise a mole-hill to a mountain; has presided for many years at
committees of elections; can wash a blackmoor white; make a saint of
an atheist, and a patriot of a profligate; can furnish foreign
ministers with intelligence, and raise or let fall the credit of the
nation. This goddess flies with a huge looking-glass in her hands, to
dazzle the crowd, and make them see, according as she turns it, their
ruin in their interest, and their interest in their ruin. In this
glass you will behold your best friends, clad in coats powdered with
_fleurs de lis_ and triple crowns; their girdles hung round with
chains, and beads, and wooden shoes; and your worst enemies adorned
with the ensigns of liberty, property, indulgence, moderation, and a
cornucopia in their hands. Her large wings, like those of a
flying-fish, are of no use but while they are moist; she therefore
dips them in mud, and, soaring aloft, scatters it in the eyes of the
multitude, flying with great swiftness; but at every turn is forced to
stoop in dirty ways for new supplies.
I have been sometimes thinking, if a man had the art of the second
sight for seeing lies, as they have in Scotland for seeing spirits,
how admirably he might entertain himself in this town, by observing
the different shapes, sizes, and colours of those swarms of lies which
buzz about the heads of some people, like flies about a horse's ears
in summer; or those legions hovering every afternoon in
Exchange-alley, enough to darken the air; or over a club of
discontented grandees, and thence sent down in cargoes to be scattered
at elections.
There is one essential point wherein a political liar differs from
others of the faculty, that he ought to have but a short memory, which
is necessary according to the various occasions he meets with every
hour of differing from himself and swearing to both sides of a
contradiction, as he finds the persons disposed with whom he has to
deal. In describing the virtues and vices of mankind, it is
convenient, upon every article, to have some eminent person in our
eye, from whom we copy our description. I have strictly observed this
rule, and my imagination this minute represents before me a certain
great man famous for this talent, to the constant practice of which he
owes his twenty years' reputation of the most skilful head in England
for the management of nice affairs. The superiority of his genius
consists in nothing else but an inexhaustible fund of political lies,
which he plentifully distributes every minute he speaks, and by an
unparalleled generosity forgets, and consequently contradicts, the
next half-hour. He never yet considered whether any proposition were
true or false, but whether it were convenient for the present minute
or company to affirm or deny it; so that, if you think fit to refine
upon him by interpreting everything he says, as we do dreams, by the
contrary, you are still to seek, and will find yourself equally
deceived whether you believe or not: the only remedy is to suppose
that you have heard some inarticulate sounds, without any meaning at
all; and besides, that will take off the horror you might be apt to
conceive at the oaths wherewith he perpetually tags both ends of every
proposition; although, at the same time, I think he cannot with any
justice be taxed with perjury when he invokes God and Christ, because
he has often fairly given public notice to the world that he believes
in neither.
Some people may think that such an accomplishment as this can be of no
great use to the owner, or his party, after it has been often
practised and is become notorious; but they are widely mistaken. Few
lies carry the inventor's mark, and the most prostitute enemy to truth
may spread a thousand without being known for the author: besides, as
the vilest writer has his readers, so the greatest liar has his
believers; and it often happens that, if a lie be believed only for an
hour, it has done its work, and there is no farther occasion for it.
Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men
come to be undeceived it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale
has had its effect: like a man who has thought of a good repartee when
the discourse is changed or the company parted; or like a physician
who has found out an infallible medicine after the patient is dead.
Considering that natural disposition in many men to lie, and in
multitudes to believe, I have been perplexed what to do with that
maxim so frequent in everybody's mouth, that truth will at last
prevail. Here has this island of ours, for the greatest part of twenty
years, lain under the influence of such counsels and persons, whose
principle and interest it was to corrupt our manners, blind our
understanding, drain our wealth, and in time destroy our constitution
both in church and state, and we at last were brought to the very
brink of ruin; yet, by the means of perpetual misrepresentations, have
never been able to distinguish between our enemies and friends. We
have seen a great part of the nation's money got into the hands of
those who, by their birth, education, and merit, could pretend no
higher than to wear our liveries; while others, who, by their credit,
quality, and fortune, were only able to give reputation and success to
the Revolution, were not only laid aside as dangerous and useless, but
loaded with the scandal of Jacobites, men of arbitrary principles, and
pensioners to France; while truth, who is said to lie in a well,
seemed now to be buried there under a heap of stones. But I remember
it was a usual complaint among the Whigs, that the bulk of the landed
men was not in their interests, which some of the wisest looked on as
an ill omen; and we saw it was with the utmost difficulty that they
could preserve a majority, while the court and ministry were on their
side, till they had learned those admirable expedients for deciding
elections and influencing distant boroughs by powerful motives from
the city. But all this was mere force and constraint, however upheld
by most dexterous artifice and management, until the people began to
apprehend their properties, their religion, and the monarchy itself in
danger; when we saw them greedily laying hold on the first occasion to
interpose. But of this mighty change in the dispositions of the people
I shall discourse more at large in some following paper: wherein I
shall endeavour to undeceive or discover those deluded or deluding
persons who hope or pretend it is only a short madness in the vulgar,
from which they may soon recover; whereas, I believe it will appear to
be very different in its causes, its symptoms, and its consequences;
and prove a great example to illustrate the maxim I lately mentioned,
that truth (however sometimes late) will at last prevail.
_Swift._