When you speak evil of another you assume the position of his judge and
sentence him to punishment without a hearing.
“Judge not lest ye be judged.” That is the inhibition, which is a
command inasmuch as it contains a threat of punishment.
When you speak evil of a man, you injure him if what you speak of him is
not true and you make yourself a spreader of falsehood.
You also injure his reputation which is not in your keeping but is his
property. You steal something from him that is his own and to which he
has a right.
You blast a reputation heedlessly and without its being of any value to
you. You shut it out for life from all that it holds dear and valuable.
For what? Perhaps to gratify your lust for gossip.
You will not get off so easily as you think by ruining or attempting to
ruin another’s reputation. You weaken yourself. The man you malign has
friends that will stand by him, and they will become your enemies, not
only in business but socially, and you will soon find yourself
ostracized from respectable people and sent down to associate with other
liars like yourself.
Even if what you say should prove to be true, who constituted you the
judge? As already said, you must not judge.
One way of hurting a man is to misinterpret his acts. How do you know
what a man’s motives are in any case? Every man looks into a mirror and
sees himself, whence he interprets according to his own motives under
the same circumstances. As it is commonly put: “A man generally judges
another from himself.”
It is an unwise habit to fall into, and should be avoided lest others
see us as we see others.