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
Abbé 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_, § 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 _à 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 _à 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.