Moral Philosophy: Ethics, Deontology and Natural Law Part 13

3. Then, some one will say, it would be a lie for a prisoner in solitary confinement to break the silence of his cell with the exclamation, _Queen Anne is not dead_. The answer is simple: it takes two to make a speech. A man does not properly speak to himself, nor quarrel with himself, nor deal justly by himself. Not that it would be a lie to deny the death of Queen Anne even in public: for speech is an outward affirmation, the appearance of a serious will to apply predicate to subject: but in this case there is no appearance of a serious will: on the contrary, from the manifest absurdity of the a.s.sertion, it is plain that you are joking and do not mean to affirm anything. This perhaps is as far as we can go in permission of what are called _lies in jest_.

_Readings_.--St Thos., 2a 2ae, q. 110, art. 1.

SECTION II.--_Of the Evil of Lying_.

1. Human society cannot go on, if men are to be allowed indiscriminately to lie to one another. Thucydides (iii., 83) gives as the reason of the extravagant length to which faction ran in Greece in his time: "For there was no power to reconcile the parties, no plighted word reliable, no oath held in awe." Even in trifles no one likes to be lied to, and we are not to do to our neighbour what we would not have done to ourselves. The laws of good fellows.h.i.+p require that we should "put away lying, and speak the truth every man with his neighbour: for we are members one of another." (Ephesians iv. 25.) This at least in ordinary circ.u.mstances. The same good fellows.h.i.+p requires that in ordinary circ.u.mstances we should respect the lives and property of our fellow-men.

2. But it is lawful to take life in pursuance of the just judgment of authority: it is lawful to seize upon property in self-preservation.

These exceptions stand very harmoniously with the well-being of society, or rather are required by it, as we shall see later on. The law against lying, so far as it is founded on the general prejudice done to society by the shock of social confidence, and on the particular annoyance of the party lied to, may seem to admit of similar exceptions. Whoever has no reasonable objection to having life and property taken from him in certain contingencies, can he reasonably complain of any hurt or inconvenience that he may suffer from a lie being told him at times?

3. I put forward this difficulty, not as though it were without its answer in the principle of General Consequences: still it is a difficulty. Besides, if the whole harm of lying is in the unpleasant effect wrought upon the deceived hearer, and the scandal and bad consequences to society at large, it is a long way to go round to show that lying is impossible to G.o.d. He in whose dominion are all the rights and claims of man, is not to be restrained by the mere reluctance of His creatures to be deceived, or by the general bad effects of a lie upon the edifice of human credit. As Master He might impose this annoyance upon the individual, these bad consequences upon society: or by His Providence He might prevent their occurring, whenever He willed in His utterances to swerve from the truth. The only help for the argument for the Divine veracity on these grounds, is to urge with Plato that none of the motives which lead men to lie can ever find place in the mind of G.o.d: that a lie is a subterfuge, an economy, a device resorted to under stress of circ.u.mstances, such as can never serve the turn of the Supreme Being. But though G.o.d be inaccessible to human reasons for departing from the truth, may He not have higher reasons, mysterious, and unsearchable, for such a deviation? It is long arguing out this point. Better bring the discussion sharp round with the question: Is there not some element in the Divine Nature itself, which makes it impossible for G.o.d to speak false?

4. Undoubtedly there is such an element, deep down, even at the root of the sanct.i.ty of G.o.d. G.o.d is holy in that, being by essence the fulness of all being and all goodness, He is ever true to Himself in every act of His understanding, of His will, and of His power. By His understanding He abidingly covers, grasps, and comprehends His whole Being. With His will He loves Himself supremely. His power is exercised entirely for His glory--entirely, but not exclusively, for G.o.d's last and best external glory is in the consummated happiness of His creatures. Whatever G.o.d makes, He makes in His own likeness, more or less so according to the degree of being which He imparts to the creature. And as whatever G.o.d does is like Him, and whatever G.o.d makes is like Him, so whatever G.o.d says is like Him: His spoken word answers to His inward word and thought. It holds of G.o.d as of every being who has a thought to think and a word to utter:

To thine own self be true, And it must follow as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.

5. G.o.d's sanct.i.ty is in His being true to Himself. His veracity is part of His sanct.i.ty. He cannot in His speech, or revelation of Himself, contradict what He really has in His mind, without ceasing to be holy and being no longer G.o.d. But the sanct.i.ty of intellectual creatures must be, like their every other pure perfection, modelled on the corresponding perfection of their Maker. Holiness must mean truthfulness in man, for it means truthfulness in G.o.d. G.o.d's words cannot be at variance with His thought, for G.o.d is essential holiness.

Nor can man speak otherwise than as he thinks without marring the attribute of holiness in himself, that is, without doing wrong.

6. To speak against one's mind is an act falling upon undue matter.

Words are naturally signs of thoughts. Not that the words of any given language, as English or German, have any natural connection with the thoughts that they express; but it is natural to men, natural to every intellectual being, to have some mode of expressing his thoughts by outward signs; and once a sign is recognized as the sign of a certain thought, so long as the convention remains unrepealed, whoever uses that sign, not having in his mind at the time the thought which that sign signifies, but the contradictory to it, is doing violence to the natural bond between sign and thing signified, by putting forward the former where the latter is not behind it. And since the due and proper matter for the sign to be put upon is the presence in the mind of the thought signified, to make that sign where the opposite thought is present, is, as St. Thomas says, an act falling upon undue matter. The peculiar spiritual and moral inviolability of the connection between word and thought, appears from the consideration which we have urged of the archetype holiness of G.o.d. This then is the real, intrinsic, primary, and inseparable reason, why lying, or speech in contradiction with the thought of the speaker, is everywhere and always wrong.

7. Grotius (_De Jure Belli et Pacis_, I. iii., c. i., nn. 11, seq.) argues a lie to be wrong solely inasmuch as it is "in conflict with the existing and abiding right of the person spoken to." If _right_ here means something binding in _commutative justice_ (_Ethics_, c.

v., s. ix., n. 6, p. 106), we deny that any such right is violated by what is called a _simple_ lie, that is, an untruth not in the matter of religion, and not affecting the character, property, or personal well-being of our neighbour. For if a simple lie is a violation of commutative justice, it carries the obligation of rest.i.tution (_Ethics_, c. v., s. ix., n. 6, p. 107); that is, we are bound to tell the truth afterwards to the person that we have lied to, even in a matter of no practical consequence,--quite a new burden on the consciences of men. Again, if the bar to lying were the hearer's right, whoever had dominion over another's right might lie to him; the parent might lie to the child, the State to the citizen, and G.o.d to man, a doctrine which, away from its application to G.o.d, Grotius accepts. Lastly since _volenti non fit injuria_, the presumed willingness of the listener would license all manner of officious and jocose lies, as the authority of the speaker would sanction official fabrications. Thus, what with official, and what with officious speeches, it would be very hard to believe anybody.

8. By our rejection of Grotius' theory we are enabled to answer Milton's question: "If all killing be not murder, nor all taking from another, stealing why must all untruths be lies?" Because, we say, killing and taking away of goods deal with rights which are not absolute and unlimited, but become in certain situations void; whereas an untruth turns, not on another's right, but on the exigency of the speaker's own rational nature calling for the concord of the word signifying with the thought signified, and this exigency never varies.

_Untruth_ and _falsehood_ are but polite names for a _lie_.

_Readings_.--St. Thos., 2a 2ae, q. 110, art. 3, in corp., ad. 4; _ib_., q. 109, art. 2, 3, in corp.; Ar., _Eth_., IV., vii.; Plato, _Rep_., 382, 389 B, C.

SECTION III.--_Of the keeping of Secrets without Lying_.

1. There are _natural_ secrets, secrets of _promise_, and secrets of _trust_. A _natural_ secret is all a man's own private history, which he would not have made public, as also all that he discovers by his own observation of the similar private history of his neighbours. If a man finds out something about his neighbour, and, after he has found it out for himself, the neighbour gets him to promise not to publish it, that is a secret of _promise_. Lastly, if one man comes to another, as to a lawyer, or a surgeon, for professional advice, or simply to a friend for moral counsel, and in order thereto imparts to him some of his natural secrets, those secrets, as they are received and held by the person consulted, are called secrets of _trust_. This latter kind of secret is privileged above the other two. A natural secret, and also a secret of promise, must be delivered up on the demand of an authority competent to inquire in the department where the secret lies. But a secret of trust is to be given up to no inquirer, but to be kept against all who endeavour to come by it, except where the matter bodes mischief and wrong to a third party, or to the community, and where at the same time the owner of the secret cannot be persuaded to desist from the wrong. This proviso does not hold for the _seal of confession_, which is absolutely inviolable.

2. The main art of keeping a secret is, not to talk about it. If a man is asked an awkward question, and sees no alternative but to let out or lie, it is usually his own fault for having introduced the subject, or encouraged the questioner up to that point. A wise man lets drop in time topics which he is unwilling to have pressed. But there are unconscionable people who will not be put off, and who, either out of malice or out of stupidity, ply you with questions against all rules of good breeding. This direct a.s.sault may sometimes be retaliated, and a rude question met by a curt answer. But such a reply is not always prudent or charitable, and would not unfrequently convey the very information required. Silence would serve no better, for silence gives consent, and is eloquent at times. There is nothing left for it in such cases but to lock your secret up, as it were, in a separate compartment of your breast, and answer according to the remainder of your information, which is not secret, private, and confidential. This looks very much like lying, but it is not lying, it is speaking the truth under a _broad mental reservation_.

3. _Mental reservation_ is an act of the mind, limiting the spoken phrase so that it may not bear the full sense which at first hearing it seems to bear. The reservation, or limitation of the spoken sense, is said to be _broad_ or _pure_, according as it is, or is not, indicated externally. A _pure mental reservation_, where the speaker uses words in a limited meaning, without giving any outward clue to the limitation, is in nothing different from a lie, and is wrong as a lie is always wrong. A good instance is Archbishop Cranmer's oath of fealty to the Pope, he having previously protested--of course out of hearing of the Pope or the Pope's representative--that he meant that oath in no way to preclude him from labouring at the reformation of the Church in England, that is, doing all the evil work which Henry VIII. had marked out for him in the teeth of the Roman Bishop.

[Footnote 18] Even _broad mental reservation_ is permissible only as a last resource, when no other means are available for the preservation of some secret which one has a duty to others, or grave reason of one's own, to keep.

[Footnote 18: Strype's _Cranmer_, i., pp 27, 28; _ib_., ii., Appendices 5, 6; ed. Oxon., 1812.]

4. The point to make out is that no lie is told. To speak under a reservation is a lie, if it is speech against the mind of the speaker.

But how can it be aught else than speech against the mind, when the heart thinks _yea_, and the tongue says _nay_? We answer that, in the case contemplated, the thought of the heart is, _secrets apart, nay_; and though the word on the lips is _nay_ simply, yet we must not take that word as the whole locution, but as a mere text, to which the situation of the speaker and the matter spoken of form a commentary, legible to any observant eye. The word is an _annotated text; nay_ in the body of the page, with _secrets apart_ inscribed in the margin.

The adequate utterance is the whole page, text and gloss together; that speech answers to the thought in the speaker's mind; therefore it is no lie.

5. The essential requisite is that the gloss, _secrets apart_, be not written in the speaker's private mind, but be outwardly and publicly manifest in the matter spoken of, which must be one that clearly admits of secrets, and in the circ.u.mstances of the speaker, who is driven into a corner, and obliged to answer something, and yet cannot by any prudent man be expected to answer out of the fulness of all the knowledge that he may possibly possess.

6. Nor let it be said that all confidence in the replies given to our questions is hereby destroyed. For most questions are in matters that do not admit of a secret. There the qualification, _secrets apart_, which may be said to attach to all answers, has no value and meaning: it is mathematically equal to zero; and we may take the answer in full a.s.surance just as it reaches our ear. Again, when a person volunteers a statement unasked, he cannot be supposed to be reserving secrets.

But when delicate subjects are touched on, and inquiry is pushed to extremity by an unauthorized questioner, _secrets apart_ is the handwriting on the wall.

7. But why is not this qualification spoken out with the tongue?

Sometimes it safely may be, and then it should be so added. But, as the addition is unusual, our taking the trouble to express it would often certify to the inquirer that his suspicions were correct, though we ought not to tell him so. Our aim then must be to give such an oral answer as we should return, were the suspicion quite unfounded. Our questioner, if he is a prudent man, will piece out our phrase with the addition, _secrets apart_; and he will understand that he can get nothing out of us either way, which is exactly what we wish him to understand. His unauthorized interrogatory has been met by speech that amounts to silence, arguing indeed our prudence, but leaving him as wise as before on the forbidden topic. If he is a thoughtless man, he is deceived, not by any intention or election of ours, but indirectly so far as we are concerned, an incidental deception which he has brought on himself.

8. This then is a convention that obtains, not of positive inst.i.tution, but dictated by nature herself, that on a matter which admits of being secret, any answer elicited under stress of necessity must be so construed, as that any grave secret that may be touched, not being morally in the power of the respondent to reveal, shall be taken to remain reserved.

9. We may therefore sometimes avoid seeming to know what we know, or to be what we are. But we may never of our own proper motion step forward and court observation as being what we are not, or knowing what is against or beyond our knowledge. We may dissemble occasionally, but not simulate. The dissembler of a secret wishes for obscurity and silence: he wants to have the eyes of men turned away from him and their curiosity unroused. Whatever he says or does is to divest the idea of there being anything particularly interesting about him. But he who simulates--call him pretender, impostor, or quack--is nothing, if not taken notice of. The public gaze is his suns.h.i.+ne: obscurity gives him a deadly chill. His ambition is to appear out of the ordinary, being really quite within common lines: the dissembler is in some respect beyond the ordinary, but wishes not to show himself otherwise than as an ordinary mortal with ordinary knowledge. The pretender is on the offensive, challenging attention: the dissembler is on his defence against notice. "Simulation," says Bolingbroke, "is a stiletto, not only an offensive but an unlawful weapon, and the use of it may be rarely, very rarely, excused, but never justified.

Dissimulation is a s.h.i.+eld, as secrecy is armour: and it is no more possible to preserve secrecy in the administration of public affairs without dissimulation than it is to succeed in it without secrecy."

(_Idea of a Patriot King_.)

_Readings_.--De Lugo, _De Just. et Jure_, 14, nn. 135, 141, 142; _The Month_ for March, 1883; Lockhart's _Life of Scott_, v., 26.

CHAPTER IV.

OF CHARITY.

1. It is the difference between sensible apprehension and intellectual knowledge, that the former seizes upon a particular object and it only, as _this sweet_: the latter takes its object as the type of a cla.s.s of similars, _this and the like of this, this sweet as one of the cla.s.s of sweet things_. In like manner the love of pa.s.sion, which is the love of sense, regards one sole object. t.i.tius is in love with Bertha alone, not with woman in general. But an intellectual love is the love of a type of beauty or goodness, of _this_ object and of others as they approach in likeness to it. Whoever loves William from an intellectual appreciation of his patriotism, in loving him loves all patriots. Every animal loves itself with a brute, sensible love, not a love to find fault with, nor yet a n.o.ble and exalted sentiment--a love purely self-regarding, quite apart from the good that is in self, but embracing self simply as self, and self alone.

This is the first love of self even in man. But over and above this animal and sensible love, which no man lacks, there is in all men worthy of the name a second self-regarding affection of an intellectual cast, whereby a man loves himself as discerning with the eye of his soul the excellence of his own nature--"how n.o.ble in reason, how infinite in faculty, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a G.o.d, the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals." Intellectual self-complacence overflows from self to similars. It is not self-love, it is love of the race, "the milk of human kindness," philanthropy.

2. But man is a disappointing creature, after all a mere "quintessence of dust," unless he can rise above himself by relation with some superhuman being, and make his final fortune in some better region than this world. Reason requires that we love ourselves, and love our fellow-men, for and in order to the development of the highest gifts and capacities that are in us. These are gifts and capacities divine, preparing us to find our everlasting happiness in G.o.d. (_Ethics_, c.

ii., s. iv., n. 2, p. 22.) The love that we bear to ourselves and our neighbour, in view of our coming from G.o.d and going to G.o.d, is called the love of _charity_. Charity differs from philanthropy in looking beyond the present life, and above creatures. A materialist and atheist may possess philanthropy, but not charity.

3. Beside the twofold love, animal and intellectual, which we bear ourselves, we may also and should love ourselves with the love of charity, seeing G.o.d's gifts in us, and desiring the perfection of those gifts in a happy eternity occupied with G.o.d. The charity which we should thus bear to ourselves is the model of that which we owe to our neighbour, whom we are to love _as ourselves_, not with the same intensity, but with the same quality of love, wis.h.i.+ng him the good, human and divine, temporal and eternal, which we wish for ourselves, though not so earnestly as we wish it for ourselves. Our love for ourselves is stronger than for our neighbour: for, if love comes of likeness, much more does it come of ident.i.ty. But by reason of the vast preponderance of the good that is rational and eternal over that which is material and temporal; and also by reason of the principle laid down by St. Thomas, that "as to the sharing together of (eternal) happiness, greater is the union of our neighbour's soul with our soul than even of our own body with our soul" (2a 2ae, q. 26, art. 5, ad 2),--we are bound to love our neighbour's eternal good better than our own temporal good, and in certain special conjunctures to sacrifice the latter to the former. We have no duty and obligation of loving his temporal good above our own temporal good. But it is often matter of commendation and counsel to sacrifice our temporal interest to our neighbour's. This sacrifice is no breach of the order of charity, beginning at home: since what is resigned of material and perishable profit is gained in moral perfection. Especially commendable is the surrender of private good for the good of the community. Charity, or philanthropy, taking this form, bears the name of patriotism and public spirit.

4. Charity, like material forces, acts in a certain inverse ratio to the distance of the object. Other considerations being equal, the nearer, the dearer. Nay, nearness and likeness to ourselves goes further than goodness in winning our love. This is natural, and charity presupposes nature, and follows its order. As we have more charity for ourselves than for others whom we acknowledge to be better men, so likewise for our kinsmen and intimate friends. We may put the matter thus. Charity consists in wis.h.i.+ng and seeking to procure for a person the good that leads to G.o.d. One element is the intensity and eagerness of this wish and search; another is the greatness of the good wished. Now we wish those who are better than ourselves to be rewarded according to their deserts with a greater good than ourselves: but this wish is but lukewarm compared to the intensity of our desire that we and our friends with us may attain to all the good that we are capable of.

5. The Christian precept to love our enemies is merely the enforcement of a natural obligation. The obligation stands almost self-evident as soon as it is cleared of misunderstanding. The love of enemies is not based on the ground of their being hostile and annoying us. It would be highly unnatural to love them on that score. Nor are we in duty bound to show to one who hates us special offices of friends.h.i.+p, except we find him in extreme need, _e.g._, dying in a ditch, as the Good Samaritan found the Jew: otherwise it is enough that we be animated towards him with that common charity, which we bear to other men who are not further off from us than he is. If Lucius offend t.i.tius, there being no other tie between them than the tie of friends.h.i.+p, t.i.tius may, where the offence is very outrageous, henceforth treat Lucius as a stranger. The question of scandal has sometimes to be regarded, but that is an extrinsic circ.u.mstance to our present subject. Nor are we concerned to say what is the better thing for t.i.tius to do, but to say all that he is bound to do. He is bound to render himself as void of wilful malice, and as full of ordinary courtesy and good feeling towards Lucius, as he is in the case of Semp.r.o.nius, a man whom he never heard of till this day. But if there be some other antecedent tie between them besides the tie of friends.h.i.+p,--for instance, if t.i.tius and Lucius are two monks of the same convent, two officers in the same regiment, two partners of one firm,--t.i.tius is no longer justified in treating Lucius as a stranger.

He must regard him with _ordinary_ charity; now ordinary charity between two brother-officers, or two fellow-monks, is not the same as between men who have no such tie one with another. This is why we laid it down that we must be animated towards him who has offended us "with that common charity, which we bear to other men _who are not further off_ from us than he is."

6. This then being the exact obligation, the same is easily established. We must love our enemies, because the reasons given for loving all mankind (nn. 1, 2) are not vitiated by this or that man having treated us shamefully. The human nature in him still remains good actually, and still more, potentially; and if good and hopeful, to that extent also lovable. Nor is this lovableness a mere separable accident. Rather, it is the offensive behaviour of the man that is the separable accident. At that we may well be disgusted and abominate it.

But the underlying substance remains good, not incurably tainted with that vicious accident. We must attend to the substance, which is, rather than to the accident, which _happens_, and may be abolished.

Let us endeavour to abolish the accident, still so that we respect and regard the substance. Let us seek for redress under the guidance of prudence according to the circ.u.mstances of the case, but not for the ruin of our enemy. Let us not render evil for evil, but even in exacting a just satisfaction, make it of the nature of that compensatory evil, which is by consequence good. Let us _be angry_ with our enemy, but _sin not_ by hating him. (_Ethics_, c. iv., s.

iv., n. 3.) We may seek satisfaction for any _wrong_ we have suffered: in grave cases we must have recourse to the State for that: but the _sin_, if any, of our adversary is not our concern to punish or to seek vengeance for. (_Ethics_, c. ix., s. iii., n. 4.)

7. The same reasoning holds good even of _public enemies_, tyrants, persecutors, anarchists, a.s.sa.s.sins. We must include them in our prayers, wish for their conversion, and, though their case appear hopeless, we must not d.a.m.n them before their time. If we found one of them dying by accident of cold or asphyxia, we should be bound by a grave obligation to use all ordinary efforts to bring him round and recover him. Still we may use our best efforts to bring them to justice, even to capital punishment, according to the procedure of public law established in the country, and not otherwise. We may also with an _inefficacious_ desire, that is, a desire that finds no vent in action, desire their death under an alternative thus, that either living they may cease to do evil, or that G.o.d may call them away to where the wicked cease from troubling. But we must not desire, nor be glad of, their death by any unlawful means, for that were to sympathise with crime.

8. Real charity shows itself in action, succouring a neighbour in need, which is sometimes a counsel, sometimes a duty. It is an axiom, that _charity is not binding with grave inconvenience_. The gravity of the inconvenience in prospect must be measured against the urgency of the need to be relieved. A neighbour is technically said to be in _extreme need_, when he is in imminent peril of deadly evil to soul or body, and is unable to help himself. We are under severe obligation of charity to succour any whom we find in this plight.

9. By charity we give of our own to another: by justice we render to another that which is his. Charity neglected calls for no rest.i.tution, when the need that required it is past away: justice violated cries for rest.i.tution, for what we have taken away from our neighbour remains still his. The obligations of justice are negative, except for the fulfilment of contracts: obligations in charity are largely positive. (_Ethics_, c. v., s. ix., n. 7, p. 108.)

_Readings_.--_C. Gent._, III., 117; 2a 2ae, q. 26, art. 4; _ib._, art.

7; _ib_., art. 8; 2a 2ae, q. 25, art. 8; _ib._, art. 9; _ib._, art. 6; Ferrier, _Greek Philosophy_, Socrates, nn. 13, 26, 27, 29. (_Remains_, vol. i., pp. 227, seq.)