Supplementum VI.
St. Mary’s Hall, Stonyhurst,
Blackburn, 5th October, 1901.
... You are quite correct in saying that the doctrine of Equivocation is the justification of stratagems in war, and of a great many other recognised modes of conduct.
But I despair of its ever finding acceptance in the minds of most Englishmen: since they will not take the trouble of understanding it; while, at the same time, they have not the slightest scruple in misrepresenting it. It is, of course (like most principles, whether of art, or of science, or of philosophy), not a truth immediately to be grasped by the average intellect, and, therefore, liable to much misapplication. Even the best-trained thinkers may frequently differ as to its comprehension of this or that particular concrete case.
Given the tendency of human nature, English or foreign, to shield itself from unpleasant consequences at the expense of truth, it is unsafe to supply the public with a general principle, which, precisely on account of its universality, might be made to cover with some show of reason, many an unwarrantable jeu de mots. There are many exceedingly useful drugs which it would be unwise to throw into the open market. Hence, I quite recognise the partial validity of the objection to the doctrine in question. But since the doctrine is so often thrust in the public face, it is as well it should appear in its true colours.
This leads me to a point which I think ought to be insisted upon, namely, that those features, which are
most objectionable to Englishmen in the scholastic doctrine were devised by their authors with the intention of limiting the realm of Equivocation and of safeguarding the truth more closely.
All rational men are agreed that there are circumstances in which words must be used that are primâ facie contrary to truth — in war, in diplomacy, in the custody of certain professional secrets. In such instances the non-Catholic rule seems to be: Tell a lie, and have done with it. The basis of such a principle is Utilitarian Morality, which estimates Right and Wrong merely by the consequences of an action. The peripatetic philosopher, on the other hand, who maintains the intrinsic moral character of certain actions, and who holds mordicus to the love of truth for its own sake, is not content to rest in a lie, however excusable, but endeavours, for the honour of humanity, to demonstrate that such apparent deviations from truth are not such in reality. For he perceives in them two meanings — whence the name Equivocation — one of which may be true, while the other is false. The speaker utters the words in their true meaning, and that the hearer should construe them in the other sense is the latter’s own affair.
“Not at home” may mean “out of the house” or “not inclined to receive visitors.” It is the visitor’s own fault if he attaches the first meaning to the phrase rather than the second, or vice versâ.
No sensible man would consider a prisoner to be “lying” in his plea of “Not Guilty,” because a certain juryman, in his ignorant simplicity, should carry off the impression of the prisoner’s absolute, and not merely of his legal, innocence. Yet the plea may mean either both or only the latter.
Similarly, an impertinent ferretter-out of an important
secret needs blame none but himself if he conceives the answer “No” to intimate anything else than that he should mind his own business.
As to such facts there is, I should say, an overwhelming agreement of opinion. That they differ from what we all recognise as a sheer “lie” is pretty evident. It is, therefore, convenient and scientific to label them with some other name, and the Scholastic hit upon the not inapt one of Equivocation.
The malice of lying consists, according to Utilitarian Philosophy, in the destruction of that mutual confidence which is so absolutely necessary for the proper maintenance and development of civilized life. But the Scholastic, while fully admitting this ground, looks for a still deeper root, and finds it in the very fact of the discrepancy between the speaker’s internal thought and its outward expression. The difference between the two positions may be more clearly apprehended in the following formula: — The first would define a lie as “speaking with intent to deceive;” whereas the second defines it “speaking contrary to one’s thought” (locutio contra mentem), even where there is no hope (and therefore no intent) of actual deception. The latter is clearly the stricter view, yet very closely allied with, and supplementing, the former. For we may perhaps say with Cardinal de Lugo — and à la Kant — that the malice of the discrepancy mentioned above lies in the self-contradiction which results in the liar, between his inborn desire for the trust of his fellow-men and his conviction that he has rendered himself unworthy of it — that he has, in other words, degraded his nature.
Now, where there do not exist relations of mutual confidence, such malice cannot exist. An enemy, a burglar, a lunatic, an impudent questioner, etc., are, in
their distinguishing character, beyond the pale of mutual confidence — i.e., when acting professionally as enemies, burglars, etc.
In regard to such outlaws from society, some moralists would accordingly maintain that the duty of veracity is non-existent, and that here we may “answer a fool according to his folly.” If a burglar asks where is your plate, you may reply at random “In the Bank,” or “At Timbuctoo,” or “I haven’t any.” If a lunatic declares himself Emperor of China, you may humour him, and give him any information you may imagine about his dominions, etc.
Such is the teaching of, v.gr., Professor Paulsen, of Berlin, in his “System of Ethics,” in which he is at one with Scholasticism, though, I daresay, we should not follow him in all his applications of the principle. He prefers to call such instances “necessary lies,” whereas we should say they were not lies at all, because they would not be rightly considered to imply speaking strictly understood, that is, the communication of one’s mind to another. There is no real speech where there are no relations of mutual confidence. Practically, however, it is so far a question of name rather than of reality, of theory rather than of fact.
The doctrine of Mental Reservation seems to me to differ from that of Equivocation only in this, that Equivocation implies the use of words which have a two-fold meaning in themselves, apart from special circumstances, and are therefore logical equivoques. Thus to the question: “What do people think of me?” one might diplomatically reply: “Oh! they think a great deal!” which leaves it undetermined whether the thinking be of a favourable or unfavourable character.
But more commonly words, apart from special circumstances, have one definite meaning, e.gr., “Yes” or
“No.” When Sir Walter Scott denied, as he himself tells us, the authorship of “Waverley” with a plain simple “No,” he was guilty of no logical Equivocation: but the circumstance that it was generally known that the author intended to preserve anonymity gave his answer the signification, “Mind your own business.” This is what I should call a moral equivoque. The Scholastics call it broad mental reservation (restrictio late mentalis). The origin of this terminology seems to me to lie in a bit of purism. Some moralists were not content with merely moral equivoques: they appear to insist on the junction with them of logical Equivocation; and so they would have directed the equivocator to restrict (and so double) the meaning of a word in his own mind. Thus to Sir Walter they would have said: “Don’t say ‘No’ simply, but add in your own head, ‘as far as the public is concerned,’” or something similar.
When this addition could not be conjectured by the hearer, it received the name of pure mental reservation (restrictio pure [or stricte] mentalis): as when one might say “John is not here” (meaning in his mind “not on the exact spot where the speaker stood”), though John was a yard off all the time. Such a position has not found favour in the body of Catholic moralists. They regard it as not only a useless proceeding, but as one which, although intended out of respect for truth, is liable, from its purely subjective character, to easy abuse.
But when objective circumstances (as in the case of Sir Walter) enable the hearer to guess at the double meaning and to suspend his judgment, then we have a case of broad mental reservation: for it is writ large in social convention that, where a momentous secret exists, a negative answer carries with it the limitation (restriction, reservation), “secrets apart.”
I trust I have made it sufficiently clear that the doctrine of Equivocation, properly understood, has been devised in the interests of Veracity. That we may find in some writers, whether St. Alphonsus de Liguori or Professor Paulsen, particular applications in which we do not concur, surely does not affect the validity of the principle.
I may add that all Catholic theologians with whom I am acquainted limit its use by requiring many external conditions: v.gr., that the secret to be preserved should be of importance; that the questioner should have no right to its knowledge, etc. In one word, that the possible damage to mutual confidence resulting from the hearer’s self-deception should be less than that which would certainly accrue from the revelation of a legitimate secret.
No one feels more keenly than we do that to have resort to Equivocation is an evil rendered tolerable only in presence of a greater evil of the same nature; and I venture to say, from an intimate knowledge of my brother “religious,” that no one is less likely to recur to it, where only his own skin is concerned, than a Jesuit.
Believe me, Yours very sincerely,
George Canning, S.J.[A]
[A] The above lucid explanation of the much and (me judice) stupidly maligned doctrine of Equivocation will place readers of this work, as well as the writer, under an obligation of gratitude to the Rev. George Canning, who is the Professor of Ethics at St. Mary’s Hall, Stonyhurst, so I am informed by the Rev. Bernard Boëdder, S.J., Professor of Natural Theology, at that seat of learning, whom I have had the honour of meeting in York on more than one occasion. “Wisdom builds her house for all weathers.” But England, relying too much on a long course of prosperity in her ruling classes, and in the protected classes immediately beneath her ruling classes, has neglected the Truth and Justice contained in this eminently rational doctrine of Equivocation. The democracy must, and will, however, insist on amiable, self-contenting, self-pleasing delusions being speedily swept away. Reason and self-interest alike will compel and compass this.
The question of Equivocation is not a question of Protestant versus Catholic, but of Wise Noddle versus Foolish Noddle. This is a distinct gain.