[94] Cf. Priestley, in ‘Essay III.’ introductory to Hartley’s Theory of the Human Mind, p. xlix. sq.
The moral ideas referring to truthfulness are, finally, much influenced by the force of habit. Where lying is frequent it is, other things being equal, less strenuously condemned, if condemned at all, than in communities which are strictly truthful. It is natural to speak the truth. Von Jhering’s suggestion that man was originally a liar, and that veracity is the result of human progress,[95] is not consistent with facts. Language was not invented to disguise the truth, but to express it. As Hutcheson remarked long ago, “truth is the natural production of the mind when it gets the capacity of communicating it, dissimulation and disguise are plainly artificial effects of design and reflection.”[96] It may be doubted whether there are any other mendacious creatures in the world than men.[97] It is said that “lies are told, if not in speech yet in acts, by dogs”;[98] but the instances reported of canine deceitfulness[99] are hardly conclusive. As a cautious writer observes, the question is not whether there may be “objective deceitfulness” in the dog’s conduct, but whether the motive is deceit: and “the deceitful intent is a piece, not of the observed fact, but of the observer’s inference.”[100] Nor is the child, strictly speaking, a born liar. M. Compayré even goes so far as to say that, if the child has not been subjected to bad influences, or if a discipline of repression and constraint has not driven him to seek a refuge in dissimulation, he is usually frankness and sincerity itself.[101] Montaigne remarked that the falsehood of a child grows with its growth.[102] According to M. Perez, useful dissimulations are practised by children already at the age of two years, but generally it is only after they are three or four years old that fear of being scolded or punished will lead them into falsehood.[103] We are even told that certain savages are too stupid or too ignorant to tell lies. A Hindu gentleman of the plains, in the valley of the Nerbudda, when asked what made the uncultured people of the woods to the north and south so truthful, replied, “They have not yet learned the value of a lie.”[104] But as we know how readily truthful savages become liars when their social conditions change, we may conclude that their veracity was due rather to absence of temptation than to lack of intelligence. In a small community of savages living by themselves, there is no need for lying, nor much opportunity to practise it. There is little scope for those motives which most commonly induce people to practise falsehood—fear and love of gain, combined with a hope of success.[105] Harmony and sympathy generally prevail between the members of the group, and deception is hardly possible since secrets do not exist.
[95] von Jhering, Zweck im Recht, ii. 606.
[96] Hutcheson, System of Moral Philosophy, ii. 28. Cf. Reid, op. cit. vi. 24, p. 428 sqq.; Dugald Stewart, op. cit. ii. 333.
[97] Cf. Schopenhauer, Essays, p. 145.
[98] Spencer, Principles of Ethics, i. 405.
[99] Romanes, Animal Intelligence, pp. 443, 444, 451.
[100] Lloyd Morgan, Animal Life and Intelligence, p. 400.
[101] Compayré, L’évolution intellectuelle et morale de l’enfant, p. 309. See also Sully, Studies of Childhood, p. 263 sq.
[102] Montaigne, Essais, i. 9 (Œuvres, p. 16).