It is true that those who seek an approbation of their defense of falsehoods which they deem a necessity, assume, without proof, their agreement with the moral sense of the race. But it is also true that there stands opposed to their theory the best moral sense of primitive man, as shown in a wide area of investigation, and also of thinkers all the way up from the lowest moral grade to the most rigorous moralists, including intuitionists, utilitarians, and agnostics. However deficient may be the practice of erring mortals, the ideal standard in theory, is veracity, and not falsehood.
As to the opinions of purely speculative philosophers, concerning the admissibility of the "lie of necessity," they have little value except as personal opinions. This question is one that cannot be discussed fairly without relation to the nature and law of God. It is of interest, however, to note that a keen mind like Kant's insists that "the highest violation of the duty owed by man to himself, considered as a moral being singly (owed to the humanity subsisting in his person), is a departure from truth, or lying."[1] And when a man like Fichte,[2] whom Carlyle characterizes as "that cold, colossal, adamantine spirit, standing erect like a Cato Major among degenerate men; fit to have been the teacher of the Stoa, and to have discoursed of beauty and virtue in the groves of Academe," declares that no measure of evil results from truth-speaking would induce him to tell a lie, a certain moral weight attaches to his testimony. And so with all the other philosophers. No attempt at exhaustiveness in their treatment is made in this work. But the fullest force of any fresh argument made by them in favor of occasional lying is recognized so far as it is known.
[Footnote 1: See Semple's Kant's Metaphysic of Ethics, p. 267.]
[Footnote 2: See Martensen's Christian Ethics (Individual), § 97.]
One common misquotation from a well-known philosopher, in this line, is, however, sufficiently noteworthy for special mention here. Jacobi, in his intense theism, protests against the unqualified idealism of Fichte, and the indefinite naturalism of Schelling; and, in his famous Letter to Fichte,[1] he says vehemently: "But the Good what is it? I have no answer if there be no God. As to me, this world of phenomena—if it have all its truth in these phenomena, and no more profound significance, if it have nothing beyond itself to reveal to me—becomes a repulsive phantom, in whose presence I curse the consciousness which has called it into existence, and I invoke against it annihilation as a deity. Even so, also, everything that I call good, beautiful, and sacred, turns to a chimera, disturbing my spirit, and rending the heart out of my bosom, as soon as I assume that it stands not in me as a relation to a higher, real Being,—not a mere resemblance or copy of it in me;—when, in fine, I have within me an empty and fictitious consciousness only. I admit also that I know nothing of 'the Good per se,' or 'the True per se,' that I even have nothing but a vague notion of what such terms stand for. I declare that it revolts me when people seek to obtrude upon me the Will which wills nothing, this empty nut of independence and freedom in absolute indifference, and accuse me of atheism, the true and proper godlessness, because I show reluctance to accept it."
[Footnote 1: F.H. Jacobi's Werke, IIIter Band, pp. 36-38.]
Insisting thus that he must have the will of a personal God as a source of obligation to conform to the law of truth and virtue, and that without such a source no assumed law can be binding on him, Jacobi adds: "Yes I am the atheist, and the godless man who, in opposition to the Will that wills nothing, will lie as the lying Desdemona lied; will lie and deceive as did Pylades in passing himself off as Orestes; will commit murder as did Timoleon; break law and oath as did Epaminondas, as did John De Witt; will commit suicide as did Otho; will undertake sacrilege with David; yes and rub ears of corn on the Sabbath merely because I am an hungered, and because the law is made for man and not man for the law."
Jacobi's reference, in this statement, to lying and other sins, was taken by itself as the motto to one of Coleridge's essays;[1] and this seems to have given currency to the idea that Jacobi was in favor of lying. Hence he is unfairly cited by ethical writers[2] as having declared himself for the lie of expediency; whereas the context shows that that is not his position. He is simply stating the logical consequences of a philosophy which he repudiates.
[Footnote 1: Coleridge's Works: The Friend, Essay XV.]
[Footnote 2: See, for instance, Martensen's Christian Ethics
(Individual), §97.]