[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.]