THE
EXCELLENCIES OF LYING.
“The art of silence and of well-term’d speech.” Old Poet.
Of the many practices to which our people are addicted, and which exhibit their progress towards the higher walks of civilization, there is none more prominent than the habit of lying. Celius wrote of Pompey, “he is wont to think one thing and speak another;” and we may say, that amongst us, it has almost become difficult to decide, whether we act upon the principle that language was invented to express our thoughts, or simply for the purpose of enabling us to conceal them.
I have an old friend who, adding to a mind accustomed to accurate observation, more than fifty years of experience, frequently remarks that he has never yet had half a dozen conversations with any person, without detecting a falsehood.[1] It is well known that in our day it is scarcely possible to bargain even with a saint, without discovering him a liar; and I verily believe that had all who ever indulged this habit been treated like Ananias and his spouse, the world would long since have been depopulated. Fortunately, none are now so summarily punished, or there would be a terrible “falling down and giving up of the ghost.” For this generous forbearance, we may, perhaps, be indebted to the superiority which we have acquired over these two rude victims. We have certainly improved somewhat upon their example, yet it must be owned that our progress in this habit has not been commensurate with that made in the other improvements of the age. Some of the fabrications of the Carthaginians and old Assyrians, noted for their proficiency in this particular, were greatly superior to any encountered in the present day. We have lost the ancient spirit, which, it is feared, can only be revived by re-enacting some of the ancient laws. For instance, in
Sparta, it is said, thieves were punished, not for stealing, but for permitting themselves to be caught; the law-makers, no doubt, arguing that the fool deserves severer chastisement than the rogue. Were the same rule adopted now as to lying, it would soon close the mouths of those arrant bunglers who so frequently provoke our ridicule and contempt.
Man was originally endowed with the power of clear and distinct articulation, which, after some improvement, enabled him to convey what ideas he pleased to his fellows. It is agreeable to all experience that in using this excellent gift, he should consult his own convenience, and he has accordingly introduced this habit of lying. From the highest to the humblest, and from the gray-haired old man to his youthful grand-child, all find it of use. The priest, the lawyer, the physician, have rendered it a necessary part of their professions. Tradesmen and mechanics have by no means neglected it, and some have made such signal use of it, that we now look upon the sons of Crispin as comparable only to a horde of Cretians, who, we are assured by excellent authority, were always liars. The conveniences resulting from this practice have ever been so very apparent, that its origin was almost coeval with the existence of man; for one of our primitive ancestors, after exhibiting his moral depravity by murdering his brother, was stupid enough, when asked the whereabouts of the slain, to answer the all-knowing questioner, “I know not; am I my brother’s keeper?” Since his day it has been introduced into every walk of life, and is now used without reference to the occasion—some being even so addicted to it as to tell a lie when the simple truth would answer better. In childhood we seek to avoid the rod by resorting to it, and when we attain to years of discretion we find it convenient upon much more trifling occasions. Does some intolerable bore intrude upon you, you dismiss him to the digestion of a lie, and find pleasure in the reflection of having done so. When an impatient creditor duns you, what more convenient than a plausible falsehood? When an appeal is made to your purse by some importunate borrower or beggar, you know well how to answer him by an untruth. Should you get into difficulty, you study what virtue there is in language, and use it to effect your end. When an inquisitive wife pests you with her troublesome inquiries, you have the example of an honorable Roman senator for telling her a lie; and when you have broken a promise, why, you know well how to excuse yourself by resorting to the same means that caused its violation.
Knowing the great conveniences of this habit, and being masters of our tongues, the fault lies with us if we cannot touch whatever chord in the nature of our fellows that we wish to arouse. To attain this degree of perfection, however, we should be properly schooled. Ever since the times of Thauth, Hermes, and Cadmus, many have endeavored to excel in efforts to reduce the gift of speech to writing, and to regular rules and systems. Every variety of sciences, whatever their pretensions, have so used it as best to promote their interests, inventing new words, or assigning strange meanings to old ones, whenever occasion required. It has been the great fountain and support of every excellence of which we know, and the powerful medium of every humbug that has heretofore cursed society. It may, therefore, appear strange that no one has yet, for the great benefit of mankind in general, resorted to it for the elements to establish, as a distinct profession, the art of well and skillfully framing a falsehood.
The schools of philosophy have settled it that men may lie. Whether they have done so upon the strength of the bold opinion of the crafty Lysander, that truth and falsehood are indifferent things; or upon the comprehensive saying of Sophocles, “I judge no speech amiss that is of use;” or upon the more designing maxim of the Spaniard, “tell a lie and you will get out the truth;” or upon the anatomical principle of the petit Prince of Bantam, which will certainly be admired by our modern physiologists, “my tongue has no bone in it to make it more stiff than is necessary for my interest;” it is not material here to determine. Suffice it; that it has been so settled, and as our practices conform to so enlightened a decision, policy would seem to require that they be reduced to regular and systematic rules. It is true, some have manifested considerable anxiety to secure for this habit a kind of scientific distinction. They have accordingly had resort to the stars, or if despairing of flights so lofty, the hand or a pack of cards answered equally well to tell a fortune by. Though their plans and schemes were sufficiently ingenious, lying itself could not endure them. They could hope for no proselytes except amongst the credulous, and even amongst those they could only gain such as believed there was as much “pleasure in being cheated as to cheat.” Thus their efforts in this excellent work, have not only been defeated, notwithstanding the high encouragement they sometimes received, but if Euripides speaks to the purpose, they themselves have been made to feel the consequences of their mistakes:
“What’s an Astrologer? I thus reply,
A man who speaks few truths, but many a lie,
Which, when found out, he takes his heels to fly.”