XXX. THE REGARD FOR TRUTH AND GOOD FAITH…

XXX. THE REGARD FOR TRUTH AND GOOD FAITH

THE regard for truth implies in the first place that we ought to abstain from lying, that is, a wilful misrepresentation of facts, by word or deed, with the intention of producing a false belief. Closely connected with this duty is that of good faith or fidelity to promises, which requires that we should make facts correspond with our emphatic assertions as to our conduct in the future. Within certain limits these duties seem to be universally recognised, though the censure passed on the transgressor varies extremely in degree. But there are also many cases in which untruthfulness and bad faith are looked upon with indifference, or even held laudable or obligatory.

Various uncivilised races are conspicuous for their great regard for truth; of some savages it is said that not even the most trying circumstances can induce them to tell a lie. Among others, again, falsehood is found to be a prevailing vice and the successful lie a matter of popular admiration.

All authorities agree that the Veddahs of Ceylon are models of veracity. They "are proverbially truthful and honest."[1] They think it perfectly inconceivable that any person should say anything which is not true.[2] Mr. Nevill writes, "I never knew a true Vaedda to tell a lie, and the Sinhalese give them the same character."[3] Messrs. Sarasin had a similar experience:{73}--"The genuine Wood-Wedda always speaks the truth; we never heard a lie from any of them; all their statements are short and true."[4] A Veddah who had committed murder and was tried for it, instead of telling a lie in order to escape punishment, said simply nothing.[5]

[Footnote 1: Bailey, 'Wild Tribes of the Veddahs of Ceylon,' in Trans. Ethn. Soc. N.S. ii. 291.]

[Footnote 2: Hartshorne, in Indian Antiquary, viii. 320.]

[Footnote 3: Nevill, in Taprobanian, i. 193.]

[Footnote 4: Sarasin, Forschungen auf Ceylon, iii. 541. Cf. ibid. iii. 542 sq.; Schmidt, Ceylon, p. 276.]

[Footnote 5: Sarasin, op. cit. iii. 543.]

Other instances of extreme truthfulness are provided by various uncivilised tribes in India. The Saoras of the province of Madras, "like most of the hill people, . . . are not inclined to lying. If one Saora kill another he admits it at once and tells why he killed him."[6] The highlander of Central India is described as "the most truthful of beings, and rarely denies either a money obligation or a crime really chargeable against him."[7] A true Gond "will commit a murder, but he will not tell a lie."[8] The Kandhs, says Macpherson, "are, I believe, inferior in veracity to no people in the world. . . . It is in all cases imperative to tell the truth, except when deception is necessary to save the life of a guest."[9] And to break a solemn pledge of friendship is, in their opinion, one of the greatest sins a man can commit.[10] The Korwás inhabiting the highlands of Sirgúja--though they show great cruelty in committing robberies, putting to death the whole of the party attacked, even when unresisting--"have what one might call the savage virtue of truthfulness to an extraordinary degree, and, rightly accused, will at once confess and give you every required detail of the crime."[11] The Santals are noted for veracity and fidelity to their word even in the most trying circumstances.[12] A Kurubar "always speaks the truth."[13] Among the Hos "a reflection on a man's honesty or veracity may be sufficient to send him to self-destruction."[14] Among the Angami Nagas simple truth is highly regarded; it is rare for a statement to be made on oath, and rarer still for it to be false.[15] In the Chittagong Hills the Tipperahs are the only people among whom Captain Lewin {74} has met with meanness and lying;[16] and they, too, have previously been said to be, "as a rule, truthful and simple-minded.**"[17] The Karens of Burma have the following traditional precept:--"Do not speak falsehood. What you do not know, do not speak. Liars shall have their tongues cut out."[18] Among the Bannavs of Cambodia "severe penalties, such as slavery or exile, are imposed for lying."[19]

[Footnote 6: Fawcett, Saoras, p. 17.]

[Footnote 7: Forsyth, Highlands of Central India, p. 164. Cf. ibid. p. 361; Sleeman, Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official, ii. 109; Hislop, Aboriginal Tribes of the Central Provinces, p. 1.]

[Footnote 8: Dalton, Ethnology of Bengal, p. 284. Cf. Forsyth, op. cit. p. 155.]

[Footnote 9: Macpherson, 'Religious Opinions and Observances of the Khonds,' in Jour. Roy. Asiatic Soc. vii. 196.]

[Footnote 10: Macpherson, Memorials of Service in India, p. 94.]

[Footnote 11: Dalton, op. cit. p. 230.]

[Footnote 12: Elliot, 'Characteristics of the Population of Central and Southern India,' in Jour. Ethn. Soc. London, N.S. i. 106 sq.]

[Footnote 13: Ibid. i. 105.]

[Footnote 14: Dalton, op. cit. p. 206. Cf. ibid. p. 204 sq.; Bradley-Birt, Chota Nagpore, p. 103.]

[Footnote 15: Prain, 'Angami Nagas,' in Revue coloniale internationale, v. 490.]

[Footnote 16: Lewin, Wild Races of South-Eastern India, p. 191.]

[Footnote 17: Browne, quoted by Dalton, op. cit. p. 110.]

[Footnote 18: Smeaton, Loyal Karens of India, p. 254.]

[Footnote 19: Comte, quoted by Mouhot, Travels in Indo-China, Cambodia, and Laos, ii. 27. For the truthfulness of the uncivilised races of India see also Sleeman, op. cit. ii. 110 sqq.; Dalton, op. cit. p. 256 (Oraons); Crooke, Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces, ii. 478 (Hâbûra); Fraser, Tour through the Him[=a]l[=a] Mountains, pp. 264 (inhabitants of Kunawur), 335 (Bhoteas); Iyer, in the Madras Government Museum's Bulletin, iv. 73 (Nay[=a]dis of Malabar); Walhouse, 'Account of a Leaf-wearing Tribe on the Western Coast of India,' in Jour. Anthr. Inst. iv. 370 (Koragars).]

The Andaman Islanders call falsehood y[=u]bda, that is, sin or wrong-doing.[20] The natives of Car Nicobar are not only very honest,[21] but "the accusation of untruthfulness brings them up in arms immediately."[22] The Dyaks of Borneo are praised for their honesty and great regard for truth.[23] Mr. Bock states that if they could not satisfactorily reply to his questions they hesitated to answer at all, and that if he did not always get the whole truth he always got at least nothing but the truth from them.[24] Veracity is a characteristic of the Alfura of Halmahera[25] and the Bataks of Sumatra, who only in cases of urgent necessity have recourse to a lie.[26] The Javanese, says Crawfurd, "are honourably distinguished from all the civilised nations of Asia by a regard for truth."[27] "In their intercourse with society," Raffles observes, "they display, in a high degree, the virtues of honesty, plain dealing, and candour. Their ingenuousness is such that, as the first Dutch authorities have acknowledged, prisoners brought to the bar on criminal charges, if really guilty, nine times out of ten confess, without disguise or equivocation, the full extent and exact circumstances of their offences, and communicate, when required, more information on the matter at issue than all the rest of the evidence."[28] Among the natives {75} of the Malay Archipelago there are some further instances of trustworthy and truthful peoples;[29] whereas others are described as distrustful and regardless of truth.[30] Thus the natives of Timor-laut lie without compunction when they think they can escape detection,[31] and of the Niase it is said that "truth is their bitter enemy."[32]

[Footnote 20: Man, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xii. 112.]

[Footnote 21: Distant, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. iii. 4.]

[Footnote 22: Kloss, In the Andamans and Nicobars, p. 227 sq.]

[Footnote 23: Ling Roth, Natives of Sarawak, i. 66-68, 82. Boyle, Adventures among the Dyaks of Borneo, p. 215. Selenka, Sonnige Welten, p. 47.]

[Footnote 24: Bock, Head-Hunters of Borneo, p. 209.]

[Footnote 25: Kükenthal, Forschungsreise in den Molukken, p. 188.]

[Footnote 26: Junghuhn, Battaländer auf Sumatra, ii. 239.]

[Footnote 27: Crawfurd, History of the Indian Archipelago, i. 50.]

[Footnote 28: Raffles, History of Java, i. 248.]

[Footnote 29: Riedel, _De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua_, p. 96 (Serangese). St. John, _Life in the Forests of the Far East_, ii. 322 (Malays of Sarawak).]

[Footnote 30: Marsden, History of Sumatra, p. 209 (natives of the interior of Sumatra). Riedel, op. cit. p. 314 (natives of the Luang-Sermata group). Steller, De Sangi-Archipel, p. 23.]

[Footnote 31: Forbes, A Naturalist's Wanderings in the Eastern Archipelago, p. 320.]

[Footnote 32: Modigliani, Viaggio a Nías, p. 467.]

Veracity and probity were conspicuous virtues among various uncivilised peoples belonging to the Russian Empire. Georgi, whose work dates from the eighteenth century, says of the Chuvashes that they "content themselves with a simple affirmation or denial, and always keep their word";[33] of the Barabinzes, that "lying, duplicity, and fraud, are unknown among them";[34] of the Tunguses, that they "always appear to be what they really are," and that "lying seems to them the absurdest thing in the world, which prevents them being either suspicious or necessitated to accompany their affirmations by oaths or solemn protestations";[35] of the Kurilians, that they always speak the truth "with the most scrupulous fidelity."[36] Castrén states that the Zyrians, like the Finnish tribes generally, are trustworthy and honest,[37] and that the Ostyaks have no other oaths but those of purgation. Among them "witnesses never take the oath, but their words are unconditionally believed in, and everybody, with the exception of lunatics, is allowed to give evidence. Children may witness against their parents, brothers against brothers, a husband against his wife, and a wife against her husband."[38]

[Footnote 33: Georgi, Russia, i. 110.]

[Footnote 34: Ibid. ii. 229.]

[Footnote 35: Ibid. iii. 78. Cf. ibid. iii. 109.]

[Footnote 36: Ibid. iii. 192. Cf. Krasheninnikoff, History of Kamschatka, p. 236.]

[Footnote 37: Castrén, Nordiska resor och forskningar, i. 257.]

[Footnote 38: Ibid. i. 309 sq.]

The Aleuts were highly praised by Father Veniaminof for their truthfulness:--"These people detest lying, and never spread false rumours. . . . They are very much offended if any one doubts their word." They "despise hypocrisy in every respect," and "do not flatter nor make empty promises, even in order to escape reproof."[39] The regard in which truth is held by the Eskimo seems to vary among different tribes. Armstrong blames the Western Eskimo for being much {76} addicted to falsehood, and for seldom telling the truth, if there be anything to gain by a lie.[40] The Point Barrow Eskimo "are in the main truthful, though a detected lie is hardly considered more than a good joke, and considerable trickery is practised in trading."[41] Of the Eskimo at Igloolik, an island near Melville Peninsula, we are told that "their lies consist only of vilifying each other's character, with false accusations of theft or ill behaviour. When asking questions of an individual, it is but rarely that he will either advance or persist in an untruth. . . . Lying among them is almost exclusively confined to the ladies."[42] In his description of the Eskimo on the western side of Davis Strait and in the region of Frobisher Bay, Mr. Hall says that they despise and shun one who will shag-la-voo, that is, "tell a lie," and that they are rarely troubled by any of this class.[43] The Greenlanders are generally truthful towards each other, at least the men.[44] But if he can help it, a Greenlander will not tell a truth which he thinks may be unpleasant to the hearer, as he is anxious to stand on as good a footing as possible with his fellow-men.[45]

[Footnote 39: Veniaminof, quoted by Dall, Alaska, pp. 396, 395.]

[Footnote 40: Armstrong, Discovery of the North-West Passage, p. 196 sq.]

[Footnote 41: Murdoch, 'Ethnological Results of the Point Barrow Expedition,' in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. ix. 41.]

[Footnote 42: Lyon, _Private Journal during the Voyage of Discovery under Captain Parry_, p. 349.]

[Footnote 43: Hall, Arctic Researches, p. 567.]

[Footnote 44: Dalager, Grønlandske Relationer, p. 69. Cranz, History of Greenland, i. 171, 175. Nansen, Eskimo Life, p. 158.]

[Footnote 45: Nansen, Eskimo Life, p. 101. Idem, _First Crossing of Greenland_, ii. 334 sq.]

The Thompson River Indians of British Columbia maintain that it is bad to lie, that if you do so people will laugh at you and call you a "liar."[46] Speaking of the Iroquois, Mr. Morgan says that the love of truth was a marked trait of the Indian character. "This inborn sentiment flourished in the period of their highest prosperity, in all the freshness of its primeval purity. On all occasions and at whatever peril, the Iroquois spoke the truth without fear and without hesitation. Dissimulation was not an Indian habit. . . . The Iroquois prided themselves upon their sacred regard for the public faith, and punished the want of it with severity when an occasion presented itself."[47] Loskiel likewise states that they considered lying and cheating heinous and scandalous offences.[48] Among the Chippewas there were a few persons addicted to lying, but these {77} were held in disrepute.[49] The Shoshones, a tribe of the Snake Indians, were frank and communicative in their intercourse with strangers, and perfectly fair in their dealings.[50] The Seminole Indians of Florida are commended for their truthfulness.[51] With special reference to the Navahos, Mr. Matthews observes, "As the result of over thirty years' experience among Indians, I must say that I have not found them less truthful than the average of our own race."[52] Among the Dacotahs lying "is considered very bad"; yet in this respect "every one sees the mote in his brother's eye, but does not discover the beam that is in his own,"[53] want of truthfulness and habitual dishonesty in little things being prevalent traits in their character.[54] So, also, the Thlinkets admit that falsehood is criminal, although they have recourse to it without hesitation whenever it suits their purpose.[55] Of the Chippewyans, again, it is said that they carry the habit of lying to such an extent, even among themselves, that they can scarcely be said to esteem truth a virtue.[56] The Crees are "not very strict in their adherence to truth, being great boasters."[57] Heriot[58] and Adair[59] speak of the treacherous or deceitful disposition of the North American Indians; but the latter adds that, though "privately dishonest," they are "very faithful indeed to their own tribe."

[Footnote 46: Teit, 'Thompson Indians of British Columbia,' in Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History, Anthropology, i. 366.]

[Footnote 47: Morgan, League of the Iroquois, pp. 335, 338.]

[Footnote 48: Loskiel, _History of the Mission of the United Brethren among the Indians in North America_, i. 16.]

[Footnote 49: Keating, Expedition to the Source of St. Peter's River, ii. 168.]

[Footnote 50: Lewis and Clarke, _Travels to the Source of the Missouri River_, p. 306.]

[Footnote 51: Maccauley, 'Seminole Indians of Florida,' in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ v. 491.]

[Footnote 52: Matthews, 'Study of Ethics among the Lower Races,' in Jour. of American Folk-Lore, xii. 5.]

[Footnote 53: Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes of the United States, ii. 196.]

[Footnote 54: Eastman, Dacotah, p. xvii.]

[Footnote 55: Douglas, quoted by Petroff, Report on Alaska, p. 177.]

[Footnote 56: Richardson, Arctic Searching Expedition, ii. 18. Cf. ibid. ii. 19.]

[Footnote 57: Richardson, in Franklin, Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, p. 63.]

[Footnote 58: Heriot, Travels through the Canadas, p. 319.]

[Footnote 59: Adair, History of the American Indians, p. 4.]

Of the regard in which truth is held by the Indians of South America the authorities I have consulted have little to say. The Coroados are not deceitful.[60] The Tehuelches of Patagonia nearly always lie in minor affairs, and will invent stories for sheer amusement. "In anything of importance, however, such as guaranteeing the safety of a person, they were very truthful, as long as faith was kept with them. After a time," Lieutenant Musters adds, "when they ascertained that I invariably avoided deviating in any way from the truth, they left off lying to me even in minor matters. This will serve to show that they are not of the treacherous nature assigned to {78} them by some ignorant writers."[61] Among the Fuegians, according to Mr. Bridge, no one can trust another, lying tales of slander are very common, great exaggeration is used, and it is not even considered wrong to tell a lie.[62] Snow, however, speaks of "the honesty they undoubtedly evince in many of their transactions";[63] and Darwin states that the Fuegian boy on board the Beagle "showed, by going into the most violent passion, that he quite understood the reproach of being called a liar, which in truth he was."[64]

[Footnote 60: von Spix and von Martius, Travels in Brazil, ii. 242.]

[Footnote 61: Musters, At Home with the Patagonians, p. 195 sq.]

[Footnote 62: Bridges, in A Voice for South America, xiii. 202 sq. Cf. Hyades and Deniker, Mission scientifique du Cap Horn, vii. 242; King and Fitzroy, Voyages of the "Adventure" and "Beagle," ii. 188.]

[Footnote 63: Snow, Two Years Cruise off Tierra del Fuego, i. 347.]

[Footnote 64: Darwin, Journal of Researches, p. 227.]

Of the Australian aborigines we are told that some tribes and families display on nearly all occasions honesty and truthfulness, whereas others "seem almost destitute of the better qualities."[65] According to Mr. Mathew, they are not wantonly untruthful, although one can rely on them being faithful to a trust only on condition that they are exempt from strong temptation.[66] Mr. Curr admits that under some circumstances they are treacherous, and that it costs them little pain to lie; but from his own observations he has no doubt that the black feels, in the commencement of his career at least, that lying is wrong.[67] Mr. Howitt has found the South Australian Kurnai "to compare not unfavourably with our own people in their narration of occurrences, or as witnesses in courts of justice as to facts. Among them a person known to disregard truth is branded as a liar (jet-bolan)."[68] Among the aborigines of New South Wales people who cause strife by lying are punished, and "liars are much disliked"; Dr. Fraser was assured by a person who had had much intercourse with them for thirty years that he never knew them to tell a lie.[69] Among the tribes of Western Victoria described by Mr. Dawson liars are detested; should any man, through lying, get others into trouble, he is punished with the boomerang, whilst women and young people, for the same fault, are beaten with a stick.[70] In his description of his expeditions into Central Australia Eyre writes, "In their intercourse with each other I {79} have generally found the natives to speak the truth and act with honesty, and they will usually do the same with Europeans if on friendly terms with them."[71] With regard to West Australian tribes Mr. Chauncy states that they are certainly not remarkable for their treachery, and that he has very seldom known any of them accused of it. He adds that they are "habitually honest among themselves, if not truthful," and that, during his many years' acquaintance with them, he does not remember ever hearing a native utter a falsehood with a definite idea of gaining anything by it. "If questioned on any subject, he would form his reply rather with the view of pleasing the enquirer than of its being true; but this was attributable to his politeness."[72] According to a late Advocate-General of West Australia, "when a native is accused of any crime, he often acknowledges his share in the transaction with perfect candour."[73] Very different from these accounts is Mr. Gason's statement concerning the Dieyerie in South Australia. "A more treacherous race," he says, "I do not believe exists. They imbibe treachery in infancy, and practise it until death, and have no sense of wrong in it. . . . They seem to take a delight in lying, especially if they think it will please you. Should you ask them any question, be prepared for a falsehood, as a matter of course. They not only lie to the white man, but to each other, and do not appear to see any wrong in it."[74] The natives of Botany Bay and Port Jackson in New South Wales are by older writers described as no strangers to falsehood.[75] And speaking of a tribe in North Queensland, Mr. Lumholtz observed that "an Australian native can betray anybody," and that "there is not one among them who will not lie if it is to his advantage."[76]

[Footnote 65: Brough Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, i. 25.]

[Footnote 66: Mathew, 'Australian Aborigines,' in _Jour. and Proceed. Roy. Soc. N.S. Wales_, xxiii. 387.]

[Footnote 67: Curr, Australian Race, i. 43, 100.]

[Footnote 68: Fison and Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 256.]

[Footnote 69: Fraser, Aborigines of New South Wales, pp. 41, 90.]

[Footnote 70: Dawson, Australian Aborigines, p. 76.]

[Footnote 71: Eyre, _Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia_, ii. 385.]

[Footnote 72: Chauncy, quoted by Brough Smyth, op. cit. ii. 275, 281. Cf. Oldfield, 'Aborigines of Australia,' in _Trans. Ethn. Soc._ N.S. iii. 255.]

[Footnote 73: Moore, quoted by Brough Smyth, op. cit. ii. 278.]

[Footnote 74: Gason, 'Dieyerie Tribe of Australian Aborigines,' in Woods, Native Tribes of South Australia, p. 257 sq.]

[Footnote 75: Collins, English Colony in New South Wales, i. 600. Barrington, History of New South Wales, p. 22.]

[Footnote 76: Lumholtz, Among Cannibals, p. 100.]

According to Mr. Hale, the Polynesians are not naturally treacherous, by no means from a horror of deception, but apparently from a mere inaptitude at dissembling; and it is said that the word of a Micronesian may generally be relied upon.[77] To the Tonga Islanders a false accusation appeared more horrible than deliberate murder does to us, and they also put this {80} principle into practice.[78] We are told by Polack that among the Maoris of New Zealand lying is universally practised by all classes, and that an accomplished liar is accounted a man of consummate ability.[79] But Dieffenbach found that, if treated with honesty, they were always ready to reciprocate such treatment;[80] and, according to another authority, they believed in an evil spirit whom they said was "a liar and the father of lies."[81] The broad statement made by von Jhering, that among the South Sea Islanders lying is regarded as a harmless and innocent play of the imagination,[82] is certainly not correct. The treacherous disposition attributed to the Caroline Islanders[83] and the natives of New Britain[84] does not imply so much as that. The New Caledonians are, comparatively speaking, "not naturally dishonest."[85] The Solomon Islanders are praised as faithful and reliable workmen and servants,[86] though cheating in trade is nowadays very common among some of them.[87] Of the people of Erromanga, in the New Hebrides, the Rev. H. A. Robertson states that "truth, in heathenism, was told only when it suited best, but," he adds, "it is not that natives are always reckless about the truth so much as that they seem utterly incapable of stating anything definitely, or stating a thing just as it really occurred."[88] In the opinion of some authorities, the Fijians are very untruthful and regard adroit lying as an accomplishment.[89] Their propensity to lie, says the missionary Williams, "is so strong that they seem to have no wish to deny its existence, or very little shame when convicted of a falsehood." The universal prevalence of the habit of lying is so thoroughly taken for granted, "that it is common to hear, after the most ordinary statement, the rejoinder, 'That's a lie,' or something to the same effect, at which the accused person does not think of taking offence." But the same writer adds:--"Natives have often told me lies, manifestly without any ill-will, and when it would have been far more to their advantage to have spoken the truth. The Fijians hail as agreeable companions those who are {81} skilful in making tales, but, under some circumstances, strongly condemn the practice of falsehood. . . . On matters most lied about by civilised people, the native is the readiest to speak the truth. Thus, when convicted of some offence, he rarely attempts to deny it, but will generally confess all to any one he esteems. . . . The following incident shows that lying per se is condemned and considered disreputable. A white man, notorious for falsehood, had displeased a powerful chief, and wrote asking me to intercede for him. I did so; when the chief dismissed the case briefly, saying, 'Tell--that no one hates a foreigner; but tell him that every one hates a liar!'"[90] Other writers even deny that the Fijians were habitual liars;[91] and Erskine found that those chiefs with whom he had to deal were so open to appeals to their good faith as to convince him "that they had a due appreciation of the virtue of truth."[92]

[Footnote 77: Hale, _U.S. Exploring Expedition, Vol. VI. Ethnography and Philology_, pp. 16, 73.]

[Footnote 78: Mariner, Natives of the Tonga Islands, ii. 163 sq.]

[Footnote 79: Polack, _Manners and Customs of the New Zealanders_, ii. 102 sq. See also Colenso, _Maori Races of New Zealand_, pp. 44, 46.]

[Footnote 80: Dieffenbach, Travels in New Zealand, ii. 109.]

[Footnote 81: Yate, Account of New Zealand, p. 145.]

[Footnote 82: von Jhering, Der Zweck im Recht, ii. 606.]

[Footnote 83: Angas, Polynesia, p. 386.]

[Footnote 84: Powell, Wanderings in a Wild Country, p. 262.]

[Footnote 85: Anderson, Travel in Fiji and New Caledonia, p. 233.]

[Footnote 86: Parkinson, _Zur Ethnographie der nordwestlichen Salomo Inseln_, p. 4.]

[Footnote 87: Sommerville, 'Ethnogr. Notes in New Georgia,' in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxvi. 393.]

[Footnote 88: Robertson, Erromanga, p. 384 sq.]

[Footnote 89: Wilkes, U.S. Exploring Expedition, iii. 76.]

[Footnote 90: Williams and Calvert, Fiji, p. 107 sq.]

[Footnote 91: Erskine, Cruise among the Islands of the Western Pacific, p. 264. Anderson, Travel in Fiji and New Caledonia, p. 130.]

[Footnote 92: Erskine, op. cit. p. 264.]

Nowhere in the savage world is truth held in less estimation than among many of the African races. The Negroes are described as cunning and liars by nature.[93] They "tell a lie more readily than they tell the truth," and falsehood "is not recognised amongst them as a fault."[94] They lie not only for the sake of gaining some advantage by it, or in order to please or amuse, but their lies are often said to be absolutely without purpose.[95] Of the natives of the Gold Coast the old traveller Bosman says, "The Negroes are all, without exception, crafty, villainous and fraudulent, and very seldom to be trusted, being sure to slip no opportunity of cheating an European, nor indeed one another."[96] Among all the Bakalai tribes "lying is thought an enviable accomplishment."[97] The Bakongo, in their answers, "will generally try and tell the questioner what they think will please him most, quite ignoring the truthfulness we consider it necessary to observe in our replies."[98] Miss Kingsley's experience of West African natives is likewise that they "will say 'Yes' to any mortal thing, if they think you want them to."[99] The Wakamba are described as great liars.[100] {82} Among the Waganda "truth is held in very low estimation, and it is never considered wrong to tell lies; indeed, a successful liar is considered a smart, clever fellow, and rather admired."[101] Untruthfulness is said to be "a national characteristic" of the tribes inhabiting the region of Lake Nyassa.[102] From his experience of the Eastern Central Africans, the Rev. D. Macdonald writes: "'Telling lies' is much practised and is seldom considered a fault. . . . The negro often thinks that he is flattered by being accused of falsehood. So, when natives wish to pay a high compliment to a European who has told them an interesting story, they look into his face and say, 'O father, you are a great liar.'"[103] To the Wanika, says Mr. New, lying is "almost as the very breath of their nostrils, and all classes, young and old, male and female, indulge in it. A great deal of their lying is without cause or object; it is lying for lying's sake. You ask a man his name, his tribe, where he lives, or any other simple question of like nature, and the answer he gives you will, as a rule, be the very opposite to the truth; yet he has nothing to evade or gain by so doing. Lying seems to be more natural to him than speaking the truth. He lies when detection is evident, and laughs at it as though he thought it a good joke. He hears himself called a mulongo (liar) a score of times a day, but he notices it not, for there is no opprobrium in the term to him. To hide a fault he lies with the most barefaced audacity and blindest obstinacy. . . . When his object is gain, he will invent falsehoods wholesale. . . . He boasts that ulongo (lying) is his pesa (piece, ha'pence), and holds bare truth to be the most unprofitable commodity in the world. But while he lies causelessly, objectlessly, recklessly in self-defence or for self-interest, he is not a malicious liar. He does not lie with express intent to do others harm; this he would consider immoral, and he has sufficient goodness of heart to avoid indulging therein. . . . I have often been struck with the manner in which he has controlled his tongue when the character and interest of others have been at stake."[104] If a Bantu of South-Eastern Africa "undertakes the charge of any form of property, he accounts for it with as great fidelity as if he were the Keeper of the Great Seal. But, on the other hand, there are many circumstances in which falsehood is not reckoned even a disgrace, and if a man could {83} extricate himself from difficulties by lying and did not do so, he would be simply thought a fool."[105] Andersson speaks of the "lying habits" of the Herero.[106] Of the Bachapins, a Bechuana tribe, Burchell observes that among their vices a universal disregard for truth and a want of honourable adherence to their promise stand high above the rest, the consequence of this habitual practice of lying being "the absence of shame, even on being detected."[107] Among the Kafirs "deception is a practised art from early childhood; even the children will not answer a plain question."[108] It is considered a smart thing to deceive so long as a person is not found out, but it is awkward to be detected; hence a native father will enjoy seeing his children deceive people cleverly.[109] "In trading with them, you may make up your mind that all they tell you is untrue, and act accordingly. . . . Your own natives, on the other hand, if they like you, will lie for your benefit as strongly as the opposite party against you; and both sides think it all fair trade."[110] And in a Kafir lawsuit "defendant, plaintiff, and witnesses are allowed to tell as many lies as they like, in order to make the best of their case."[111] But we also hear that Kafirs do not tell lies to their chiefs, and that there are many among them who would never deceive a white man whom they are fond of or respect.[112] Among the Bushmans veracity is said to be too often, yet not always, disregarded, "and the neglect of it considered a mere venial offence."[113] "The first version of what a Bushman or any native has to say can never be relied on; whatever you ask him about, he invariably says first, 'I don't know,' and then promises to tell you all he does know. Ask him for news, and he says, 'No; we have got no news,' and shortly afterwards he will tell you news of perhaps great interest."[114] In Madagascar there was no stigma attached to deceit or fraud; they "were rather admired as proofs of superior cunning, as things to be imitated, so far at least as they would not bring the offender within the penalties of the native laws."[115] Ellis says that "the best sign of genius in children is esteemed a quickness to deceive, {84} overreach and cheat. The people delight in fabulous tales, but in none so much or universally as in those that relate instances of successful deceit or fraud. . . . Their constant aim is, in business to swindle, in professed friendship to extort, and in mere conversation to exaggerate and fabricate."[116] These statements refer to the Hovas; but among the Betsileo, inhabiting the same island, lying and cheating are equally rife, and "neither appears to have been thought a sin, so long as it remained undiscovered."[117] At the same time many of the Madagascar proverbs are designed to put down lying, and to show that truth is always best.[118]

[Footnote 93: Baker, Albert N'yanza, i. 289. Burton, Mission to Gelele, ii. 199.]

[Footnote 94: Reade, Savage Africa, p. 580.]

[Footnote 95: Hübbe-Schleiden, _Ethiopien, Studien über West-Afrika_, p. 186 sq.]

[Footnote 96: Bosman, New Description of the Coast of Guinea, p. 100.]

[Footnote 97: Du Chaillu, _Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa_, p. 390. Cf. ibid. p. 331.]

[Footnote 98: Ward, Five Years with the Congo Cannibals, p. 47.]

[Footnote 99: Kingsley, Travels in West Africa, p. 525.]

[Footnote 100: Krapf, Travels in Eastern Africa, p. 355.]

[Footnote 101: Wilson and Felkin, Uganda, i. 224. Cf. Felkin, 'Notes on the Waganda Tribe,' in Proceed. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh, xiii. 722; Ashe, Two Kings of Uganda, p. 295.]

[Footnote 102: Macdonald, 'East Central African Customs,' in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxii. 119.]

[Footnote 103: Macdonald, Africana, i. 262 sq.]

[Footnote 104: New, _Life, Wanderings, and Labours in Eastern Africa_, p. 96 sqq.]

[Footnote 105: Macdonald, Light in Africa, p. 211.]

[Footnote 106: Andersson, Lake Ngami, p. 217. Cf. ibid. p. 499 (Bayeye).]

[Footnote 107: Burchell, _Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa_, ii. 553 sq.]

[Footnote 108: Holden, The Past and Future of the Kaffir Races, p. 179.]

[Footnote 109: Kidd, The Essential Kafir, p. 285.]

[Footnote 110: Leslie, Among the Zulus and Amatongas, p. 199. Cf. ibid. p. 202.]

[Footnote 111: Maclean, Compendium of Kafir Laws and Customs, p. 58.]

[Footnote 112: Kidd, The Essential Kafir, p. 286.]

[Footnote 113: Burchell, op. cit. ii. 54.]

[Footnote 114: Chapman, _Travels in the Interior of South Africa_, i. 76 sq.]

[Footnote 115: Sibree, The Great African Island, p. 338.]

[Footnote 116: Ellis, History of Madagascar, i. 143 sq.]

[Footnote 117: Sibree, op. cit. p. 125. Shaw, 'Betsileo,' in Antananarivo Annual, iii. 79.]

[Footnote 118: Clemes, 'Malagasy Proverbs,' ibid. iv. 29.]

But in Africa, also, there are many peoples who have been described as regardful of truth and hostile to falsehood. Early travellers speak very highly of the sincerity of the Hottentots. Father Tachart says that they have more honesty than is almost anywhere found among Christians;[119] and Kolben agrees with him, asserting that the word of a Hottentot is sacred, and that there is hardly anything upon earth which he looks upon as a fouler crime than breach of engagement.[120] According to Barrow, the Hottentots are perfectly honest and faithful, and, "if accused of crimes of which they have been guilty, they generally divulge the truth."[121] Of the Manansas Dr. Holub states that, so far as his experience goes, they are beyond the average for honesty and fidelity, and are consequently laughed at by the more powerful tribes as "the simpletons of the North."[122] The Bahima in the Uganda Protectorate are usually very honest and truthful, and most of the Nandi think it very wicked to tell a lie.[123] Among the For tribe of Central Africa "lying is held to be a great crime; even the youngest children are severely beaten for it, and any one over fifteen or sixteen who is an habitual liar suffers the loss of one lip as a penalty."[124] Speaking of the natives of Sierra Leone, Winterbottom remarks that, in proportion as we advance into the interior of the country, the people are found to be more devoid of art and more free from suspicion.[125] "Those who have dealings with the Fán universally {85} prefer them in point of honesty and manliness to the Mpongwe and Coast races," and it is an insult to call one of them a liar or coward.[126] Monrad, who wrote in the beginning of the nineteenth century, asserts that among the Negroes of Accra lying is by no means common and that they are as a rule honest towards their own people.[127] According to an early authority, the people of Great Benin were very straightforward and did not cheat each other.[128] Mr. and Mrs. Hinde write that the Masai are as a race truthful, and that a grown-up person among them will not lie; "he may refuse to answer a question, but, once given, his word can be depended on."[129] Dr. Baumann, on the other hand, says that they often lie, but that they regard lying as a great fault.[130] The Guanches of the Canary Islands are stated to have been "slaves to their word."[131] Of the Berbers of Morocco Leo Africanus writes:--"Most honest people they are, and destitute of all fraud and guile. . . . They keep their couenant most faithfully; insomuch that they had rather die than breake promise."[132] M. Dyveyrier found the same virtue among the Touareg, another Berber people:--"La fidélité aux promesses, aux traités, est poussée si loin par les Touareg, qu il est difficile d'obtenir d'eux des engagements. . . . Il est de maxime chez les Touâreg, en matière de contrat, de ne s'engager que pour la moitié de ce qu'on peut tenir, afin de ne pas s'exposer au reproche d'infidélité. . . . Le mensonge, le vol domestique et l'abus de confiance sont inconnus des Touâreg."[133] As regards the truthfulness of the African Arabs opinions vary. Parkyns asks, "Who is more trustworthy than the desert Arab?"[134] According to Rohlfs and Chavanne, on the other hand, the Arabs of the Sahara are much addicted to lying;[135] and of the Arabs of Egypt Mr. St. John observes:--"There is no general appreciation of a man's word. . . . 'Liar' is a playful appellative scarcely reproachful; and 'I have told a lie' a confession that may be made without a blush."[136] Herodotus' statement that "the Arabs observe pledges as religiously as any people,"[137] is true of the Bedouins of Arabia in the {86} present day. "No vice or crime is more deservedly stigmatised as infamous among Bedouins than treachery. An individual in the great Arabian Desert will be forgiven if he should kill a stranger on the road, but eternal disgrace would be attached to his name, if it were known that he had robbed his companion, or his protected guest, even of a handkerchief."[138] Wallin affirms that you may put perfect trust in the promise of a Bedouin, as soon as you have eaten salt and bread with him.[139] But whilst faithfulness to a tacit or express promise is thus regarded by him as a sacred duty, lying and cheating are as prevalent in the desert as in the market-towns of Syria.[140] Speaking of the Bedouins of the Euphrates, Mr. Blunt observes:--"Truth, in ordinary matters, is not regarded as a virtue by the Bedouins, nor is lying held shameful. Every man, they say, has a right to conceal his own thought. In matters of importance, the simple affirmation is confirmed by an oath, and then the fact stated may be relied on. There is only one exception to the general rule of lying among them. The Bedouin, if questioned on the breed of his mare, will not give a false answer. He may refuse to say, or he may answer that he does not know; but he will not name another breed than that to which she really belongs. . . . The rule, however, does not hold good on any other point of horse dealing. The age, the qualities, and the ownership of the horse may be all falsely stated."[141]

[Footnote 119: Tachart, quoted by Kolben, _Present State of the Cape of Good Hope_, i. 167.]

[Footnote 120: Ibid. i. 59.]

[Footnote 121: Barrow, _Travels into the Interior of Southern Africa_, i. 151 sq.]

[Footnote 122: Holub, Seven Years in South Africa, ii. 209.]

[Footnote 123: Johnston, Uganda Protectorate, ii. 630, 879.]

[Footnote 124: Felkin, in Proceed. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh, xiii. 232.]

[Footnote 125: Winterbottom, Account of the Native Africans in the Neighbourhood of Sierra Leone, i. 206 sq.]

[Footnote 126: Burton, Two Trips to Gorilla Land, i. 225 sq.]

[Footnote 127: Monrad, Guinea-Kysten og dens Indbyggere, p. 6.]

[Footnote 128: Quoted by Ling Roth, Great Benin, p. 45.]

[Footnote 129: Hinde, The Last of the Masai, p. 34.]

[Footnote 130: Baumann, Durch Massailand, p. 165.]

[Footnote 131: Bory de St. Vincent, _Essais sur les Isles Fortunées_, p. 70.]

[Footnote 132: Leo Africanus, _History and Description of Africa_, i. 183.]

[Footnote 133: Dyveyrier, Exploration du Sahara, p. 384 sq.]

[Footnote 134: Parkyns, Life in Abyssinia, ii. 182.]

[Footnote 135: Chavanne, Die Sahara, p. 392.]

[Footnote 136: St. John, Adventures in the Lybian Desert, p. 31.]

[Footnote 137: Herodotus, iii. 8.]

[Footnote 138: Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, p. 190 sq.]

[Footnote 139: Wallin, Reseanteckningar från Orienten, iii. 116.]

[Footnote 140: Burckhardt, op. cit. p. 104 sq. Cf. Wallin, op. cit. iv. 89 sq.; Doughty, Arabia Deserta, i. 241.]

[Footnote 141: Blunt, Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates, ii. 203 sq. Cf. Niebuhr, Travels through Arabia, ii. 302:--"There is no instance of false testimony given in respect to the descent of a horse. Every Arabian is persuaded that himself and his whole family would be ruined, if he should prevaricate in giving his oath in an affair of such consequence."]

Various statements of travellers thus directly contradict the common opinion that want of truthfulness is mostly a characteristic of uncivilised races.[142] And we have much reason to assume that a foreigner visiting a savage tribe is apt rather to underrate than to overestimate its veracity. Mr. Savage Landor gives us a curious insight into an explorer's method of testing it. "If you were to say to an Ainu, 'You are old, are you not?' he would answer {87}'Yes'; but if you asked the same man, 'You are not old, are you?' he would equally answer 'Yes.'" And then comes the conclusion:--"Knowingly speaking the truth is not one of their characteristics; indeed, they do not know the difference between falsehood and truth."[143] It is hardly surprising to hear from other authorities that the Ainu are remarkably honest, and regard veracity as one of the most imperative duties.[144] Speaking of the Uaupés and other Brazilian tribes, Mr. Wallace observes:--"In my communications and inquiries among the Indians on various matters, I have always found the greatest caution necessary, to prevent one's arriving at wrong conclusions. They are always apt to affirm that which they see you wish to believe, and, when they do not at all comprehend your question, will unhesitatingly answer, 'Yes.'"[145] Savages who are inclined to give inaccurate answers to questions made by strangers, may nevertheless be truthful towards each other. As the regard for life and property, so the regard for truth varies according as the person concerned is a foreigner or a tribesman. "Perfidy and faithlessness," says Crawfurd, "are vices of the Indian islanders, and those vices of which they have been most frequently accused by strangers. This sentence against them must, however, be understood with some allowances. In their domestic and social intercourse, they are far from being a deceitful people, but in reality possess more integrity than it is reasonable to look for with so much misgovernment and barbarity. It is in their intercourse with strangers and with enemies that, like other barbarians, the treachery of their character is displayed."[146] The natives of the interior of Sumatra are "dishonest in their dealings with strangers, which they esteem no moral defect."[147] Dalager states that the same Greenlanders who, among themselves, in the sale of an object {88} which, the buyer had not seen, would depreciate it rather than overpraise it--even though the seller was anxious to get rid of it--told frightful lies in their transactions with Danish traders.[148] The Touareg, whilst scrupulously faithful to a promise given to one of their own people, do not regard as binding a promise given to a Christian;[149] and their Arab neighbours say that their word, "like water fallen on the sand, is never to be found again."[150] The Masai, according to Herr Merker, hold any kind of deceit to be allowable in their relations with persons of another race.[151] The Hovas of Madagascar even considered it a duty for anyone speaking with foreigners on political matters to state the exact opposite to the truth, and punished him who did otherwise.[152]

[Footnote 142: Burton, City of the Saints, p. 130. Vierkandt, Naturvölker und Kulturvölker, p. 273. von Jhering, Der Zweck im Recht, ii. 606.]

[Footnote 143: Landor, Alone with the Hairy Ainu, p. 283.]

[Footnote 144: Holland, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. iii. 237. von Siebold, Aino auf der Insel Yesso, p. 25.]

[Footnote 145: Wallace, Travels on the Amazon, p. 494 sq.]

[Footnote 146: Crawfurd, op. cit. i. 71 sq. Cf. Christian, Caroline Islands, p. 71 sq.]

[Footnote 147: Marsden, op. cit. p. 208.]

[Footnote 148: Dalager, op. cit. p. 60 sq.]

[Footnote 149: von Bary, quoted by Chavanne, Die Sahara, p. 186.]

[Footnote 150: Dubois, Timbuctoo, p. 231.]

[Footnote 151: Merker, Die Masai, p. 115.]

[Footnote 152: Ellis, History of Madagascar, i. 144. Professor Stanley Hall observes ('Children's Lies,' in American Journal of Psychology, iii. 62) that "truth for our friends and lies for our enemies is a practical, though not distinctly conscious rule widely current with children."]

In point of truthfulness savages are in many cases superior to nations more advanced in culture. "A Chinese," says Mr. Wells Williams, "requires but little motive to falsify, and he is constantly sharpening his wits to cozen his customer--wheedle him by promises and cheat him in goods or work."[153] His ordinary speech is said to be so full of insincerity that it is very difficult to learn the truth in almost any case.[154] He feels no shame at being detected in a lie, nor does he fear any punishment from his gods for it;[155] if you call him a liar, "you arouse in him no sense of outrage, no sentiment of degradation."[156] Yet the moral teachings of the Chinese inculcate truthfulness as a stringent duty. One of their injunctions is, "Let children always be taught to speak the simple truth."[157] Many sayings may be quoted from Confucius in which sincerity is celebrated as highly and demanded as urgently as it ever was by any {89} Christian moralist. Faithfulness and sincerity, he said, should be held as first principles. Sincerity is the way of Heaven, the end and beginning of things, without which there would be nothing. It is as necessary to truly virtuous conduct as a boat is to a man wishing to cross a river, or as oars are to a boat. The superior man ought to feel shame when his conduct is not in accord with his words.[158] But there are instances in which sincerity has to yield to family duties: a father should conceal the misconduct of his son, and a son that of his father.[159] Moreover, the great moralists themselves did not always act up to their lofty principles. Confucius and Mencius sometimes did not hesitate to tell a lie for the sake of convenience.[160] The former could excuse himself from seeing an unwelcome visitor on the ground that he was sick, when there was nothing the matter with him;[161] and he deliberately broke an oath which he had sworn, because it had been forced from him.[162] In Japan, Burma, and Siam, truth is more respected than in China. "In love of truth," says Professor Rein, "the Japanese, so far as my experience goes, are not inferior to us Europeans." [163] The Burmese, though partial to much exaggeration, are generally truthful.[164] And "the mendacity so characteristic of Orientals is not a national defect among the Siamese. Lying, no doubt, is often resorted to as a protection against injustice and oppression, but the chances are greatly in favour of truth when evidence is sought."[165]

[Footnote 153: Wells Williams, The Middle Kingdom, i. 834.]

[Footnote 154: Smith, Chinese Characteristics, p. 271.]

[Footnote 155: Cooke, China, p. 414. Edkins, Religion in China, p. 122. Bowring, Siam, i. 106. Wells Williams, op. cit. i. 834.]

[Footnote 156: Smith, Chinese Characteristics, p. 271.]

[Footnote 157: Wells Williams, op. cit. i. 522.]

[Footnote 158: Lun Yü, i. 8. 2; vii. 24; ix. 24; xii. 10. 1; xv. 5. 2. Chung Yung, xx. 18. Douglas, Confucianism and Taouism, pp. 103, 114, 146. Legge, Chinese Classics, i. 100.]

[Footnote 159: Lun Yü, xiii. 18. 2.]

[Footnote 160: Legge, Chinese Classics, i. 100. Smith, Chinese Characteristics, p. 267.]

[Footnote 161: Lun Yü, vi. 13.]

[Footnote 162: Lun Yü, xvii. 20.]

[Footnote 163: Rein, Japan, p. 393.]

[Footnote 164: MacMahon, Far Cathay and Farther India, p. 62. Forbes, British Burma, p. 45. Fytche, Burma Past and Present, ii. 67.]

[Footnote 165: Bowring, Siam, i. 105.]

Lying has been called the national vice of the Hindus.[166] "It is not too much to assert that the mass of Bengalis have no notion of truth and falsehood."[167] A gentleman {90} who has been brought into the closest intimacy with natives of all classes, declares "that when a question is asked, the full bearing of which on themselves or those connected with them they cannot see, you may rely upon it that the first answer you receive is false; but that, when they see that the truth cannot injure themselves or any one they care for, they will speak the truth."[168] The testimony of a Hindu is not generally regarded as evidence.[169] Forgery is frequently resorted to, cheating is rife. "In almost all business transactions of the smallest kind a written agreement must be made on both sides, and this must be stamped and registered, because it is believed that a man's word is not binding."[170] Nor is a lie held disreputable, especially if not found out.[171] But in India, as elsewhere, the question whether truth or falsehood is to be spoken depends on the relationship between the speaker and the party addressed. In their relations with each other, says Sir W. H. Sleeman, members of a village community spoke as much truth as those of any other community in the world, but in their relations with the government they told as many lies; "if a man had told a lie to cheat his neighbour, he would have become an object of hatred and contempt--if he had told a lie to save his neighbour's fields from an increase of rent or tax, he would have become an object of esteem and respect."[172] Of the Sûdra inhabitants of Central India Sir John Malcolm likewise observes that "they may be said, in their intercourse with strangers and with officers of government, to evade the truth, and often to assert positive falsehoods"; whereas, "in their intercourse with each other, falsehood is not common, and many (particularly some of the cultivators) are distinguished by their adherence to truth."[173] The ancient Hindus were praised for their veracity and good faith; {91} in his History of India, written in the second century of the Christian era, Arrian states that no Indian was ever known to tell an untruth.[174] In the sacred books of India truthfulness is highly celebrated. "If veracity and a thousand horse-sacrifices are weighed against each other, it is found that truth ranks even higher than a thousand horse-sacrifices."[175] "Verily the gods are the truth, and man is the untruth."[176] "There is one law which the gods do keep, namely, the truth. It is through this that their conquest, their glory is unassailable: and so, forsooth, is his conquest, his glory unassailable whosoever, knowing this, speaks the truth."[177] Attendance on, or the worship of, the sacred fire means speaking the truth:--"Whosoever speaks the truth, acts as if he sprinkled that lighted fire with ghee; for even so does he enkindle it: and ever the more increases his own vital energy, and day by day does he become better. And whosoever speaks the untruth, acts as if he sprinkled that lighted fire with water; for even so does he enfeeble it: and ever the less becomes his own vital energy, and day by day does he become more wicked. Let him, therefore, speak nothing but the truth."[178] Fearful denunciations are particularly pronounced against those who deliver false testimony in a court of justice.[179] By giving false evidence concerning small cattle, a witness commits the sin of killing ten men; by false evidence concerning cows, horses, and men, he commits the sin of killing a hundred, a thousand, and ten thousand men respectively; but by false evidence concerning land, he commits the sin of killing the whole human race.[180] The sin of falsehood thus admits of different degrees according to the magnitude of the injury inflicted by it. Indeed, "in some cases a man who, though knowing the facts to be different, gives such false evidence from a pious motive, does not lose heaven; such evidence they call the speech of the gods."[181] {92} Moreover, "whenever the death of a Sûdra, of a Vaisya, of a Kshatriya, or of a Brâhmana would be caused by a declaration of the truth, a falsehood may be spoken; for such falsehood is preferable to the truth."[182] According to Buddhist conceptions of lying, "the magnitude of the crime increases in proportion to the value of the article, or the importance of the matter, about which the lie is told."[183] And it is a lesser wrong to lie in self-defence than to lie with a view to procuring an advantage by injuring one's neighbour. Thus, to deny the possession of any article, in order to retain it, is not a lie of a heinous description, whereas to bear false witness in order that the proper owner may be deprived of that which he possesses, is a lie to which a greater degree of culpability is attached.[184] The Buddhist precept of truthfulness is more restricted than that laid down by Brahmanism:--"It is said by the Brahmans that it is not a crime to tell a lie on behalf of the guru, or on account of cattle, or to save the person's own life, or to gain the victory in any contest; but this is contrary to the precept."[185] One of the conditions that make a Buddha is, never, under the influence of desire and other passions, to utter a conscious lie, for the sake of wealth or any other advantage.[186] From the time that Gautama became a Bodhisattva, or claimant for the Buddhaship, through all his births until the attainment of the Buddhaship, he never told a lie; and "it were easier for the sakwala [or system of worlds] to be blown away than for a supreme Buddha to utter an untruth."[187] His followers are not equally scrupulous. The Buddhists of Ceylon, we are told, lie without compunction, and are not ashamed to be detected in a lie.[188] And religious Mongols "do not hesitate to tell lies even when saying their prayers."[189]

[Footnote 166: Caldwell, Tinnevelly Shanars, p. 38. Cf. Kearns, Tribes of South India, pp. 64 (Reddies and Hindus generally), 68 (Reddies and Naickers); Burton, Sindh, pp. 197, 284; Idem, Sind Revisited, i. 314.]

[Footnote 167: Trevelyan, quoted by Wilkins, Modern Hinduism, p. 401.]

[Footnote 168: Wilkins, Modern Hinduism, p. 399 sq.]

[Footnote 169: Percival, Land of the Veda, p. 288.]

[Footnote 170: Wilkins, op. cit. p. 407 sq.]

[Footnote 171: Ibid. p. 400. Caldwell, op. cit. p. 40.]

[Footnote 172: Sleeman, op. cit. ii. 123. Cf. ibid. ii. 118, 129 sq.; Crooke, _Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh_, ii. 478 (Hâbûra).]

[Footnote 173: Malcolm, Memoir of Central India, ii. 171. Cf. Hislop, op. cit. p. 1.]

[Footnote 174: Arrian, Historia Indica, xii. 5.]

[Footnote 175: Institutes of Vishnu, viii. 36.]

[Footnote 176: Satapatha-Brâhmana, i. 1. 1. 4; iii. 3. 2. 2.]

[Footnote 177: Ibid. iii. 4. 2. 8. Cf. ibid. i. 1. 1. 5.]

[Footnote 178: Ibid. ii. 2. 2. 19.]

[Footnote 179: Laws of Manu, viii. 82.]

[Footnote 180: Gautama, xiii. 14 sqq.]

[Footnote 181: Laws of Manu, viii. 103.]

[Footnote 182: Laws of Manu, viii. 104.]

[Footnote 183: Hardy, Manual of Budhism, p. 486.]

[Footnote 184: Ibid. p. 485.]

[Footnote 185: Ibid. p. 486.]

[Footnote 186: Jâtaka Tales, p. 23.]

[Footnote 187: Hardy, op. cit. p. 486.]

[Footnote 188: Knox, quoted by Schmidt, Ceylon, p. 239.]

[Footnote 189: Gilmour, Among the Mongols, p. 259.]

{93} According to Zoroastrianism, truthfulness is a most sacred duty. Lying is a creation of the evil spirits, and the most efficacious weapon against it is the holy religion revealed to man by Zarathustra.[190] In one of the Pahlavi texts it is said that when the Spirit of Wisdom was asked, "Through how many ways and motives and good works do people arrive most at heaven?" he answered thus: "The first good work is liberality, the second truth."[191] Contracts are inviolable, both those which are pledged with hand or pawn, and those by a mere word.[192] It is a duty to keep faith even with an unbeliever:--"Break not the contract, O Spitama, neither the one that thou hadst entered into with one of the unfaithful, nor the one that thou hadst entered into with one of the faithful who is one of thy own faith."[193] Greek historians and cuneiform inscriptions also bear witness to the great detestation in which falsehood was held by the ancient Persians. Herodotus writes:--"Their sons are carefully instructed from their fifth to their twentieth year in three things alone--to ride, to draw the bow, and to speak the truth. . . . The most disgraceful thing in the world, they think, is to tell a lie; the next worse, to owe a debt: because, among other reasons, the debtor is obliged to tell lies."[194] In the inscriptions of Darius lying is taken as representative of all evil. He is favoured by Ormuzd "because he was not a heretic, nor a liar, nor a tyrant." His great fear is lest it may be thought that any part of the record which he has set up has been falsely related; and he even abstains from narrating certain events of his reign "lest to him who may hereafter peruse the tablet, the many deeds that have been done by him may seem to be falsely recorded."[195] Professor Spiegel tries to prove that {94} falsehood, not truthfulness, was a national characteristic of the ancient Eranians, to which their noblest men offered fruitless resistance;[196] but the facts he quotes in support of his opinion refer to their dealings with foreign nations, and have consequently little bearing on the subject. The modern Persians are notorious liars, who do not even claim to be believed, and smile when detected in a lie.[197] The nomad alone is faithful to his word; the expression, "I am a nomad," means, "You may trust me."[198]

[Footnote 190: Bundahis, i. 24; xxviii. 14, 16. _Dînâ-î Maînôg-î Khirad_, xix. 4, 6; xxx. 5; xxxvi. 29. Darmesteter, in Sacred Books of the East, iv. p. lxii. Spiegel, _Erânische Alterthumskunde_, iii. 684 sq. Geiger, _Civilization of the Eastern Ir[=a]nians_, i. 164 sq. Meyer, _Geschichte des Alterthums_, i. 534, 536.]

[Footnote 191: Dînâ-î Maînôg-î Khirad, xxxvii. 2 sqq.]

[Footnote 192: Vendîdâd, iv. 5 sqq.]

[Footnote 193: Yasts, x. 2.]

[Footnote 194: Herodotus, i. 136, 138. Cf. Stobæus, Florilegium, 44, vol. ii. 227; Xenophon, Cyri Institutio, i. 6. 33.]

[Footnote 195: Rawlinson, in his translation of Herodotus, i. 262 sq. n. 3.]

[Footnote 196: Spiegel, op. cit. iii. 686.]

[Footnote 197: Polak, Persien, i. 10. Wallin, Reseanteckningar från Orienten, iv. 192, 247. Wilson, Persian Life and Customs, p. 229 sqq.]

[Footnote 198: Polak, op. cit. ii. 95.]

Falsehood is a prevailing vice in other Muhammedan countries also. "Constant veracity," says Mr. Lane, "is a virtue extremely rare in modern Egypt"; and a deceitful disposition in commercial transactions is one of the most notorious faults of the Egyptian.[199] Mr. Lane partly ascribes this habit to the influence of Islam, which allows, and even commands, falsehood in certain cases. The common Moslem doctrine is, that a lie is permissible when told in order to save one's own life, or to reconcile persons at variance with each other, or to please or persuade one's wife, or to obtain any advantage in a war with the enemies of the faith.[200] But in other cases lying was highly reprobated by the Prophet; and that the people have not forgotten its sinfulness appears from the phrase, "No, I beg forgiveness of God, it was so and so," which they seldom omit when retracting an unintentional mis-statement.[201] I think it is erroneous to regard the want of truthfulness among Muhammedan nations as a result of their religion. The Eastern Christians and Buddhists are no less addicted to falsehood than the Muhammedans.[202]

[Footnote 199: Lane, Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, i. 382 sq. Cf. Burckhardt, Arabic Proverbs, p. 100.]

[Footnote 200: Lane, Modern Egyptians, i. 383. Muir, Life of Mahomet, i. p. lxxiii. sq. n. [dagger].]

[Footnote 201: Lane, Modern Egyptians, i. 383 sq.]

[Footnote 202: Vámbéry, Der Islam im neunzehnten Jahrhundert, p. 232.]

The Homeric poems make us acquainted with gods and men who have recourse to fraud and lying whenever it suits their purpose.[203] The great Zeus makes no difficulty {95} in sending a lying dream to Agamemnon. Pallas Athene is guilty of gross deceit and treachery to Hector; she expressly recommends dissimulation, and loves Odysseus on account of his deceitful character.[204] No man deals more in feigned stories than this master of cunning, who makes a boast of his falsehood.[205] In the period which lies between the Homeric age and the Persian wars veracity made perhaps some progress among the Greeks,[206] but it never became one of their national virtues.[207] Yet in the Greek literature deceit is frequently condemned as a vice, and truthfulness praised as a virtue.[208] Achilles expresses his horror of lying.[209] "Not to tell a lie," was one of the maxims of Solon.[210] Pindar strongly censures a character like that of Odysseus,[211] and ends up his eulogy on Psaumis by the assurance that he never would contaminate his speech with a lie.[212] According to Pythagoras, men become like gods when they speak the truth.[213] According to Plato, the habit of lying makes the soul ugly[214]; "truth is the beginning of every good thing, both to gods and men."[215] Yet a distinction should be made between different kinds of untruth. Though the many are too fond of saying that at proper times and places falsehood may often be right,[216] it must be admitted that a lie is in certain cases useful and not hateful, as in dealing with enemies, or when those whom we call our friends in a fit of madness or illusion are going to do some harm.[217] Moreover, the rulers of the State are allowed to lie for the public good, just as physicians make use of medicines; and they will find a considerable dose of falsehood and deceit necessary for this purpose.[218] On the other hand, if the ruler catches anybody besides himself lying in the {96} State, lie will punish him for introducing a practice "which is equally subversive and destructive of ships or State."[219] Next to him who takes a false oath, he who tells a falsehood in the presence of his superiors--elders, parents, or rulers--is most hateful to the gods.[220]

[Footnote 203: Cf. Kames, Sketches of the History of Man, iv. 150 sq.; Mahaffy, Social Life in Greece, p. 26 sqq.]

[Footnote 204: Odyssey, xiii. 331 sq.]

[Footnote 205: Ibid. ix. 19 sq.]

[Footnote 206: Schmidt, Die Ethik der alten Griechen, ii. 413.]

[Footnote 207: Cf. Thucydides, iii. 83.]

[Footnote 208: See Schmidt, op. cit. ii. 403 sqq.]

[Footnote 209: Iliad, ix. 312 sq.]

[Footnote 210: Diogenes Laertius, Vitæ philosophorum, i. 2 (60).]

[Footnote 211: Pindar, Nemea, viii. 26.]

[Footnote 212: Idem, Olympia, iv. 17.]

[Footnote 213: Stobæus, op. cit. xi. 25, vol. i. 312.]

[Footnote 214: Plato, Gorgias, p. 524 sq.]

[Footnote 215: Idem, Leges, v. 730.]

[Footnote 216: Ibid. xi. 916.]

[Footnote 217: Plato, Respublica, ii. 382.]

[Footnote 218: Ibid. iii. 389; v. 459.]

[Footnote 219: Plato, Respublica, iii. 389.]

[Footnote 220: Idem, Leges, xi. 917. Idem, Respublica, iii. 389.]

Not without reason did the Romans of the republican age contrast their own fides with the mendacity of the Greeks and the perfidy of the Ph[oe]nicians. "The goddess of faith (of human and social faith)," says Gibbon, "was worshipped, not only in her temples, but in the lives of the Romans; and if that nation was deficient in the more amiable qualities of benevolence and generosity, they astonished the Greeks by their sincere and simple performance of the most burdensome engagements."[221] Their annals are adorned with signal examples of uprightness, which, though to a great extent fictitious, yet bear testimony to the estimation in which that quality was held.[222] The Greeks had no Regulus who "chose to deliver himself up to a cruel death rather than to falsify his word to the enemy."[223] The basest forms of falsehood were severely punished by law. According to the Twelve Tables, any one who had slandered or libelled another by imputing to him a wrongful or immoral act, was to be scourged to death,[224] and capital punishment was also inflicted on false witnesses[225] and corrupt judges.[226] However, already before the end of the Republic dishonesty, perjuries, and forgeries became common in Rome.[227]

[Footnote 221: Gibbon, _History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, v. 311.]

[Footnote 222: Cf. Inge, Society in Rome under the Cæsars, p. 33 sq.]

[Footnote 223: Cicero, De officiis, i. 13.]

[Footnote 224: Lex Duodecim Tabularum, viii. 1.]

[Footnote 225: Ibid. viii. 23. Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticæ, xx. i. 53.]

[Footnote 226: Lex Duodecim Tabularum, ix. 3. Aulus Gellius, op. cit. xx. i. 7.]

[Footnote 227: Inge, op. cit. p. 35.]

The ancient Scandinavians considered it disgraceful for a man to tell a lie, to break a promise, or to commit a treacherous act.[228] To kill or rob openly was a pardonable offence, if an offence at all; but he who did it secretly was a nithinger, a "hateful man," unless indeed he afterwards {97} openly declared his deed.[229] In the Irish Senchus Mór it is said that not only false witness, but lying in general, deprives the guilty person of "half his honour-price up to the third time";[230] and, according to the commentary to the Book of Aicill, the double of his own full honour-price is due from each person who commits the crime of secret murder.[231]

[Footnote 228: Maurer, Bekehrung des Norwegischen Stammes, ii. 154, 183 sq. Rosenberg, Nordboernes Aandsliv, i. 487.]

[Footnote 229: Wilda, Strafrecht der Germanen, p. 569. Nordström, Bidrag till den svenska samhälls-författningens historia, ii. 320 sqq. Keyser, Efterladte Skrifter, ii. pt. i. 361. Rosenberg, Nordboernes Aandsliv, i. 487. von Amira, 'Recht,' in Paul's Grundriss der germanischen Philologie, ii. pt. ii. 173.]

[Footnote 230: Ancient Laws of Ireland, i. 57.]

[Footnote 231: Ibid. iii. 99.]

In the Old Testament there are recorded, from the patriarchal age, some cases of lying, which, far from being condemned, in no way prevented the liar being a special object of divine favour. It must be admitted, however, that undue importance has been attached to some of these acts of falsehood,[232] which were committed among foreigners with a view to escaping an impending danger.[233] For instance, when Isaac, dwelling in Gerar, said of his wife that she was his sister, for fear lest the men of the place should kill him,[234] he did a thing which few conscientious men under similar circumstances would hesitate to do. As for Jacob's long course of double-dealing with his father-in-law, who was equally greedy and unscrupulous, it should be remembered that they were natives of different lands.[235] Again, when Jacob, at the instigation of his mother, grossly deceived his own blind father, the intriguers, as has been pointed out,[236] manifestly felt that the blessing extorted from Isaac ought to descend upon Jacob rather than upon Esau, and inasmuch as the word of the father was held to carry with it divine validity and potency, the securing of it by fair means or foul was deemed an urgent necessity. It is obvious that the ancient Hebrews did not condemn deceit as wrong in the abstract, and that they were very unscrupulous in the use of means. Whenever {98} David was threatened by any danger, he immediately employed a falsehood which served his turn; though not incapable of generosity, he deceived enemies and friends indifferently, and there is probably no record of treachery and lying consistently pursued which surpasses in baseness his affair with his faithful servant Uriah the Hittite.[237] It is true that his conduct towards Uriah was condemned; "the thing that David had done displeased the Lord."[238] But it is significant that Yahveh himself occasionally had recourse to deceit for the purpose of carrying out his plans. In order to ruin Ahab he commissioned a lying spirit to deceive his prophets;[239] and once he threatened to use deception as a means of taking revenge upon idolaters.[240] But to bear false witness against a neighbour was strictly prohibited;[241] the false witness should suffer the punishment which he was minded to bring upon the person whom he calumniated.[242] In Ecclesiasticus lying is severely censured:--"A lie is a foul blot in a man, yet it is continually in the mouth of the untaught. A thief is better than a man that is accustomed to lie: but they both shall have destruction to heritage. The disposition of a liar is dishonourable, and his shame is ever with him."[243] "Lying lips are abomination to the Lord: but they that deal truly are his delight."[244] According to the Talmud, "four shall not enter Paradise: the scoffer, the liar, the hypocrite, and the slanderer."[245] Only for the sake of peace, and especially domestic peace, may a man tell a lie without sinning;[246] but he who changes his word commits as heavy a sin as he who worships idols.[247] The duty of truthfulness was particularly emphasised by the Essenes.[248] He who entered their sect had to pledge himself always to love {99} truth and strive to reclaim all liars.[249] "They are eminent for fidelity," says Josephus. "Whatsoever they say also is firmer than an oath; but swearing is avoided by them, and they esteem it worse than perjury; for they say that he who cannot be believed without [swearing by] God is already condemned."[250]

[Footnote 232: E.g., by McCurdy, 'Moral Evolution of the Old Testament,' in American Journal of Theology, i. 665 sq.; von Jhering, Zweck im Recht, ii. 606 sq.; Spencer, Principles of Ethics, i. 402.]

[Footnote 233: Genesis, xii. 12 sq.; xx. 2.]

[Footnote 234: Ibid. xxvi. 7.]

[Footnote 235: Ibid. ch. xxix. sqq.]

[Footnote 236: McCurdy, loc. cit. p. 666.]

[Footnote 237: Cf. Kuenen, Religion of Israel, i. 327; McCurdy, loc. cit. p. 681.]

[Footnote 238: 2 Samuel, xi. 27; xii. 1 sqq.]

[Footnote 239: 1 Kings, xxii. 20 sqq.]

[Footnote 240: Ezekiel, xiv. 7 sqq. Cf. Spencer, Principles of Ethics, i. 402.]

[Footnote 241: Deuteronomy, v. 20.]

[Footnote 242: Ibid. xix. 1 6 sqq.]

[Footnote 243: Ecclesiasticus, xx. 24 sqq.]

[Footnote 244: Proverbs, xii. 22.]

[Footnote 245: Deutsch, Literary Remains, p. 57.]

[Footnote 246: Hershon, Treasures of the Talmud, p. 69 sq.]

[Footnote 247: Sanhedrin, fol. 92 A, quoted by Montefiore, Hibbert Lectures on the Religion of the Ancient Hebrews, p. 558.]

[Footnote 248: Philo Judæus, Quod liber sit quisque virtuti studet, p. 877 (Opera, ii. 458).]

[Footnote 249: Josephus, De bello Judaico, ii. 8. 7.]

[Footnote 250: Ibid. ii. 8. 6.]\

"Speak every man truth with his neighbour,"[251] was from early times regarded as one of the most imperative of Christian maxims.[252] According to St. Augustine, a lie is not permissible even when told with a view to saving the life of a neighbour; "since by lying eternal life is lost, never for any man's temporal life must a lie be told."[253] Yet all lies are not equally sinful; the degree of sinfulness depends on the mind of the liar and on the nature of the subject on which the lie is told.[254] This became the authorised doctrine of the Church.[255] Thomas Aquinas says that, although lying is always sinful, it is not a mortal sin if the end intended be not contrary to charity, "as appears in a jocose lie, that is intended to create some slight amusement, and in an officious lie, in which is intended even the advantage of our neighbour."[256] Yet from early times we meet within the Christian Church a much less rigorous doctrine, which soon came to exercise a more powerful influence on the practice and feelings of men than did St. Augustine's uncompromising love of truth. The Greek Fathers maintained that an untruth is not a lie when there is a "just cause" {100} for it; and as a just cause they regarded not only self-defence, but also zeal for God's honour.[257] This zeal, together with an indiscriminate devotion to the Church, led to those "pious frauds," those innumerable falsifications of documents, inventions of legends, and forgeries of every description, which made the Catholic Church a veritable seat of lying, and most seriously impaired the sense of truth in the minds of Christians.[258] By a fiction, Papacy, as a divine institution, was traced back to the age of the Apostles, and in virtue of another fiction Constantine was alleged to have abdicated his imperial authority in Italy in favour of the successor of St. Peter.[259] The Bishop of Rome assumed the privilege of disengaging men from their oaths and promises. An oath which was contrary to the good of the Church was declared not to be binding.[260] The theory was laid down that, as faith was not to be kept with a tyrant, pirate, or robber, who kills the body, it was still less to be kept with an heretic, who kills the soul.[261] Private protestations were thought sufficient to relieve men in conscience from being bound by a solemn treaty or from the duty of speaking the truth; and an equivocation, or play upon words in which one sense is taken by the speaker and another sense intended by him for the hearer, was in some cases held permissible.[262] According to Alfonso de' Liguori--who lived in the eighteenth century and was beatified in the nineteenth, and whose writings were declared by high authority not to contain a word that could be justly found fault with,[263]-- {101} there are three sorts of equivocation which may be employed for a good reason, even with the addition of a solemn oath. We are allowed to use ambiguously words having two senses, as the word volo, which means both to "wish" and to "fly"; sentences bearing two main meanings, as "This book is Peter's," which may mean either that the book belongs to Peter or that Peter is the author of it; words having two senses, one more common than the other or one literal and the other metaphorical--for instance, if a man is asked about something which it is in his interest to conceal, he may answer, "No, I say," that is "I say the word 'no'"[264] As for mental restrictions, again, such as are "purely mental," and on that account cannot in any manner be discovered by other persons, are not permissible; but we may, for a good reason, make use of a "non-pure mental restriction," which, in the nature of things, is discoverable, although it is not discovered by the person with whom we are dealing.[265] Thus it would be wrong secretly to insert the word "no" in an affirmative oath without any external sign; but it would not be wrong to insert it in a whispering voice or under the cover of a cough. The "good reason" for which equivocations and non-pure mental restrictions may be employed is defined as "any honest object, such as keeping our goods spiritual or temporal."[266] In support of this casuistry it is uniformly said by Catholic apologists that each man has a right to act upon the defensive, that he has a right to keep guard over the knowledge which he possesses in the same way as he may defend his goods; and as for there being any deceit in the matter--why, soldiers use stratagems in war, and opponents use feints in fencing.[267]

[Footnote 251: Ephesians, iv. 25.]

[Footnote 252: Gass, Geschichte der christlichen Ethik, i. 90.]

[Footnote 253: St. Augustine, De mendacio, 6 (Migne, Patrologiæ cursus, xl. 494 sq.).]

[Footnote 254: Idem, Enchiridion, 18 (Migne, op. cit. xl. 240); Idem, De mendacio, 21 (Migne, xl. 516). For St. Augustine's views on lying see also his treatise _Contra mendacium_, addressed to Consentius (Migne, xl. 517 sqq.), and Bindemann, Der heilige Augustinus, ii. 465 sqq.]

[Footnote 255: Gratian, Decretum, ii. 22. 2. 12, 17. Catechism of the Council of Trent, iii. 9. 23.]

[Footnote 256: Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica, ii.-ii. **110. 3 sq. St. Augustine says (De mendacio, 2 [Migne, op. cit. xl. 487 sq.]; Quæstiones in Genesim, 145, ad Gen. xliv. 15 [Migne, xxxiv. 587]) that jokes which "bear with them in the tone of voice, and in the very mood of the joker a most evident indication that he means no deceit," are not accounted lies, though the thing he utters be not true. This statement is also incorporated in Gratian's Decretum (ii. 22. 2. 18).]

[Footnote 257: Gass, op. cit. i. 91, 92, 236 sqq. Newman, Apologia pro vita sua, p. 349 sq.]

[Footnote 258: von Mosheim, _Institutes of Ecclesiastical History_, i. 275. Middleton, _Free Inquiry into the Miraculous Powers, which are supposed to have subsisted in the Christian Church_, passim. Lecky, _Rise, and Influence of Rationalism in Europe_, i. 396 sqq. Gass, op. cit. i. 91, 235. von Eicken, System der mittelalterlichen Weltanschauung, pp. 654-656, 663.]

[Footnote 259: von Eicken, op. cit. p. 656. Poole, Illustrations of the History of Medieval Thought, p. 249.]

[Footnote 260: Gregory IX. Decretales, ii. 24. 27.]

[Footnote 261: Simancas, De catholicis institutionibus, xlvi. 52 sq. p. 365 sq.]

[Footnote 262: Alagona, Compendium manualis D. Navarri, xii. 88, p. 94 sq.:--"Fur, qui est furatus aliquid, si interrogetur a judice non competenti, vel non juridice, an sit furatus tale quid, potest secura conscientia respondere simpliciter, non sum furatus, intelligendo intra se in tali die, vel anno." See also Kames, op. cit. iv. 158 sq.]

[Footnote 263: Meyrick, _Moral and Devotional Theology of the Church of Rome_, i. 3.]

[Footnote 264: Alfonso de' Liguori, Theologia moralis, iii. 151, vol. i. 249.]

[Footnote 265: Ibid. iii. 152, vol. i. 249.]

[Footnote 266: Ibid. iii. 151, vol. i. 249.]

[Footnote 267: Meyrick, op. cit. i. 25]

Adherence to truth and especially perfect fidelity to a promise were strongly insisted upon by the code of Chivalry.[268] However exacting or absurd the vow might {102} be, a knight was compelled to perform it in all the strictness of the letter. A man frequently promised to grant whatever another should ask, and he would have lost the honour of his knighthood if he had declined from his word.[269] We are told by Lancelot du Lac that when King Artus had given his word to a knight to make him a present of his wife, he would neither listen to the lamentations of the unfortunate woman, nor to any representations which could be made him; he replied that a king must not go from his word, and the queen was accordingly delivered to the knight.[270] The knights taken in war were readily allowed liberty for the time they asked, on their word of honour that they would return of their own accord, whenever it should be required.[271] So great, it is said, was the knight's respect for an oath, a promise, or a vow, that when they lay under any of these restrictions, they appeared everywhere with little chains attached to their arms or habits to show all the world that they were slaves to their word; nor were these chains taken off till their promise had been performed, which sometimes extended to a term of four or five years.[272] It cannot be expected, of course, that reality should have always come up to the ideal. In the thirteenth century the Count of Champagne declared that he confided more in the lowest of his subjects than in his knights.[273] Moreover, the knightly duty of sincerity seems to have gone little beyond the formal fulfilment of an engagement. "The age of Chivalry was an age of chicane, and fraud, and trickery, which were not least conspicuous among the knightly classes."[274] It is significant that the English law of the thirteenth century, though quite willing to admit in vague phrase that no one should be suffered to gain anything by fraud, was inclined to hold that a man has himself to thank if he is misled by deceit, the king's court generally providing no remedy for him who to {103} his disadvantage had trusted the word of a liar.[275] Towards the end of the Middle Ages and later, crimes against the Mint and the offence of counterfeiting seals, usually accompanied by that of forging letters or official documents, were extremely common in England;[276] and false weights, false measures, and false pretences of all kinds were ordinary instruments of commerce.[277]

[Footnote 268: Book of the Ordre of Chyualry, foll. 18 b, 31 b, 34 b. Robertson, History of the Reign of Charles V. i. 84. Sainte-Palaye, Mémoires sur l'ancienne chevalerie, i. 76 sq.]

[Footnote 269: Mills, History of Chivalry, p. 152.]

[Footnote 270: Lancelot du Lac, vol. ii. fol. 2 a.]

[Footnote 271: Sainte-Palaye, op. cit. i. 135.]

[Footnote 272: Ibid. i. 236 sq.]

[Footnote 273: Ibid. ii. 47. Cf. Kames, op. cit. iv. 157.]

[Footnote 274: Pike, History of Crime in England, i. 283.]

[Footnote 275: Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law before the Time of Edward I. ii. 535 sq.]

[Footnote 276: Pike, op. cit. i. 265, 269; ii. 392.]

[Footnote 277: Ibid. i. 142; ii. 238.]

In modern times, according to Mr. Pike, the Public Records testify a decrease of deception in England.[278] Commercial honesty has improved, and those mean arts to which, during the reigns of the Tudors, even men in the highest positions frequently had recourse, have now, at any rate, descended to a lower grade of society.[279] At present, in the civilised countries of the West, opinion as to what the duty of sincerity implies varies not only in different individuals, but among different classes or groups of people, as also among different nations. Duplicity is held more reprehensible in a gentleman than in a shopkeeper or a peasant. The notion which seems to be common in England, that an advocate is over-scrupulous who refuses to say what he knows to be false if he is instructed to say it,[280] appears strange at least to some foreigners;[281] and in certain countries it is commonly regarded as blamable if a person ostensibly professes a religion in which he does not believe, say, by going to church. The Quakers deem all complimentary modes of speech, for instance in addressing people, to be objectionable as being inconsistent with truth.[282] Certain philosophers have expressed the opinion that veracity is an unconditional duty, which is not to be limited by any expediency, but must be respected in all circumstances. According to Kant, it would be a crime to tell a falsehood to a murderer who asked us whether {104} our friend, of whom he was in pursuit, had taken refuge in our house.[283] Fichte maintains that the defence of so-called necessary lies is "the most wicked argument possible amongst men."[284] Dymond says, "If I may tell a falsehood to a robber in order to save my property, I may commit parricide for the same purpose."[285] But this rigorous view is not shared by common sense, nor by orthodox Protestant theology.[286] Jeremy Taylor asks, "Who will not tell a harmless lie to save the life of his friend, of his child, of himself, of a good and brave man?"[287] Where deception is designed to benefit the person deceived, says Professor Sidgwick, "common sense seems to concede that it may sometimes be right: for example, most persons would not hesitate to speak falsely to an invalid, if this seemed the only way of concealing facts that might produce a dangerous shock: nor do I perceive that any one shrinks from telling fictions to children, on matters upon which it is thought well that they should not know the truth."[288] In the case of grown-up people, however, this principle seems to require the modification made by Hutcheson, that there is no wrong in false speech when the party deceived himself does not consider it an injury to be deceived.[289] Otherwise it might easily be supposed to give support to "pious fraud," which in its crudest form is nowadays generally disapproved of, but which in subtle disguise still has many advocates among religious partisans. It is argued that the most important truths of religion cannot be conveyed into the minds of ordinary men, except by being enclosed, as it were, in a shell of fiction, and that by relating such fictions as if they were facts we are really performing an act of substantial veracity.[290] But this argument seems chiefly to have been invented for the {105} purpose of supporting a dilapidated structure of theological teaching, and can hardly be accepted by any person unprejudiced by religious bias. As a means of self-defence deviation from truth has been justified not only in the case of grosser injuries, but in the case of illegitimate curiosity, as it seems unreasonable that a person should be obliged to supply another with information which he has no right to exact.[291] The obligation of keeping a promise, again, is qualified in various ways. Thoughtful persons would commonly admit that such an obligation is relative to the promisee, and may be annulled by him.[292] A promise to do an immoral act is held not to be binding, because the prior obligation not to do the act is paramount.[293] If, before the time comes to fulfil a promise, circumstances have altered so much that the effects of keeping it are quite different from those which were foreseen when it was made, all would agree that the promisee ought to release the promiser; but if he declines to do so, some would say that the latter is in every case bound by his promise, whilst others would maintain that a considerable alteration of circumstances has removed the obligation.[294] How far promises obtained by force or fraud are binding is a much disputed question.[295] According to Hutcheson, for instance, no regard is due to a promise which has been extorted by unjust violence.[296] Adam Smith, on the other hand, considers that whenever such a promise is violated, though for the most necessary reason, it is always with some degree of dishonour to the person who made it, and that "a brave man ought to die rather than make a promise {106} which he can neither keep without folly nor violate without ignominy."[297]

[Footnote 278: Ibid. i. 264. Cf. ibid. ii. 474.]

[Footnote 279: Ibid. ii. 14 sq.]

[Footnote 280: Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, p. 316. Paley, Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy, iii. 15 (Complete Works, ii. 117). The same view was expressed by Cicero (De officiis, ii. 14).]

[Footnote 281: See also Dymond, _Essays on the Principles of Morals_, ii. 5, p. 50 sqq.]

[Footnote 282: Gurney, Views and Practices of the Society of Friends, p. 401.]

[Footnote 283: Kant, 'Ueber ein vermeintes Recht, aus Menschenliebe zu Lügen,' in Sämmtliche Werke, vii. 309.]

[Footnote 284: Fichte, Das System der Sittenlehre, p. 371; English translation, p. 303 sq.]

[Footnote 285: Dymond, op. cit. ii. 6, p. 57.]

[Footnote 286: Reinhard, System der Christlichen Moral, iii. 193 sqq. Martensen, Christian Ethics, 'Individual Ethics,' p. 216 sqq. Newman, Apologia pro vita sua, p. 274.]

[Footnote 287: Taylor, Whole Works, xii. 162.]

[Footnote 288: Sidgwick, op. cit. p. 316.]

[Footnote 289: Hutcheson, System of Moral Philosophy, ii. 32.]

[Footnote 290: Sidgwick, op. cit. p. 316.]

[Footnote 291: Schopenhauer, Die Grundlage der Moral, § 17 (Sämmtliche Werke, vi. 247 sqq.).]

[Footnote 292: Whewell, Elements of Morality, p. 156. Sidgwick, op. cit. p. 305.]

[Footnote 293: Dymond, op. cit. ii. 6, p. 55. Whewell, op. cit. p. 156 sq. Sidgwick, op. cit. p. 305. This is also the opinion of Thomas Aquinas (op. cit. ii.-ii. 110. 3. 5).]

[Footnote 294: Sidgwick, op. cit. p. 306 sq. Thomas Aquinas says (op. cit. ii.-ii. 110. 3. 5) that a person who does not do what he has promised is excused "if the conditions of persons and things are changed."]

[Footnote 295: Dymond, op. cit. ii. 6, p. 55 sq. Whewell, op. cit. pp. 155, 159 sqq. Sidgwick, op. cit. p. 305 sq. Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments, p. 486 sqq.]

[Footnote 296: Hutcheson, System of Moral Philosophy, ii. 34.]

[Footnote 297: Adam Smith, op. cit. p. 489.]

In point of veracity and good faith the old distinction between duties which we owe to our fellow-countrymen and such as we owe to foreigners is still preserved in various cases. It is particularly conspicuous in the relations between different states, in peace or war. Stratagems and the employment of deceptive means necessary to procure intelligence respecting the enemy or the country are held allowable in warfare, independently of the question whether the war is defensive or aggressive.[298] Deceit has, in fact, often constituted a great share of the glory of the most celebrated commanders; and particularly in the eighteenth century it was a common opinion that successes gained through a spy are more creditable to the skill of a general than successes in regular battles.[299] Lord Wolseley writes:--"As a nation we are bred up to feel it a disgrace even to succeed by falsehood; the word spy conveys something as repulsive as slave; we will keep hammering along with the conviction that honesty is the best policy, and that truth always wins in the long run. These pretty little sentences do well for a child's copy-book, but the man who acts upon them in war had better sheathe his sword for ever."[300] At the same time, there are some exceptions to the general rule that deceit is permitted against an enemy. Under the customs of war it has been agreed that particular acts and signs shall have a specific meaning in order that belligerents {107} may carry on certain necessary intercourse, and it is forbidden to employ such acts or signs in deceiving an enemy. Thus information must not be surreptitiously obtained under the shelter of a flag of truce; buildings not used as hospitals must not be marked with an hospital flag; and persons not covered by the provisions of the Geneva Convention must not be protected by its cross.[301] A curious arbitrary rule affects one class of stratagems by forbidding certain permitted means of deception from the moment at which they cease to deceive. It is perfectly legitimate to use the distinctive emblems of an enemy in order to escape from him or to draw his forces into action; but it is held that soldiers clothed in the uniforms of their enemy must put on a conspicuous mark by which they can be recognised before attacking, and that a vessel using the enemy's flag must hoist its own flag before firing with shot or shell.[302] Disobedience to this rule is considered to entail grave dishonour; for "in actual battle enemies are bound to combat loyally, and are not free to ensure victory by putting on a mask of friendship."[303] But, as Mr. Hall observes, it is not easy to see why it is more disloyal to wear a disguise when it is obviously useless, than when it serves its purpose.[304] Finally, it is universally agreed that promises given to the enemy ought to be kept;[305] this was admitted even by Machiavelli[306] and Bynkershoek,[307] who did not in general burden belligerents with particularly heavy duties. But the restrictions which "international law" {108} lays on deceit against enemies do not seem to be taken very seriously. Treaties between nations and promises given by one state to another, either in war or peace, are hardly meant to be kept longer than it is convenient to keep them. And when an excuse for the breach of faith is felt necessary, that excuse itself is generally a lie.

[Footnote 298: Conférence de Bruxelles, art. 14. Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field, art. 16, 101. Conférence internationale de la paix, La Haye, 1899, 'Règlement concernant les lois de la guerre sur terre,' art. 24, pt. i. p. 245. Roman Catholicism admits the employment of stratagems in wars which are just (Gratian, op. cit. ii. 23. 2. 2; Ayala, De jure et officiis bellicis et disciplina militari, i. 8. 1 sq.; Ferraris, quoted by Adds, Catholic Dictionary, p. 945; Nys, Le droit de la guerre et les précurseurs de Grotius, p. 128 sq.), on the authority of St. Augustine, the great advocate of general truthfulness (Quæstiones in Jesum Nave, 10, ad Jos. viii. 2 [Migne, op. cit. xxxiv. 781]:--"Cum autem justum bellum susceperit, utrum aperta pugna utrum insidiis vincat, nihil ad justitiam interest").]

[Footnote 299: Halleck, International Law, i. 567. Maine, International Law, p. 149 sqq.]

[Footnote 300: Wolseley, _Soldier's Pocket-Book for Field Service_, p. 169.]

[Footnote 301: Conférence de Bruxelles, art. 13 sq. _Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field_, art. 101, 114, 117. _Manual of the Laws of War on Land, prepared by the Institute of International Law_, (art. 8 (d). Hall, Treatise on International Law, p. 537 sq.]

[Footnote 302: Hall, op. cit. p. 538 sq. Bluntschli, Droit international, § 565, p. 328 sq.]

[Footnote 303: Bluntschli, op. cit. § 565, p. 329.]

[Footnote 304: Hall, op. cit. p. 539.]

[Footnote 305: Heffter, _Das Europäische Völkerrecht der Gegenwart_, § 125, p. 262.]

[Footnote 306: Machiavelli, Discorsi, iii. 40 (Opere, iii. 164).]

[Footnote 307: Bynkershoek, Quæstiones juris publici, i. 1, p. 4. The maxim of Canon Law, "Fides servanda hosti" (Gratian, Decretum, ii. 23. i. 3), however, was greatly impaired by the principle, "Juramentum contra utilitatem ecclesiasticam praestitum non tenet" (Gregory IX. Decretales, ii. 24, 27. See Nys, Le droit de la guerre et les précurseurs de Grotius, p. 126 sq.).]

XXXI. THE REGARD FOR TRUTH AND GOOD FAITH (concluded)

THE condemnation of untruthfulness and bad faith springs from a variety of sources. In the first place, he who tells a lie, or who breaks a promise, generally commits an injury against another person. His act consequently calls forth sympathetic resentment, and becomes an object of moral censure.

Men have a natural disposition to believe what they are told. This disposition is particularly obvious in young children; it is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity, and, as Adam Smith observes, they very seldom teach it enough.[1] Even people who are themselves pre-eminent liars are often deceived by the falsehoods of others.[2] When detected a deception always implies a conflict between two irreconcilable ideas; and such a conflict gives rise to a feeling of pain,[3] which may call forth resentment against its volitional cause, the deceiver.

[Footnote 1: Reid, Inquiry into the Human Mind, vi. 24, p. 430 sqq. Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments, p. 494 sq. Dugald Stewart, _Philosophy of the Active and Moral Powers of Man_, ii. 340 sq.]

[Footnote 2: Burton, Two Trips to Gorilla Land, i. 106 (Mpongwe).]

[Footnote 3: Lehmann, _Hovedlovene for det menneskelige Følelseliv_, p. 181. Cf. Bain, Emotions and the Will, p. 218.]

But men are not only ready to believe what they are told, they also like to know the truth. Curiosity, or the love of truth, is coeval with the first operations of the intellect; it seems to be an ultimate fact in the human {110} frame.[4] In our endeavour to learn the truth we are frustrated by him who deceives us, and he becomes an object of our resentment.

[Footnote 4: Dugald Stewart, op. cit. ii. 334, 340.]

Nor are we injured by a deception merely because we like to know the truth, but, chiefly, because it is of much importance for us that we should know it. Our conduct is based upon our ideas; hence the erroneous notion as regards some fact in the past, present, or future, which is produced by a lie or false promise, may lead to unforeseen events detrimental to our interests. Moreover, on discovering that we have been deceived, we have the humiliating feeling that another person has impertinently made our conduct subject to his will. This is a wound on our pride, a blot on our honour. Francis I. of France laid down as a principle, "that the lie was never to be put up with without satisfaction, but by a base-born fellow."[5] "The lie," says Sainte-Palaye, "has always been considered the most fatal and irreparable affront that a man of honour could receive."[6]

[Footnote 5: Millingen, History of Duelling, i. 71.]

[Footnote 6: Sainte-Palaye, Mémoires sur l'ancienne chevalerie, i. 78.]

How largely the condemnation of falsehood and bad faith is due to the harm suffered by the victim appears from the fact that a lie or breach of faith is held more condemnable in proportion to the magnitude of the harm caused by it. But even in apparently trifling cases the reflective mind strongly insists upon the necessity of truthfulness and fidelity to a given word. Every lie and every unfulfilled promise has a tendency to lessen mutual confidence, to predispose the perpetrator to commit a similar offence in the future, and to serve as a bad example for others. "The importance of truth," says Bentham, "is so great, that the least violation of its laws, even in frivolous matters, is always attended with a certain degree of danger. The slightest deviation from it is an attack upon the respect we owe to it. It is a first transgression which facilitates a second, and familiarises the odious ideal {111} of falsehood."[7] Contrariwise, as Aristotle observes, he who is truthful in unimportant matters will be all the more so in important ones.[8] Similar considerations, however, require a certain amount of reflection and farsightedness; hence intellectual development tends to increase the emphasis laid on the duties of sincerity and good faith. At the earlier stages of civilisation it is frequently considered good form to tell an untruth to a person in order to please him, and ill-mannered to contradict him, however much he be mistaken,[9] for the reason that farther consequences are left out of account. The utilitarian basis of the duty of truthfulness also accounts for those extreme cases in which a deception is held permissible or even a duty, when promoting the true interests of the person subject to it.

[Footnote 7: Bentham, Theory of Legislation, p. 260.]

[Footnote 8: Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea, iv. 7. 8.]

[Footnote 9: Besides statements referred to above, see Dobrizhoffer, Account of the Abipones, ii. 137; Hennepin, New Discovery of a Vast Country in America between New France and New Mexico, ii. 70; Dall, Alaska, p. 398 (Aleuts); Oldfield, in Trans. Ethn. Soc. N.S. iii. 255 (West Australian natives). "The natives of Africa," says Livingstone (Expedition to the Zambesi, p. 309), "have an amiable of desire to please, and often tell what they imagine will be gratifying, rather than the uninteresting naked truth." An English sportsman, after firing at an antelope, inquired of his dark attendant, "Is it wounded?" The answer was, "Yes! the ball went right into his heart." These mortal wounds never proving fatal, he asked a friend, who understood the language, to explain to the man that he preferred the truth in every case. "He is my father," replied the native, "and I thought he would be displeased if I told him that he never hits at all." The wish to please is likewise a fertile source of untruth in children, especially girls (Sully, Studies of Childhood, p. 256).]

The detestation of falsehood is in a very large measure due to the motive which commonly is at the bottom of a lie. It is doubtful whether a lie ever is told simply from love of falsehood.[10] The intention to produce a wrong belief has a deeper motive than the mere desire to produce such a belief; and in most cases this motive is the deceiver's hope of benefiting himself at the expense of the person deceived. A better motive makes the act less detestable, or may even serve as a justification. But the broad doctrine that the end sanctifies the means is generally rejected; and the principle which sometimes allows {112} deceit from a benevolent motive has been restricted within very narrow limits by a higher conception of individual freedom and individual rights. Thus the emancipation of morality from theology has brought discredit on the old theory that religious deception is permissible when it serves the object of saving human souls from eternal perdition. The opinion that no motive whatsoever can justify an act of falsehood has been advocated not only by intuitional moralists, but on utilitarian grounds.[11] But it certainly seems absurd to the common sense of mankind that we should be allowed to save our own life or the life of a fellow-man by killing the person who wants to take it, but not by deceiving him.

[Footnote 10: Dugald Stewart, op. cit. ii. 342.]

[Footnote 11: Macmillan, Promotion of General Happiness, p. 166 sq.]

It is easy to see why falsehood is so frequently held permissible, praiseworthy, or even obligatory, when directed against a stranger. In early society an injury inflicted on a stranger calls forth no sympathetic resentment. On the contrary, being looked upon with suspicion or hated as an enemy, he is considered a proper object of deception. Among the Bushmans "no one dare give any information in the absence of the chief or father of the clan."[12] "A Bedouin," says Burckhardt, "who does not know the person interrogating him, will seldom answer with truth to questions concerning his family or tribe. The children are taught never to answer similar questions, lest the interrogator may be a secret enemy and come for purposes of revenge."[13] Among the Beni Amer a stranger can never trust a man's word on account of "their contempt for everything foreign."[14] That even civilised nations allow stratagem in warfare is the natural consequence of war itself being allowed; and if good faith is to be preserved between enemies, that is because only thereby useless cruelty can be avoided and an end be put to hostilities.

[Footnote 12: Chapman, Travels in the Interior of South Africa, i. 76.]

[Footnote 13: Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, p. 210.]

[Footnote 14: Munzinger, Ostafrikanische Studien, p. 337.]

However, deceit is not condemned merely because it is {113} an injury to the party deceived and as such apt to arouse sympathetic resentment, but it is an object of disinterested, moral resentment also because it is intrinsically antipathetic. Lying is a cheap and cowardly method of gaining an undue advantage, and is consequently despised where courage is respected.[15] It is the weapon of the weak, the woman,[16] and the slave.[17] Fraud, says Cicero, is the property of a fox, force that of a lion; "both are utterly repugnant to society, but fraud is the more detestable."[18] "To lie is servile," says Plutarch, "and most hateful in all men, hardly to be pardoned even in poor slaves."[19] On account of its cowardliness, lying was incompatible with Teutonic and knightly notions of manly honour; and among ourselves the epithets "liar" and "coward" are equally disgraceful to a man. "All . . . in the rank and station of gentlemen," Sir Walter Scott observes, "are forcibly called upon to remember that they must resent the imputation of a voluntary falsehood as the most gross injury."[20] Fichte asks, "Whence comes that internal shame for one's self which manifests itself even stronger in the case of a lie than in the case of any other violation of conscience?" And his answer is, that the lie is accompanied by cowardice, and that nothing so much dishonours us in our own eyes as want of courage.[21] According to Kant, "a lie is the abandonment, and, as it were, the annihilation, of the dignity of a man."[22]

[Footnote 15: Cf. Schopenhauer, Die Grundlage der Moral, § 17 (Sämmtliche Werke, vi. 250); Grote, _Treatise on the Moral Ideals_, p. 254.]

[Footnote 16: Women are commonly said to be particularly addicted to falsehood (Schopenhauer, Parerga und Paralipomena, ii. 497 sq. Galton, Inquiries into Human Faculty, p. 56 sq. Krauss, Sitte und Brauch der Südslaven, pp. 508, 514. Maurer, Bekehrung des Norwegischen Stammmes, ii. 159 [ancient Scandinavians]. Döllinger, The Gentile and the Jew, ii. 234 [ancient Greeks]. Lane, Arabian Society in the Middle Ages, p. 219. Le Bon, La civilisation des Arabes, p. 433. Loskiel, History of the Mission of the United Brethren, i. 16 [Iroquois]. Hearne, Journey to the Northern Ocean, p. 307 sq. [Northern Indians]. Lyon, Private Journal, p. 349 [Eskimo of Igloolik]. Dalager, Grønlandske Relationer, p. 69; Cranz, History of Greenland, i. 175).]

[Footnote 17: See infra, p. 129 sq.]

[Footnote 18: Cicero, De officiis, i. 13.]

[Footnote 19: Plutarch, De educatione puerorum, 14.]

[Footnote 20: Scott, 'Essay on Chivalry,' in Miscellaneous Prose Works, vi. 58.]

[Footnote 21: Fichte, Das System der Sittenlehre, p. 370; English translation, p. 302 sq.]

[Footnote 22: Kant, _Metaphysische Anfangungsgründe der Tugendlehre_, p. 84.]

{114} But a lie may also be judged of from a very different point of view. It may be not only a sign of cowardice, but a sign of cleverness. Hence a successful lie may excite admiration, a disinterested kindly feeling towards the liar, genuine moral approval; whereas to be detected in a lie is considered shameful. And not only is the clever liar an object of admiration, but the person whom he deceives is an object of ridicule. To the mind of a West African native, Miss Kingsley observes, there is no intrinsic harm in lying, "because a man is a fool who believes another man on an important matter unless he puts on the oath."[23] A Syrian proverb says, "Lying is the salt (goodness) of men, and shameful only to one who believes."[24]

[Footnote 23: Kingsley, West African Studies, p. 414. Cf. Sommerville, 'Ethnogr. Notes in New Georgia,' _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xxvi. 394.]

[Footnote 24: Burton and Drake, Unexplored Syria, i. 275. See also Burckhardt, Arabic Proverbs, p. 44 sq.]

The duties of sincerity and good faith are also to some extent, and in certain cases principally, founded on prudential considerations. Although, as the Märchen tells us, it happens every day in the world that the fraudulent is successful,[25] there is a widespread notion that, after all, "honesty is the best policy." "Nothing that is false can be lasting," says Cicero.[26] "The liar is short-lived" (that is, soon detected), say the Arabs.[27] According to a Wolof proverb, "lies, however numerous, will be caught by truth when it rises up."[28] The Basutos have a saying that "cunning devours its master."[29] It has been remarked that "if there were no such thing as honesty, it would be a good speculation to invent it, as a means of making one's fortune."[30]

[Footnote 25: Grimm, Kinder und Hausmärchen, 'Katze und Maus in Gesellschaft,' 'Die drei Spinnerinnen,' 'Das tapfere Schneiderlein,' &c.]

[Footnote 26: Cicero, De officiis, ii. 12.]

[Footnote 27: Burckhardt, Arabic Proverbs, p. 119.]

[Footnote 28: Burton, Wit and Wisdom from West Africa, p. 15.]

[Footnote 29: Casalis, Basutos, p. 307.]

[Footnote 30: Quoted by Bentham, Theory of Legislation, p. 64.]

Moreover, lying is attended not only with social disadvantages, but with supernatural danger. The West African Fjort have a tale about a fisherman who every day used to catch and smuggle into his house great quantities of fish, {115} but denied to his brother and relatives that he had caught anything. All this time the fetish Sunga was watching, and was grieved to hear him lie thus. The fetish punished him by depriving him of the power of speech, that he might lie no more, and so for the future he could only make his wants known by signs.[31] In another instance, the Fjort tell us, the earth-spirit turned into a pillar of clay a woman who said that she had no peas for sale, when she had her basket full of them.[32] The Nandi of the Uganda Protectorate believe that "God punishes lying by striking the untruthful person with lightning."[33] The Dyaks of Borneo think that the lightning god is made angry even by the most nonsensical untruth, such as the statement that a man has a cat for his mother or that vermin can dance.[34] In Aneiteum, of the New Hebrides, the belief prevailed that liars would be punished in the life to come;[35] according to the Banks Islanders, they were excluded from the true Panoi or Paradise after death.[36] We have already noticed the emphasis which some of the higher religions lay on veracity and good faith, and other statements maybe added testifying the interest which gods of a more civilised type take in the fulfilment of these duties. In ancient Egypt Amon Ra, "the chief of all the gods," was invoked as "Lord of Truth";[37] and Ma[=a], or Maat, represented as his daughter, was the goddess of truth and righteousness.[38] In a Babylonian hymn the moon god is appealed to as the guardian of truth.[39] The Vedic gods are described as "true" and "not deceitful," as friends of honesty and righteousness;[40] and Agni was the lord of vows.[41] The {116} Zoroastrian Mithra was a protector of truth, fidelity, and covenants;[42] and Rashnu Razista, "the truest true," was the genius of truth.[43] According to the Iliad, Zeus is "no abettor of falsehoods";[44] according to Plato, a lie is hateful not only to men but to gods.[45] Among the Romans Jupiter and Dius Fidius were gods of treaties,[46] and Fides was worshipped as the deity of faithfulness.[47] How shall we explain this connection between religious beliefs and the duties of veracity and fidelity to promises?

[Footnote 31: Dennett, Folklore of the Fjort, p. 88 sq.]

[Footnote 32: Ibid. p. 5.]

[Footnote 33: Johnston, Uganda Protectorate, ii. 879.]

[Footnote 34: Selenka, Sonnige Welten, p. 47.]

[Footnote 35: Turner, Samoa, p. 326.]

[Footnote 36: Codrington, Melanesians, p. 274.]

[Footnote 37: Wiedemann, Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, p. 112. Cf. Brugsch, Die Aegyptologie, pp. 49, 91, 92, 97; Amélineau, Essai sur l'évolution des idées morales dans l'Égypte Ancienne, pp. 182, 188, 251.]

[Footnote 38: Wiedemann, 'Ma[=a], déesse de la vérité,' in Annales du Musée Guimet, x. 561 sqq. Amélineau, op. cit. p. 187. Infra, p. 699.]

[Footnote 39: Mürdter-Delitzsch, Geschichte Babyloniens und Assyriens, p. 37.]

[Footnote 40: Bergaigne, La religion védique, iii. 199. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, p. 18.]

[Footnote 41: Satapatha-Brâhmana, iii. 2. 2. 24.]

[Footnote 42: Darmesteter, Ormazd et Ahriman, p. 78. Geiger, Civilization of the Eastern Ir[=a]nians, pp. lvii., 164. Spiegel, Erânische Alterthumskunde, iii. 685.]

[Footnote 43: Darmesteter, in Sacred Books of the East, xxiii. 168.]

[Footnote 44: Iliad, iv. 235.]

[Footnote 45: Plato, Respublica, ii. 382.]

[Footnote 46: Fowler, _Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic_, pp. 141, 229 sq.]

[Footnote 47: Cicero, De officiis, iii. 29. Idem, De natura deorum, ii. 23; iii. 18. Idem, De legibus, ii. 8, 11. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Antiquitates Romanæ, ii. 75.]

Apart from the circumstances which in some cases make gods vindicators of the moral law in general, as conceived of by their worshippers, there are quite special reasons for their disapproval of insincerity and bad faith. Here again we notice the influence of magic beliefs on the religious sanction of morality.

There is something uncanny in the untrue word itself. As Professor Stanley Hall points out, children not in frequently regard every deviation from the most painfully literal truth as alike heinous, with no perspective or degrees of difference between the most barefaced intended and unintended lies. In some children this fear of telling an untruth becomes so neurotic that to every statement, even to yes or no, a "perhaps" or "I think" is added mentally, whispered, or aloud. One boy had a long period of fear that, like Ananias and Sapphira, he might some moment drop down dead for a chance and perhaps unconscious lie.[48] On the other hand, an acted lie is felt to be much less harmful than a spoken one; to point the wrong way when asked where some one is gone is less objectionable than to speak wrongly, to nod is less sinful than to say yes. Indeed, acted lies are for the most {117} part easily gotten away with, whereas some mysterious baneful energy seems to be attributed to the spoken untruth. That its evil influence is looked upon as quite mechanical appears from the palliatives used for it. Many American children are of opinion that a lie may be reversed by putting the left hand on the right shoulder and that even an oath may be neutralised or taken in an opposite sense by raising the left instead of the right hand.[49] Among children in New York "it was sufficient to cross the fingers, elbows, or legs, though the act might not be noticed by the companion accosted, and under such circumstances no blame attached to a falsehood."[50] To think "I do not mean it," or to attach to a statement a meaning quite different from the current one, is a form of reservation which is repeatedly found in children.[51] Nor are feelings and ideas of this kind restricted to the young; they are fairly common among grown-up people, and have even found expression in ethical doctrines. They lie at the root of the Jesuit theory of mental reservations. According to Thomas Aquinas, again, though it is wrong to tell a lie for the purpose of delivering another from any danger whatever, it is lawful "to hide the truth prudently under some dissimulation, as Augustine says."[52] It is not uncommonly argued that in defence of a secret we may not "lie," that is, produce directly beliefs contrary to facts; but that we may "turn a question aside," that is, produce indirectly, by natural inference from our answer, a negatively false belief; or that we may "throw the inquirer on a wrong scent," that is, produce similarly a positively false belief.[53] This extreme formalism may no doubt to some extent be traced to the influence of early training. From the day we learned to speak, the duty of telling the truth has been strenuously enjoined upon us, and the word "lie" has been associated with sin of the {118} blackest hue; whereas other forms of falsehood, being less frequent, less obvious, and less easy to define, have also been less emphasised. But after full allowance is made for this influence, the fact still remains that a mystic efficacy is very commonly ascribed to the spoken word. Even among ourselves many persons would not dare to praise their health or fortune for fear lest some evil should result from their speech; and among less civilised peoples much greater significance is given to a word than among us. Herodotus, after mentioning the extreme importance which the ancient Persians attached to the duty of speaking the truth, adds that they held it unlawful even "to talk of anything which it is unlawful to do."[54] I think, then, we may assume that, if for some reason or other, falsehood is stigmatised, the mysterious tendency inherent in the word easily develops into an avenging power which, as often happens in similar cases, is associated with the activity of a god.

[Footnote 48: Stanley Hall, 'Children's Lies,' in _American Journal of Psychology_, iii. 59 sq.]

[Footnote 49: Stanley Hall, 'Children's Lies,' in _American Journal of Psychology_, iii. 68 sq.]

[Footnote 50: Bergen and Newell, 'Current Superstitions,' in Journal of American Folk-lore, ii. 111.]

[Footnote 51: Stanley Hall, loc. cit. p. 68.]

[Footnote 52: Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica, ii.-ii. 110. 3. 4.]

[Footnote 53: See Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, p. 317.]

[Footnote 54: Herodotus, i. 139.]

The punishing power of a word is particularly conspicuous in the case of an oath. But the evil attending perjury does not come from the lie as such: it is in the first place a result of the curse which constitutes the oath. An oath is essentially a conditional self-imprecation, a curse by which a person calls down upon himself some evil in the event of what he says not being true. The efficacy of the oath is originally entirely magical, it is due to the magic power inherent in the cursing words. In order to charge them with supernatural energy various methods are adopted. Sometimes the person who takes the oath puts himself in contact with some object which represents the state referred to in the oath, so that the oath may absorb, as it were, its quality and communicate it to the perjurer. Thus the Kandhs swear upon the lizard's skin, "whose scaliness they pray may be their lot if forsworn," or upon the earth of an ant-hill, "like which they desire that, if false, they may be reduced to powder."[55] The Tunguses regard it as the most dreadful {119} of all their oaths when an accused person is compelled to drink some of the blood of a dog which, after its throat has been cut, is impaled near a fire and burnt, or has its flesh scattered about piece-meal, and to swear:--"I speak the truth, and that is as true as it is that I drink this blood. If I lie, let me perish, burn, or be dried up like this dog."[56] In other cases the person who is to swear takes hold of a certain object and calls it to inflict on him some injury if he perjure himself. The Kandhs frequently take oath upon the skin of a tiger, "from which animal destruction to the perjured is invoked."[57] The Angami Nagas, when they swear to keep the peace, or to perform any promise, "place the barrel of a gun, or a spear, between their teeth, signifying by this ceremony that, if they do not act up to their agreement, they are prepared to fall by either of the two weapons."[58] The Chuvashes, again, put a piece of bread and a little salt in the mouth and swear, "May I be in want of these, if I say not true!" or "if I do not keep my word!"[59] Another method of charging an oath with supernatural energy is to touch, or to establish some kind of contact with, a holy object on the occasion when the oath is taken. The Iowa have a mysterious iron or stone, wrapped in seven skins, by which they make men swear to speak the truth.[60] The people of Kesam, in the highlands of Palembang, swear by an old sacred knife,[61] the Bataks of South Tóba on their village idols,[62] the Ostyaks on the nose of a bear, which is regarded by them as an animal endowed with supernatural power.[63] Among the Tunguses a criminal may be compelled to climb one {120} of their sacred mountains, repeating as he mounts, "May I die if I am guilty," or, "May I lose my children and my cattle," or, "I renounce for ever all success in hunting and fishing if I am guilty."[64] In Tibetan law-courts, when the great oath is taken, "it is done by the person placing a holy scripture on his head, and sitting on the reeking hide of an ox and eating part of the ox's heart."[65] Hindus swear on a copy of the Sanskrit haribans, or with Ganges water in their hands, or touch the legs of a Brâhmana in taking an oath.[66] Muhammedans swear on the Koran, as Christians do on the Bible. In Morocco an oath derives efficacy from contact with, or the presence of, any lifeless object, animal, or person endowed with baraka, or holiness, such as a saint-house or a mosque, corn or wool, a flock of sheep or a horse, or a shereef. In mediæval Christendom sacred relics were generally adopted as the most effective means of adding security to oaths, and "so little respect was felt for the simple oath that, ere long, the adjuncts came to be looked upon as the essential feature, and the imprecation itself to be divested of binding force without them."[67]

[Footnote 55: Macpherson, Memorials of Service in India, p. 83.]

[Footnote 56: Georgi, Russia, iii. 86.]

[Footnote 57: Macpherson, op. cit. p. 83. Cf. Hose, 'Natives of Borneo,' in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxiii. 165 (Kayans).]

[Footnote 58: Butler, Travels in Assam, p. 154. Mac Mahon, Far Cathay, p. 253. Prain, 'Angami Nagas,' in Revue coloniale internationale, v. 490. Cf. Lewin, Wild Races of South-Eastern India, pp. 193 (Toungtha), 244 sq. (Pankhos and Bunjogees); St. John, 'Hill Tribes of North Aracan,' in Jour. Anthr. Inst. ii. 242.]

[Footnote 59: Georgi, op. cit. i. 110.]

[Footnote 60: Hamilton, quoted by Dorsey, 'Siouan Cults,' in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xi. 427.]

[Footnote 61: Glimpses of the Eastern Archipelago, p. 104.]

[Footnote 62: von Brenner, Besuch bei den Kannibalen Sumatras, p. 213.]

[Footnote 63: Castrén, Nordiska resor och forskningar, i. 307, 309; iv. 123 sq. Cf. Ahlqvist, 'Unter Wogulen und Ostjaken,' in Acta Societatis Scientiarum Fennicæ, xiv. 298.]

[Footnote 64: Georgi, op. cit. iii. 86.]

[Footnote 65: Waddell, Buddhism of Tibet, p. 569, n. 7.]

[Footnote 66: Grierson, Bih[=a]r Peasant Life, p. 401. Sleeman, Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official, ii. 116.]

[Footnote 67: Lea, Superstition and Force, p. 29. See also Kaufmann, Deutsche Geschichte, ii. 297; Ellinger, _Das Verhältniss der öffentlichen Meinung zu Wahrheit und Lüge im 10. 11. und 12. Jahrhundert_, pp. 30, 111.]

Finally, as an ordinary curse, so an oath is made efficacious by bringing in the name of a supernatural being, to whom an appeal is made. When the Comanches of Texas make a sacred pledge or promise, "they call upon the great spirit as their father, and the earth as their mother, to testify to the truth of their asseverations."[68] Of the Chukchi we are told that "as often as they would certify the truth of any thing by oath or solemn protestations they take the sun for their guarantee and security."[69] Among the Tunguses an accused person takes a knife in his hand, brandishes it towards the sun, and says, "If I {121} am guilty, may the sun send diseases into my bowels as mortal as a stab with this knife would be!"[70] An Arab from the province of Dukkâla in Morocco presses a dagger against his chest, saying, "By this poison, may God thrust it into my heart if I did so or so!" If a Masai is accused of having done something wrong, he drinks some blood, which is given him by the spokesman, and says, "If I have done this deed may God kill me"; and it is believed that if he has committed the crime he dies, whereas no harm befalls him if he is innocent.[71] Among the Tshi-speaking peoples of the Gold Coast, "to make an oath binding on the person who takes it, it is usual to give him something to eat or to drink which in some way appertains to a deity, who is then invoked to visit a breach of faith with punishment."[72] Among the Shekani and Bakele people of Southern Guinea, when a covenant between different tribes is about to be formed, their great spirit, Mwetyi, "is always invoked as a witness, and is commissioned with the duty of visiting vengeance upon the party who shall violate the engagement."[73] It seems to be a common practice in certain parts of Africa to swear by some fetish.[74] The Efatese, of the New Hebrides, invoked punishment from the gods in their oaths.[75] In Florida, of the Solomon Group, a man will deny an accusation by some tindalo (that is, the disembodied spirit of some man who already in his lifetime was supposed to be endowed with supernatural power), or by the ghostly frigate-bird, or by the ghostly shark.[76] When an ancient Egyptian wished to give assurance of his honesty and good faith, he called Thoth to witness, the advocate in the heavenly court of justice, without whose justification no soul could stand in the day of judgment.[77] The Eranians swore by Mithra,[78] the Greeks by Zeus,[79] the {122} Romans by Jupiter and Dius Fidius.[80] A god is more able than ordinary mortals to master the processes of nature, and he may also better know whether the sworn word be true or false.[81] It is undoubtedly on account of their superior knowledge that sun or moon or light gods are so frequently appealed to in oaths. The Egyptian god Ra is a solar,[82] and Thoth a lunar[83] deity. The Zoroastrian Mithra, who "has a thousand senses, and sees every man that tells a lie,"[84] is closely connected with the sun;[85] and Rashnu Razista, according to M. Darmesteter, is an offshoot either of Mithra or Ahura Mazda himself.[86] Dius Fidius seems originally to have been a spirit of the heaven, and a wielder of the lightning, closely allied to the great Jupiter.[87] Zeus is all-seeing, the infallible spy of both gods and men.[88] Now, even though the oath has the form of an appeal to a god, it may nevertheless be of a chiefly magic character, being an imprecation rather than a prayer. The oaths which the Moors swear by Allah are otherwise exactly similar in nature to those in which he is not mentioned at all. But the more the belief in magic was shaken, the more the spoken word was divested of that mysterious power which had been attributed to it by minds too apt to confound words with facts, the more prominent became the religious element in the oath. The fulfilment of the self-imprecation was made dependent upon the free will of the deity appealed to, and was regarded as the punishment for an offence committed by the perjurer against the god himself.[89]

[Footnote 68: Neighbors, in Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes of the United States_, i. 132.]

[Footnote 69: Georgi, op. cit. iii. 183.]

[Footnote 70: Georgi, op. cit. iii. 85 sq.]

[Footnote 71: Hollis, Masai, p. 345.]

[Footnote 72: Ellis, Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast, p. 196.]

[Footnote 73: Wilson, Western Africa, p. 392.]

[Footnote 74: Schultze, Der Fetischismus, p. 111.]

[Footnote 75: Turner, Samoa, p. 334.]

[Footnote 76: Codrington, op. cit. p. 217.]

[Footnote 77: Tiele, History of the Egyptian Religion, p. 229. Amélineau, op. cit. p. 251.]

[Footnote 78: Yasts, x.]

[Footnote 79: Iliad, iii. 276 sqq. Farnell, _Cults of the Greek States_, i. 70.]

[Footnote 80: von Lasaulx, Der Eid bei den Römern, p. 9.]

[Footnote 81: Cf. James, Expedition from Pittsburg to the Rocky Mountains, i. 267 (Omahas); Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii. 231 (Ostyaks).]

[Footnote 82: Maspero, Dawn of Civilization, p. 87 sq. Wiedemann, Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, p. 14. Erman, Handbook of Egyptian Religion, p. 10.]

[Footnote 83: Maspero, op. cit. p. 145. Erman, op. cit. p. 11.]

[Footnote 84: Yasts, x. 107.]

[Footnote 85: Darmesteter, in Sacred Books of the East, xxiii. 122, n. 4. Meyer, Geschichte des Alterthums, i. 541 sq. Geiger, op. cit. i. p. lvi.]

[Footnote 86: Darmesteter, in Sacred Books of the East, xxiii. 168.]

[Footnote 87: Fowler, Roman Festivals, p. 141.]

[Footnote 88: Cf. Iliad, iii. 277; Ovid, Metamorphoses, iv. 172; Darmesteter, Essais orientaux, p. 107; Usener, Götternamen, p. 177 sqq.]

[Footnote 89: Grotius says (De jure belli et pacis, ii. 13. 12) that even he who swears by false gods is bound, "because, though under false notions, he refers to the general idea of Godhead, and therefore the true God will interpret it as a wrong to himself if perjury be committed."]

{123} Owing to its invocation of supernatural sanction, perjury is considered the most heinous of all acts of falsehood.[90] But it has a tendency to make even the ordinary lie or breach of faith a matter of religious concern. If a god is frequently appealed to in oaths, a general hatred of lying and unfaithfulness may become one of his attributes, as is suggested by various facts quoted above. There is every reason to believe that a god is not, in the first place, appealed to because he is looked upon as a guardian of veracity and good faith, but that he has come to be looked upon as a guardian of these duties because he has been frequently appealed to in connection with them.

[Footnote 90: Among various peoples perjury is punished even by custom or law. Thus among the Gaika tribe of the Kafirs a person may be fined for taking a false oath in a law case (Brownlee, in Maclean, Compendium of Kafir Laws and Customs, p. 124). In Abyssinia a man convicted of perjury "would not only lose his reputation, and be for ever incapacitated from being witness even on the most trivial question, but he would likewise in all probability be bound and severely fined, and might indeed think himself fortunate if he got off with all his limbs in their proper places, or without his hide being scored" (Parkyns, Life in Abyssinia, ii. 258 sq.). The laws of the Malays punish perjury (Crawfurd, History of the Indian Archipelago, iii. 90). In India, according to the Laws of Manu (viii. 219 sq.), he who broke an agreement after swearing to it was to be banished, imprisoned, and fined. Mediæval law-books punished perjurers with the loss of the right hand, by which the oath was sworn (Wilda, Das Strafrecht der Germanen, p. 983 sq.; Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law before the Time of Edward I. ii. 541). In a Danish law of 1537 it is said that the perjurer shall lose the two offending fingers so as to appease the wrath of God (Stemann, Den danske Retshistorie indtil Christian V.'s Lov, p. 645). In other cases, again, no civil punishment is affixed to a false oath--for instance, among the Rejangs (Marsden, History of Sumatra, p. 240) and Bataks of Sumatra (Glimpses of the Eastern Archipelago, p. 86), the Ossetes (Kovalewsky, Coutume contemporaine, p. 324), Persians (Polak, Persien, ii. 83), and, as it seems, the ancient Hebrews (Keil, Manual of Biblical Archæology, ii. 348; Greenstone, 'Perjury,' in Jewish Encyclopedia, ix. 640), Greeks (Rohde, Psyche, p. 245, note), and Teutons in early times (Wilda, op. cit. p. 982; Brunner, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte, ii. 681). Cicero says (De legibus, ii. 9) that "the divine punishment of perjury is destruction, the human punishment infamy"; but though perjury per se was not punished in Rome, the law appears from very early times to have contained provisions for punishing false testimony (Hunter, Roman Law, p. 1063; see also Mommsen, Römisches Strafrecht, p. 681). However, the fact that perjury is not treated as a crime by no means implies that it is not regarded as a sin. The punishment of it is left to the offended deity (Marsden, op. cit. p. 219; Glimpses of the Eastern Archipelago, p. 86; Crawfurd, op. cit. iii. 90 [Javanese]).]

It seems that sometimes the habit of oath-taking has, in another respect also, made it prudential for men to speak the simple truth in all circumstances. Sir W. H. Sleeman {124} observes that among the woods and hills of India the cotton and other trees are supposed by the natives to be occupied by deities who are vested with a local superintendence over the affairs of a district, or perhaps of a single village. "These," he says, "are always in the view of the people, and every man knows that he is every moment liable to be taken to their court, and to be made to invoke their vengeance upon himself or those dear to him, if he has told a falsehood in what he has stated, or tells one in what he is about to state. Men so situated adhere habitually, and I may say religiously, to the truth; and I have had before me hundreds of cases in which a man's property, liberty, or life, has depended upon his telling a lie, and he has refused to tell it to save either."[91] On the other hand, there are peoples among whom a person's word can hardly be trusted unless confirmed by an oath.[92] And one of the arguments adduced by the Quakers against the taking of oaths is that, if on any particular occasion a man swear in addition to his yea or nay, in order to make it more obligatory or convincing, its force becomes comparatively weak at other times when it receives no such confirmation.[93]

[Footnote 91: Sleeman, op. cit. ii. 111 sq.]

[Footnote 92: See, besides supra, Kingsley, _West African Studies_, p. 414; Chanler, Through Jungle and Desert, p. 186 sq. (Wamsara).]

[Footnote 93: Gurney, _Views and Practices of the Society of Friends_, p. 327.]

Modes of conduct which are recommended by prudence tend on that account in various ways to be regarded as morally compulsory or praiseworthy. This subject will be discussed in connection with duties and virtues which are called "self-regarding," but in the present place it is necessary to remind ourselves of the share which early education has in making prudence a matter of moral consideration. Few duties owe so much to the training of parents and teachers as does veracity. Children easily resort to falsehood, in self-defence or otherwise, and truthfulness is therefore enjoined on them with particular emphasis.[94]

[Footnote 94: Cf. Priestley, in 'Essay III.' introductory to Hartley's Theory of the Human Mind, p. xlix. sq.]

{125} 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 {126} 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.

[Footnote 95: von Jhering, Zweck im Recht, ii. 606.]

[Footnote 96: Hutcheson, System of Moral Philosophy, ii. 28. Cf. Reid, op. cit. vi. 24, p. 428 sqq.; Dugald Stewart, op. cit. ii. 333.]

[Footnote 97: Cf. Schopenhauer, Essays, p. 145.]

[Footnote 98: Spencer, Principles of Ethics, i. 405.]

[Footnote 99: Romanes, Animal Intelligence, pp. 443, 444, 451.]

[Footnote 100: Lloyd Morgan, Animal Life and Intelligence, p. 400.]

[Footnote 101: Compayré, L'évolution intellectuelle et morale de l'enfant, p. 309. See also Sully, Studies of Childhood, p. 263 sq.]

[Footnote 102: Montaigne, Essais, i. 9 ([OE]uvres, p. 16).]

[Footnote 103: Perez, First Three Years of Childhood, pp. 87, 89.]

[Footnote 104: Sleeman, op. cit. ii. 110.]

[Footnote 105: Cf. Sarasin, Forschungen auf Ceylon, iii. 543 (Veddahs).]

The case is different when savages come into frequent contact with foreigners. To deceive a stranger is easy, and no scruple is made of doing so. On the contrary, as we have seen, he is regarded as a proper object of deception, and this opinion is only too often justified by his own behaviour. But when commonly practised in relation to strangers, falsehood easily becomes a habit which affects the general conduct of the man. Hamzé, the teacher of the Druses, said, "When a man once gets into the way of speaking falsely, it is to be apprehended that, in spite of himself, and by the mere force of habit, he will get to speak falsely towards the brethren"; hence it is advisable to speak the truth at all times and before all men.[106] There is indeed abundant evidence that intercourse with strangers, and especially with people of a different race, has had a destructive influence on savage veracity.

[Footnote 106: Churchill, Mount Lebanon, iii. 225 sq.]

This has been noticed among many of the uncivilised tribes of India. "Formerly," says Mr. Man, "a Sonthal, as a rule, {127} disdained to tell a falsehood, but the influences of civilisation, transfused through the contagious ethics of his Bengali neighbours, have somewhat impaired his truthfulness. In the last four or five years a great change for the worse has become evident, although even now, as a people, they are glorious exceptions to the prevailing idiosyncrasy of the lower class of natives in Bengal. With the latter, speaking the truth has been always an accident; with the Sonthal it was a characteristic principle."[107] Indeed, the Santals in Singbhúm, who live much to themselves, are still described by Colonel Dalton as "a very simple-minded people, almost incapable of deception."[108] The Tipperah, "where he is brought into contact with, or under the influence of the Bengallee, easily acquires their worst vices and superstitions, losing at the same time the leading characteristic of the primitive man--the love of truth."[109] Other tribes, like the Garos and Bhúmij, have likewise been partly contaminated by their intercourse with Bengalis, and acquired from them a propensity to lie, which, in former days, was altogether foreign to them.[110] The Kakhyens are at the present time lazy, thievish, and untrustworthy, "whether their character has been deteriorated by knavish injustice on the part of Chinese traders, or high-handed extortion and wrong on the part of Burmese."[111] The Ladakhis are, in general, "frank, honest, and moral when not corrupted by communication with the dissolute Kashmiris."[112] Of the Pahárias, who according to an earlier authority would sooner die than lie,[113] it is now reported that "those who have most to do with them say they cannot rely on their word, and that they not only lie without scruple, but are scarcely annoyed at being detected."[114] The Todas, whilst they call falsehood one of the worst vices and have a temple dedicated to Truth, seem nowadays only too often to forget both the temple and its object;[115] and we are told that the dissimulation they practise in their dealings with Europeans has been brought about by the habit of paying them for every insignificant item of information.[116] According to an {128} Indian civil servant quoted by Mr. Spencer, various other hill tribes, originally distinguished by their veracity, have afterwards been rendered less veracious by contact with the whites.[117]

[Footnote 107: Man, Sonthalia, p. 14. Cf. ibid. p. 20.]

[Footnote 108: Dalton, Ethnology of Bengal, op. cit. p. 217.]

[Footnote 109: Lewin, Wild Races of South-Eastern India, p. 216.]

[Footnote 110: Dalton, op. cit. pp. 68, 177.]

[Footnote 111: Anderson, Mandalay to Momien, p. 151.]

[Footnote 112: Moorcroft and Trebeck, Travels in the Himalayan Provinces of Hindustan, i. 321.]

[Footnote 113: Shaw, quoted by Dalton, op. cit. p. 274.]

[Footnote 114: Cumming, In the Himalayas, p. 404 sq.]

[Footnote 115: Harkness, A Singular Aboriginal Race inhabiting the Neilgherry Hills, p. 18.]

[Footnote 116: Metz, Tribes inhabiting the Neilgherry Hills, p. 13.]

[Footnote 117: Spencer, Principles of Sociology, ii. 234. See also Hodgson, Miscellaneous Essays, i. 152. (Bódo and Dhimáls); Dalton, op. cit. p. 206 (Múndas).]

Of the Andaman Islanders Mr. Man observes:--"It has been remarked with regret by all interested in the race, that intercourse with the alien population has, generally speaking, prejudicially affected their morals; and that the candour, veracity, and self-reliance they manifest in their savage and untutored state are, when they become associated with foreigners, to a great extent lost, and habits of untruthfulness, dependence, and sloth engendered."[118] Riedel makes a similar remark with reference to the natives of Ambon and Uliase.[119] Mr. Sommerville believes that the natives of New Georgia, in the Solomon Islands, learned their practice of cheating from European traders.[120]

[Footnote 118: Man, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xii. 92.]

[Footnote 119: Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua, p. 41.]

[Footnote 120: Sommerville, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxvi. 394.]

Among the Ostyaks increasing civilisation has proved injurious to their ancient honesty, and those who live in the neighbourhood of towns or large villages have become even more deceitful than the colonists.[121] A similar change has taken place with other tribes belonging to the Russian Empire, for instance the Tunguses[122] and Kamchadales.[123]

[Footnote 121: Castrén, op. cit. ii. 121.]

[Footnote 122: Dall, Alaska, p. 518.]

[Footnote 123: Steller, Beschreibung von dem Lande Kamtschatka, p. 285. Sarytchew, 'Voyage of Discovery to the North-East of Siberia,' in Collection of Modern and Contemporary Voyages, v. 67.]

We hear the same story from America.[124] Among the Omahas "formerly only two or three were notorious liars; but now, there are about twenty who do not lie."[125] The old men of the Ojibwas all agree in saying that before the white man came and resided among them there was less lying than there is now.[126] The Indians of Mexico, Lumholtz writes, "do not tell the truth unless it suits them."[127] But with reference to some of them, the Tarahumares, he adds that, where they have had little or nothing to do with the whites, they are trustworthy, and profit is no inducement to them, as they believe {129} that their gods would be angry with them for charging an undue price.[128]

[Footnote 124: Domenech, Seven Years Residence in the Great Deserts of North America, ii. 69. Cf. Hearne, Journey to the Northern Ocean, pp. 307, 308, 310 (Chippewyans); Morgan, League of the Iroquois, p. 335 sq.]

[Footnote 125: Dorsey, 'Omaha Sociology' in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ iii. 370.]

[Footnote 126: Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes of the United States, ii. 139.]

[Footnote 127: Lumholtz, Unknown Mexico, ii. 477.]

[Footnote 128: Lumholtz, Unknown Mexico, i. 244, 418.]

The deceitfulness of many African peoples is undoubtedly in some degree a result of their intercourse with foreigners. In Sierra Leone, says Winterbottom, the natives on the sea coast, who are chiefly engaged in commerce, "are in general shrewd and artful, sometimes malevolent and perfidious. Their long connection with European slave traders has tutored them in the arts of deceit."[129] The Yorubas, according to Burton, are eminently dishonest only "in and around the cities."[130] Among the Kalunda those who live near the great caravan roads and have had much to do with foreign traders are suspicious and false.[131] And the Hottentots, of whose truthfulness earlier writers spoke very highly, are nowadays said to be addicted to lying.[132]

[Footnote 129: Winterbottom, _Native Africans in the Neighbourhood of Sierra Leone_, i. 206.]

[Footnote 130: Burton, Abeokuta, i. 303.]

[Footnote 131: Pogge, Im Reiche des Muata Jamwo, p. 236.]

[Footnote 132: Fritsch, Die Eingeborenen Süd-Afrika's, p. 307 sq.]

It has also been noticed that mendacity is favoured among children by much intercourse with strangers, when "first impressions" are consciously made, as also by frequent change of environment, or of school or residence, as such changes give rise to a feeling that "new leaves" can be easily turned.[133]

[Footnote 133: Stanley Hall, in American Journal of Psychology, iii. 70.]

When a social unit is composed of loosely connected sub-groups, the intercourse between members of different sub-groups resembles in many respects that between foreigners. Social incoherence is thus apt to lead to deceitful habits, as was the case in the Middle Ages. The same phenomenon is to be observed in the East; perhaps also among the Desert Arabs and the Fuegians, who live in small parties which only occasionally meet and soon again separate.

Another factor which has favoured deception is social differentiation. The different classes of society have often little sympathy for each other, their interests are not infrequently conflicting, deceit is a means of procuring advantages, and, for the inferior classes especially, a means of self-protection. As Euripides observes, slaves are in {130} the habit of concealing the truth.[134] In Eastern Africa, says Livingstone, falsehood is a vice prevailing among the free, but still more among the slaves; "one can scarcely induce a slave to translate anything truly: he is so intent on thinking of what will please."[135]

[Footnote 134: Euripides, Ph[oe]nissæ, 392. Cf. Burton, Arabian Nights, i. 176, n. 1.]

[Footnote 135: Livingstone, Expedition to the Zambesi, p. 309. See also Polack, Manners and Customs of the New Zealanders, ii. 59.]

Hardly anything has been a greater inducement to falsehood than oppression. Whilst the old Makololo were truthful, this is not the case with their sons, "who, having been brought up among the subjected tribes, have acquired some of the vices peculiar to a menial and degraded race."[136] The Wanyoro, who are described as "splendid liars," exercised deception chiefly to evade the intolerable exactions of their own chiefs, whereas they are fairly truthful in contact with Europeans who attempt to treat them justly.[137] The duplicity and cunning of the Malagasy are "the natural result of centuries of superstition, ignorance, and submission to the rule of tyrannical despots, with whom the spy system has always been a necessity."[138] In Morocco the independent Jbâla, or mountaineers of the North, are more to be trusted than the Arabs of the plains, who have long been suffering from the extortions of rapacious officials. The duplicity of Orientals is very largely due to their despotic form of government.[139] In India, Mr. Percival observes, "despotism in one form or other that has so long prevailed, and the consequent oppression attendant thereon, must have rendered it difficult to make way without fraud. Deception and arts of cunning, under such circumstances, being the only means at the command of the inferior portions of the community for gaining their ends, and securing the plainest rights, they would resort to them as the only way of avoiding certain ruin."[140] The Chinese habit of lying has {131} been attributed partly to the truckling fear of officers.[141] In China and many other parts of the East, says Sir J. Bowring, "there is a fear of truth as truth, lest its discovery should lead to consequences of which the inquirer never dreams, but which are present to the mind of the person under interrogation."[142]

[Footnote 136: Livingstone, Expedition to the Zambesi, p. 283.]

[Footnote 137: Johnston, Uganda Protectorate, ii. 591.]

[Footnote 138: Little, Madagascar, p. 72.]

[Footnote 139: Vámbéry, Der Islam im neunzehnten Jahrhundert, p. 231.]

[Footnote 140: Percival, Land of the Veda, p. 288. Cf. Malcolm, Memoir of Central India, ii. 171; Hodgson, Miscellaneous Essays, i. 152.]

[Footnote 141: Wells Williams, The Middle Kingdom, i. 835.]

[Footnote 142: Bowring, Siam, i. 105 sq.]

* * * * *

The regard for truth displays itself not only in the condemnation of falsehood, but in the idea that, under certain circumstances, it is a person's duty to inform others of the truth, although there is no deception in withholding it. This duty is limited by utilitarian considerations, and it is less insisted on than the duty of refraining from falsehood; positive commandments, as we have seen, are generally less stringent than the corresponding negative commandments.[143] But to disclose the truth for the benefit of others, when it is attended with injurious consequences for the person who discloses it, can hardly fail to evoke moral approval, and may be deemed a merit of the highest order.

[Footnote 143: Supra, i. 303 sqq.]

The regard for truth goes a step further still. It may be obligatory or praiseworthy not only to spread the knowledge of truth, but to seek for it. The possession of knowledge, of some kind or other, is universally respected. A Wolof proverb says, "Not to know is bad, not to wish to know is worse."[144] In the moral and religious systems of the East knowledge is one of the chief pursuits of man. Confucius described virtue as consisting of knowledge, magnanimity, and valour.[145] The ancients, he says, "wishing to rectify their hearts, . . . first desired to be sincere in their thoughts. Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the utmost their knowledge. Such extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things."[146] Knowledge is to be pursued not for theoretical, but for {132} moral purposes; the Master said, "It is not easy to find a man who has learned for three years without coming to be good."[147] The Hindus maintain that ignorance is the greatest of evils, and that the sole and ultimate object of life should be to give and receive instruction.[148] It is said in the Laws of Manu, "A man is not therefore considered venerable because his head is gray; him who, though young, has learned the Veda, the gods consider to be venerable."[149] According to the Mahabharata, it is by knowledge that a creature is liberated, by knowledge that he becomes the Eternal, Imperceptible, and Undecaying.[150] Buddhism regards sin as folly and delusion as the cause of crime;[151] "the unwise man cannot discover the difference between that which is evil and that which is good, as a child knows not the value of a coin that is placed before him."[152] And the highest of all gifts, the source of abiding salvation, is the knowledge of the identity between the individual and God, in whom and by whom the individual lives, and moves, and has his being.[153] According to one of the Pahlavi texts, wisdom is better than wealth of any kind;[154] through the power of wisdom it is possible to do every duty and good work;[155] the religion of the Mazda-worshippers is apprehended more fully by means of the most perfect wisdom, and "even the struggle and warfare of Irân with foreigners, and the smiting of Aharman and the demons it is possible to effect through the power of wisdom."[156] A strong dash of intellectualism is a prominent feature in the Rabbinic religion. The highest virtue lies not only in the fulfilment but in the study of the law. There is a special merit bound up in it that will assist man both in this world and in the world to come; and it is said that even a bastard who is learned in {133} the law is more honoured than a high-priest who is not.[157] Among Muhammedans, also, great respect is shown to men of learning.[158] Knowledge, the Prophet said, "lights the way to Heaven"--"He dies not who gives life to learning"--"With knowledge the servant of God rises to the heights of goodness and to a noble position"--"The ink of the scholar is more holy than the blood of the martyr."[159]

[Footnote 144: Burton, Wit and Wisdom from West Africa, p. 6.]

[Footnote 145: Chung Yung, xx. 8. Douglas, Confucianism and Taouism, p. 105.]

[Footnote 146: Tâ Hsio, 4.]

[Footnote 147: Lun Yü, viii. 12. Cf. Faber, Digest of the Doctrines of Confucius, p. 60; de Lanessan, La morale des philosophes chinois, p. 27.]

[Footnote 148: Percival, Land of the Veda, p. 263.]

[Footnote 149: Laws of Manu, ii. 156.]

[Footnote 150: Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, v. 327.]

[Footnote 151: Rhys Davids, Hibbert Lectures on the History of Buddhism, p. 208.]

[Footnote 152: Hardy, Manual of Budhism, p. 505.]

[Footnote 153: Rhys Davids, op. cit. p. 209.]

[Footnote 154: Dinâ-î Maînôg-î Khirad, xlvii. 6.]

[Footnote 155: Ibid. i. 54.]

[Footnote 156: Ibid. lvii. 15 sq.]

[Footnote 157: Montefiore, Hibbert Lectures on the Religion of the Ancient Hebrews, p. 495. Deutsch, Literary Remains, p. 35.]

[Footnote 158: Lane, _Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians_, p. 301 sq.]

[Footnote 159: Ameer Ali, Ethics of Islâm, pp. 47, 49.]

In Christianity the knowledge of truth became a necessary requirement of salvation. But here, as in the East, the truth which alone was valued was religious truth. All knowledge that was not useful to salvation was, indeed, despised, and science was regarded not only as valueless, but as sinful.[160] "The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God."[161] If it happened that any one gave himself to letters, or lifted up his mind to the contemplation of the heavenly bodies, he passed instantly for a magician or a heretic.[162] So also every mental disposition which is essential to scientific research was for centuries stigmatised as offensive to the Almighty; it was a sin to doubt the opinions which had been instilled in childhood before they had been examined, to notice any objection to those opinions, to resolve to follow the light of evidence wherever it might lead.[163] Yet we are told, even by highly respectable writers, that the modern world owes its scientific spirit to the extreme importance which Christianity {134} assigned to the possession of truth, of the truth.[164] According to M. Réville, "it was the orthodox intolerance of the Church in the Middle Ages which impressed on Christian society this disposition to seek truth at any price, of which the modern scientific spirit is only the application. The more importance the Church attached to the profession of the truth--to the extent even of considering involuntary error as in the highest degree a damnable crime--so much the more the sentiment of the immense value of this truth arose in the general persuasion, along with a resolve to conquer it wherever it was felt not to be possessed. How otherwise," M. Réville asks, "can we explain that science was not developed and has not been pursued with constancy, except in the midst of Christian societies?"[165] This statement is characteristic of the common tendency to attribute to the influence of the Christian religion almost anything good which may be found among Christian nations. But, surely, the patient and impartial search after hidden truth, for the sake of truth, which constitutes the essence of scientific research, is not congenial to, but the very opposite of, that ready acceptance of a revealed truth for the sake of eternal salvation, which was insisted upon by the Church. And what about that singular love of abstract knowledge which flourished in ancient Athens, where Aristotle declared it a sacred duty to prefer truth to everything else,[166] and Socrates sacrificed his life on its altar? It seems that the modern scientific spirit is only a revival and development of a mental disposition which was for ages suppressed by the persecuting tendencies of the Church and the extreme contempt for learning displayed by the barbarian invaders and their descendants. Even when they had settled in the countries which they had conquered, the {135} Teutons would not permit their children to be instructed in any science, for fear lest they should become effeminate and averse from war;[167] and long afterwards it was held that a nobleman ought not to know letters, and that to write and read was a shame to gentry.[168]

[Footnote 160: Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ii. 185. von Eicken, Geschichte der mittelalterlichen Weltanschauung, pp. 128-130, 589 sqq.]

[Footnote 161: 1 Corinthians, iii. 19. Cf. Lactantius, Divines Institutiones, iii. 3 (Migne, Patrologiæ cursus, vi. 354 sqq.); St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, viii. 10 (Migne, xli. 234).]

[Footnote 162: Chapelain, De la lecture des vieux romans, p. 20. As late as the middle of the seventeenth century a powerful party was rising in England who said that all learning was unfavourable to religion, and that it was sufficient for everyone to be acquainted with his mother-tongue alone (Twells, Life of Pocock, p. 176). The Duke de Saint Simon, who in 1721 and 1722 was the French ambassador in Madrid, states (Mémoires, xxxv. 209) that in Spain science was a crime, and ignorance and stupidity the chief virtues.]

[Footnote 163: Lecky, Rationalism in Europe, ii. 87 sq.]

[Footnote 164: Ritchie, Natural Rights, p. 172. Cf. Kuenen, Hibbert Lectures on National Religions and Universal Religions, p. 290.]

[Footnote 165: Réville, _Prolegomena of the History of Religions_, p. 226.]

[Footnote 166: Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea, i. 6. 1. Prof. Ritchie argues (op. cit. p. 172 sq.) that a devotion to truth as such was in the ancient world known only to a few philosophers. Prof. Fowler is probably more correct in saying (Principles of Morals, ii. 45, 220 sq.; Progressive Morality, p. 114) that it was more common amongst the Greeks than amongst ourselves.]

[Footnote 167: Procopius, De bello Gothorum, i. 2. Robertson, History of the Reign of Charles V. i. 234. Millingen, op. cit. i. 22 sq. n. [dagger]]

[Footnote 168: Alain Chartier, quoted by Sainte-Palaye, op. cit. ii. 104. See also De la Nouë, Discours politiques et militaires, p. 238; Lyttleton, Life of Henry II. ii. 246 sq. The ignorance of the mediæval clergy has been somewhat exaggerated by Robertson (op. cit. pp. 21, 22, 278 sq.). Even in the dark ages it was not a very uncommon thing for the clergy to be able to read and write (Maitland, The Dark Ages, p. 16 sqq.).]

The regard for knowledge springs in the first instance from the love of it. As Aristotle said, "all men are by nature desirous of knowledge."[169] But this feeling is not equally strong, nor equally deep, in all. The curiosity of savages, however great it often may be,[170] has chiefly reference to objects or events which immediately concern their welfare or appear to them alarming, or to trifles which attract attention on account of their novelty. If their curiosity were more penetrating, they would no longer remain savages; an extended desire of knowledge leads to civilisation. But curiosity or love of knowledge, whether in savage or civilised men, is not resolvable merely into views of utility; as Dr. Brown observed, we feel it without reflecting on the pleasure which we are to enjoy or the pain which we are to suffer.[171] When highly developed, it drives men to scientific investigations even though no practical benefits are expected from the results. This devotion to truth for its own sake, pure and disinterested as it is, has a singular tendency to excite regard and admiration in everyone who has come under its influence. From the utilitarian point of view it has been defended on {136} the ground that, on the whole, every truth is in the long run useful and every error harmful, and that we can never exactly tell in advance what benefits may accrue even from a knowledge which is apparently fruitless. But it seems that our love of truth is somewhat apt to mislead our moral judgment. When duly reflecting on the matter, we cannot help making a moral distinction between him who pursues his studies merely from an instinctive craving for knowledge, and him who devotes his life to the search of truth from a conviction that he may thereby promote human welfare.

[Footnote 169: Aristotle, Metaphysica, i. 1. 1, p. 980. Cf. Cicero, De officiis, i. 4.]

[Footnote 170: Murdoch, 'Ethnological Results of the Point Barrow Expedition,' in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. ix. 42 (Eskimo). Krasheninnikoff, History of Kamschatka, p. 177. Anderson, Mandalay to Momien, p. 151 (Kakhyens). Foreman, Philippine Islands, p. 188 (Tagálog natives of the North). Bock, Head Hunters of Borneo, p. 209 (Dyaks). Forbes, A Naturalist's Wanderings in the Eastern Archipelago, p. 320 (natives of Timor-laut). Dieffenbach, Travels in New Zealand, ii. 108.]

[Footnote 171: Dugald Stewart, op. cit. ii. 336. Brown, Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind, lec. 67, p. 451.]

Chapter XXXII

THE RESPECT FOR OTHER MEN'S HONOUR AND SELF-REGARDING PRIDE--POLITENESS

THERE are many acts, forbearances, and omissions, the offensiveness of which mainly or exclusively springs from men's desire to be respected by their fellow-men and their dislike of being looked down upon. Foremost among these are attacks upon people's honour and good name. A man's honour may be defined as the moral worth he possesses in the eyes of the society of which he is a member, and it behoves other persons to acknowledge this worth and, especially, not to detract from it by imputing to him, on insufficient grounds, such behaviour as is generally considered degrading.

The censure to which he is subject or the contempt in which he is held may no doubt affect his welfare in various ways, but it is chiefly painful as a violation of his personal dignity. Hence the duty of respecting a man's honour is on the whole contained in the more comprehensive obligation of showing deference, in words and deeds, for his feeling of self-regarding pride.

This feeling, or at least the germ of it, is found already in some of the lower animals. Among "high-life" dogs, says Professor Romanes, "wounded sensibilities and loss of esteem are capable of producing much keener suffering than is mere physical pain." A reproachful word or look from any of his friends made a {138} Skye terrier miserable for a whole day; and another terrier, who when in good humour used to perform various tricks, was never so pleased as when his joke was duly appreciated, whereas "nothing displeased him so much as being laughed at when he did not intend to be ridiculous."[1] Monkeys also, according to Dr. Brehm, are "very sensitive to every kind of treatment they may receive, to love and dislike, to encouraging praise and chilling blame, to pleasant flattery and wounding ridicule, to caresses and chastisement."[2]

[Footnote 1: Romanes, Animal Intelligence, pp. 439, 444.]

[Footnote 2: Brehm, From North Pole to Equator, p. 299. Cf. ibid. pp. 304-306, Brehm, Thierleben, i. 75, 157; Schultze, Vergleichende Seelenkunde, i. pt. i. 110; Perty, Das Seelenleben der Thiere, p. 66.]

Among the savage races of men, as among civilised peoples, self-regarding pride is universal, and in many of them it is a very conspicuous trait of character.[3] The Veddah of Ceylon, says Mr. Nevill, "is proud in the extreme, and considers himself no man's inferior. Hence he is keenly sensitive to ridicule, contempt, and even patronage. There is nothing he dreads more than being laughed at as a savage, because he dislikes clothes and cultivation."[4] Australian aborigines are described as "extravagantly proud,"[5] as "vain and fond of approbation."[6] In Fiji "anything like a slight deeply offends a native, and is not soon forgotten."[7] The Negroes of Sierra Leone "possess a great share of pride, and are easily affected by an insult: they cannot hear even a harsh expression, or a raised tone of voice, without shewing that {139} they feel it."[8] The Araucanians, inhabiting parts of Chili, "are naturally fond of honourable distinction, and there is nothing they can endure with less patience than contempt or inattention."[9] The North American Indians, says Perrot, "ont généralement touts beaucoup de vaine gloire dans leurs actions bonnes ou mauvaises. . . . L'ambition est en un mot une des plus fortes passions qui les anime."[10] The Indian of British Columbia, for instance, "watches that he may receive his proper share of honour at festivals; he cannot endure to be ridiculed for even the slightest mistake; he carefully guards all his actions, and looks for due honour to be paid to him by friends, strangers, and subordinates. This peculiarity appears most clearly in great festivals."[11] Thus, in numerous instances, "persons who have been hoarding up property for ten, fifteen, or twenty years (at the same time almost starving themselves for want of clothing), have given it all away to make a show for a few hours, and to be thought of consequence."[12] Speaking of the Eskimo about Behring Strait, Mr. Nelson observes, "As with all savages, the Eskimo are extremely sensitive to ridicule and are very quick to take offence at real or seeming slights."[13] Among the Atkha Aleuts it has happened that men have committed suicide from disappointment at the failure of an undertaking, fearing that they would become the laughing-stock of the village.[14] Among many other savages shame or wounded pride is not uncommonly a cause of suicide.[15] The Hos of Chota Nagpore have a saying that for a wife who has been reproved by her husband {140}"nothing remains but the water at the bottom of the well";[16] and in New Zealand native women sometimes killed themselves because they had been rebuked for negligence in cooking or for want of care towards a child.[17]

[Footnote 3: Dieffenbach, Travels in New Zealand, ii. 107; Colenso, Maori Races of New Zealand, p. 56. Crawfurd, _History of the Indian Archipelago_, i. 54. Raffles, History of Java, i. 249. St. John, Life in the Forests of the Far East, ii. 323 (Malays of Sarawak). Man, 'Aboriginal Inhabitants of the Andaman Islands,' in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xii. 94. Stewart, 'Notes on Northern Cachar,' in Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, xxiv. 609 (Nagas). Bergmann, Nomadische Streifereien unter den Kalmüken, ii. 290, 295, 296, 312. Högström, _Beskrifning öfver de til Sveriges Krona lydande Lapmarker_, p. 152 (Lapps). Dall, Alaska, p. 392 sq. (Aleuts). Brett, _Indian Tribes of Guiana_, p. 103.]

[Footnote 4: Nevill, 'Vaeddas of Ceylon,' in Taprobanian, i. 192. Cf. Sarasin, _Ergebnisse naturwissenschaftlicher Forschungen auf Ceylon_, iii. 537.]

[Footnote 5: Hale, _U.S. Exploring Expedition. Vol. VI. Ethnography and Philology_, p. 109.]

[Footnote 6: Mathew, in Curr, The Australian Race, iii. 155.]

[Footnote 7: Williams and Calvert, Fiji, p. 105. Cf. ibid. p. 103 sq.]

[Footnote 8: Winterbottom, Native Africans in the Neighbourhood of Sierra Leone, i. 211.]

[Footnote 9: Molina, History of Chili, ii. 113.]

[Footnote 10: Perrot, Memoire sur les m[oe]urs, coustumes et relligion des sauvages de l'Amerique septentrionale, p. 76. Cf. Buchanan, Sketches of the History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians, p. 165; Matthews, Ethnography and Philology of the Hidatsa Indians, p. 41.]

[Footnote 11: Boas, in Fifth Report on the North-Western Tribes of Canada, p. 19.]

[Footnote 12: Duncan, quoted by Mayne, Four Years in British Columbia, p. 295.]

[Footnote 13: Nelson, 'Eskimo about Bering Strait,' in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ xviii. 300.]

[Footnote 14: Yakof, quoted by Petroff, Report on Alaska, p. 158. Cf. Dall, op. cit. p. 391 (Aleuts).]

[Footnote 15: See infra, on Suicide; Lasch, 'Besitzen die Naturvölker ein persönliches Ehrgefühl?' in Zeitschr. f. Socialwissenschaft, iii. 837 sqq.]

[Footnote 16: Bradley-Birt, Chota Nagpore, p. 104. Cf. Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, p. 206.]

[Footnote 17: Colenso, op. cit. p. 57.]

Like other injuries, an insult not only affects the feelings of the victim, but arouses sympathetic resentment in outsiders, and is consequently disapproved of as wrong. Among the Maoris, if anybody wantonly tried to hurt another's feelings, it was immediately repressed, and "such a person was spoken of as having had no parents, or, as having been born (laid) by a bird."[18] In the Malay Archipelago, "among some of the tribes, abusive language cannot with impunity be used even to a slave. Blows are still more intolerable, and considered such grievous affronts, that, by law, the person who receives them is considered justified in putting the offender to death."[19] The natives of the Tonga Islands hold no bad moral habit to be more "ridiculous, depraved, and unjust, than publishing the faults of one's acquaintances and friends . . . . ; and as to downright calumny or false accusation, it appears to them more horrible than deliberate murder does to us: for it is better, they think, to assassinate a man's person than to attack his reputation."[20] According to the customary laws of the Fantis in West Africa, "where a person has been found guilty of using slanderous words, he is bound to retract his words publicly, in addition to paying a small fine by way of compensation to the aggrieved party. Words imputing witchcraft, adultery, immoral conduct, crime, and all words which sound to the disreputation of a person of whom they are spoken are actionable."[21]

[Footnote 18: Ibid. p. 53.]

[Footnote 19: Crawfurd, op. cit. iii. 119 sq.]

[Footnote 20: Mariner, Natives of the Tonga Islands, ii. 163 sq.]

[Footnote 21: Sarbah, Fanti Customary Laws, p. 94.]

Among the Aztecs of ancient Mexico he who wilfully calumniated another, thereby seriously injuring his {141} reputation, was condemned to have his lips cut off, and sometimes his ears also; whilst in Tezcuco the slanderer suffered death.[22] In the Chinese penal code a special book is provided for the prevention and punishment of opprobrious and insulting language, as "having naturally a tendency to produce quarrels and affrays."[23] Among Arabs all insulting expressions have their respective fines ascertained in the [k.]ady's court.[24] It is said in the Talmud:--"Let the honour of thy neighbour be to thee like thine own. Rather be thrown into a fiery furnace than bring any one to public shame."[25]

[Footnote 22: Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States, ii. 463.]

[Footnote 23: Ta Tsing Leu Lee, p. 354 n.*]

[Footnote 24: Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, p. 70 sq.]

[Footnote 25: Deutsch, Literary Remains, p. 57.]

The Roman Law of the Twelve Tables contained provisions against libellers,[26] and throughout the whole history of Roman law an attack upon honour or reputation was deemed a serious crime.[27] As for wrongful prosecution, which may be regarded as an aggravated form of defamation, the law of the later Empire required that any one bringing a criminal charge should bind himself to suffer in case of failure the penalty that he had endeavoured to call down upon his adversary.[28] Among Teutonic peoples defamatory words and libelling were already at an early date punished with a fine.[29] The Salic Law decrees that a person who calls a freeborn man a "fox" or a "hare" or a "dirty fellow," or says that he has thrown away his shield, must pay him three solidi;[30] whilst, according to one text of the same law, it cost 188 solidi (or nearly as much as was paid for the murder of a Frankish freeman)[31] to call a freeborn woman a witch or a harlot, in case the truth of the charge could not be proved.[32] {142} The oldest English laws exacted bót and wíte from persons who attacked others with abusive words.[33] In the thirteenth century, in almost every action before an English local court, the plaintiff claimed compensation not only for the "damage," but also for the "shame" which had been done him.[34] We further find that regular actions for defamation were common in the local courts; whereas in later days the ecclesiastical procedure against defamatory speech seems to have been regarded as the usual, if not the only, engine which could be brought to bear upon cases of libel and slander.[35] In England, as in Rome, there was a strong feeling that men should not make charges which they could not prove: before the Conquest a person might lose his tongue, or have to redeem it with his full wer, if he brought a false and scandalous accusation; and under Edward I. a statute decreed that if the appellee was acquitted his accuser should lie in prison for a year and pay damages by way of recompense for the imprisonment and infamy which he had brought upon the innocent.[36]

[Footnote 26: Lex Duodecim Tabularum, viii. 1.]

[Footnote 27: Digesta, xlvii. 10. 15. 25. Codex Justinianus, ix. 36. Hunter, Exposition of Roman Law, p. 1069 sq. Mommsen, Römisches Strafrecht, p. 794 sq.]

[Footnote 28: Günther, Die Idee der Wiedervergeltung, i. 141 sqq. Mommsen, op. cit. p. 496 sq.]

[Footnote 29: Wilda, Strafrecht der Germanen, p. 776 sqq. Nordström, Bidrag till den svenska samhälls-författningens historia, ii. 293 sqq. Stemann, Den danske Retshistorie indtil Christian V.'s Lov, p. 686 sq. Brunner, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte, ii. 672 sqq.]

[Footnote 30: Lex Salica, xxx. 4, 5, 2; Hessel's edition, col. 181 sqq.]

[Footnote 31: Ibid. xv. col. 91 sqq.]

[Footnote 32: Ibid. lxvii. 2, col. 403.]

[Footnote 33: Laws of Hlothhaere and Eadric, 11.]

[Footnote 34: Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law till the Time of Edward I. ii. 537.]

[Footnote 35: Ibid. ii. 538. Stephen, _History of the Criminal Law of England_, ii. 409.]

[Footnote 36: Pollock and Maitland, op. cit. ii. 539.]

The condemnation of an insult is greatly influenced by the status of, or the relations between, the parties concerned. Among the Goajiro Indians of Colombia a poor man may be insulted with impunity, when the same treatment to a rich man would cause certain bloodshed.[37] In Nias an affront is punished with a fine, which varies according to the rank of the parties.[38] The Chinese penal code lays down that a person who is guilty of addressing abusive language to his or her father or mother, or father's parents, or a wife who rails at her husband's parents or grandparents, shall be strangled;[39] and the same punishment is prescribed for a slave who abuses his master.[40] {143} According to the Laws of Manu, a Kshatriya shall be fined one hundred panas for defaming a Brâhmana, a Vaisya shall be fined one hundred and fifty or two hundred panas, and a Sûdra shall suffer corporal punishment; whereas a Brâhmana shall pay only fifty panas for defaming a Kshatriya, twenty-five for defaming a Vaisya, and twelve for defaming a Sûdra.[41] In ancient Teutonic law the fines for insulting behaviour were graduated according to the rank of the person offended.[42] The starting-point of the Roman law was that an injuria--which was pre-eminently an affront to the dignity of the person--could not be done to a slave as such, only to the master through the medium of his slave;[43] and even in later times, in the case of trifling injuries, such as mere verbal insults, the master had no action, unless by leave of the Praetor, or unless the insult were meant for the master himself.[44] These and similar variations spring from the same causes as do corresponding variations in the case of other injuries dealt with above. But there are also special reasons why social superiority or inferiority influences moral opinions concerning offences against persons self-regarding pride. The respect due to a man is closely connected with his station, and in the case of defamation the injury suffered by the loss of honour or reputation is naturally proportionate to the esteem in which the offended party is held. At the same time the harmfulness of an insult also depends upon the reputation of the person who offers it. According to the Gotlands Lag, one of the ancient provincial laws of Sweden, a slave can not only be insulted with impunity, but has himself to pay no fine for insulting another person[45]--obviously because he was too degraded a being to be able to detract from anybody's honour or good name.

[Footnote 37: Simons, 'Exploration of the Goajira Peninsula,' in Proceed. Roy. Geo. Soc. N.S. vii. 786.]

[Footnote 38: von Rosenberg, Der malayische Archipel, p. 167.]

[Footnote 39: Ta Tsing Leu Lee, sec. cccxxix. p. 357.]

[Footnote 40: Ibid. sec. cccxxvii. p. 356.]

[Footnote 41: Laws of Manu, viii. 267 sq. Cf. Gautama, xii. 8 sqq. It is also said that "a once-born man (a Sûdra), who insults a twice-born man with gross invective, shall have his tongue cut out; for he is of low origin" (ibid. viii. 270. See also Institutes of Vishnu, v. 23; Gautama, xii. 1; Âpastamba, ii. 10. 27. 14).]

[Footnote 42: Keyser, Efterladte Skrifter, ii. pt. i. 295.]

[Footnote 43: Hunter, Exposition of Roman Law, p. 164. Mommsen, Römisches Strafrecht, p. 786, n. 3.]

[Footnote 44: Digesta, xlvii. 10. 15. 35. Hunter, op. cit. p. 165.]

[Footnote 45: Gotlands-Lagen, i. 19. 37.]

{144} The condemnation of such conduct as is offensive to other persons' self-regarding pride includes condemnation of pride itself, when displayed in an excessive degree; whereas the opposite disposition--modesty--which implies regard for other people's "self-feeling," is praised as a virtue. The Fijians say of a boasting person, "You are like the kaka (parrot); you only speak to shout your own name."[46] On the other hand, among the Tonga Islanders "a modest opinion of oneself is esteemed a great virtue, and is also put in practice."[47] Confucius taught that humility belongs to the characteristics of a superior man.[48] Such a man, he said, is modest in his speech, though he exceeds in his actions;[49] he has dignified ease without pride, whereas the mean man has pride without a dignified ease;[50] he prefers the concealment of his virtue, when it daily becomes more illustrious, whereas the mean man seeks notoriety when he daily goes more and more to ruin.[51] So also humility has a distinguished place in the teachings of Lao-tsze:--"I have three precious things which I hold fast and prize, namely, compassion, economy, and humility"; "He who knows the glory, and at the same time keeps to shame, will be the whole world's valley . . . , eternal virtue will fill him, and he will return home to Taou."[52] In the Book of the Dead the soul of the ancient Egyptian pleads, "I am not swollen with pride."[53] According to Zoroastrianism, the sin of pride has been created by Ahriman.[54] Overbearingness was censured in ancient Scandinavia,[55] Greece,[56] and Rome. During our prosperity, says Cicero, "we ought with great care to {145} avoid pride and arrogance."[57] The Hebrew prophets condemned not only pride but eminence, because an eminent man is apt to be proud.[58] We read in the Talmud:--"He who humiliates himself will be lifted up; he who raises himself up will be humiliated. Whosoever runs after greatness, greatness runs away from him; he who runs from greatness, greatness follows him."[59] Christianity enjoined humility as a cardinal duty in every man.[60] In the Koran it is said, "God loves not him who is proud, and boastful."[61] Pride has thus come to be stigmatised not only as a vice, but as a sin of great magnitude. One reason for this is that it is regarded as even more offensive to the "self-feeling" of a great god or the Supreme Being than it is to that of a man. But pride must also appear as irreligious arrogance to those who maintain that man is by nature altogether corrupt, and that everything good in him is a gift of God.[62]

[Footnote 46: Williams and Calvert, op. cit. p. 107.]

[Footnote 47: Mariner, op. cit. ii. 164.]

[Footnote 48: Lun Yü, v. 15. Chung Yung, xxvii. 7.]

[Footnote 49: Lun Yü, xiv. 29.]

[Footnote 50: Ibid. xiii. 26. Cf. ibid. xx. 2. 1.]

[Footnote 51: Chung Yung, xxxiii. 1.]

[Footnote 52: Douglas, Confucianism and Taouism, p. 194 sq. Tâo Teh King, xxviii. 1.]

[Footnote 53: Book of the Dead, ch. 125, p. 216. Cf. Amélineau, _Essai sur l'évolution des idées morales dans l'Égypt Ancienne_, p. 353.]

[Footnote 54: Vendîdâd, i. 11.]

[Footnote 55: Maurer, Die Bekehrung des Norwegischen Stammes zum Christenthume, ii. 150.]

[Footnote 56: Schmidt, Die Ethik der alten Griechen, i. 253. Hermann, Lehrbuch der Griechischen Antiquitäten, ii. pt. i. 34 sq. Blümner, Ueber die Idee des Schicksals in den Tragödien des Aischylos, p. 131.]

[Footnote 57: Cicero, De officiis, i. 26.]

[Footnote 58: Cf. Kuenen, Religion of Israel, i. 62 sq.]

[Footnote 59: Deutsch, Literary Remains, p. 58.]

[Footnote 60: St. Matthew, v. 11, 12, 39; vi. 25, 26, 30 sqq.; xviii. 4; &c.]

[Footnote 61: Koran, iv. 40. Cf. Ameer Ali, _Ethics of Islâm_, p. 44.]

[Footnote 62: Manzoni, Osservazioni sulla morale cattolica, p. 182 sqq.]

At the same time, whilst pride is held blamable, humility may also go too far to be approved of, and may even be an object of censure. In early ethics, as we have noticed above, revenge is enjoined as a duty and forgiveness of enemies is despised; and this is the case not only among savages.[63] The device of Chivalry was, "It is better to die than to be avenged by shame";[64] and side by side with the nominal acceptance of the Christian doctrine of absolute placability the idea still prevails, in many European countries, that an assault upon honour shall be followed by a challenge to mortal combat. Too great humility is regarded as a sign of weakness, cowardice, hypocrisy, or a defective sense of honour. We are not allowed to be indifferent to the estimation in which we are held by our neighbours. Such indifference springs either from a feeble moral constitution and absence of moral shame, or from {146} a depreciation of other people's opinions in comparison with our own, and this is offensive to their amour-propre. Outward humility may thus suggest inward pride and appear arrogant.

[Footnote 63: Supra, i. 73 sq.]

[Footnote 64: Laurent, Études sur l'histoire de l'Humanité, vii. 184.]

A person's "self-feeling" may be violated in innumerable ways, by words and deeds. Almost any deviation from what is usual may arouse a suspicion of arrogance. This largely accounts for the fact mentioned in a previous chapter that habits have a tendency to become true customs, that is, rules of duty. Transgressions of the established forms of social intercourse are particularly apt to be offensive to people's self-regarding pride. Many of these forms originated in a desire to please, but by becoming habitual they at the same time became obligatory. Politeness is a duty rather than a virtue.

There is probably no people on earth which does not recognise some rules of politeness. Many savages are conspicuous for their civility.[65] It has been observed that Christian missionaries working among uncivilised races often are in manners much inferior to those they are teaching, and thus lower the native standard of refinement.[66] The Samoans, we are told, "are a nation of gentlemen," and contrast most favourably with the generality of Europeans who come amongst them.[67] On their first intercourse with Europeans, the Maoris "always manifest a degree of politeness which would do honour to a more civilised people"; but by continued intercourse they lose a great part of this characteristic.[68] Among the Fijians "the rules of politeness are minute, and receive scrupulous attention. They affect the language, and are seen in forms of salutation, in attention to strangers, at meals, in dress, and, indeed, influence their manners in-doors and {147} out. None but the very lowest are ill-behaved, and their confusion on committing themselves shows that they are not impudently so."[69] The Malagasy "are a very polite people, and look with contempt upon those who neglect the ordinary usages and salutations";[70] "even the most ragged and tattered slave possesses a natural dignity and ease of manner, which contrasts favourably with the rude conduct and boorish manners of the lower class at home."[71] Of the Point Barrow Eskimo Mr. Murdoch observes that "many of them show a grace of manner and a natural delicacy and politeness which is quite surprising"; and he mentions the instance of a young Eskimo being so polite in conversing with an American officer that "he would take pains to mispronounce his words in the same way as the latter did, so as not to hurt his feelings by correcting him bluntly."[72] The forms of Kafir politeness "are very strictly adhered to, and are many."[73] Of the Negroes of Fida Bosman wrote, "They are so civil to each other and the inferior so respectful to the superior, that at first I was very much surprised at it."[74] Monrad found the Negroes of Accra surpass many civilised people in politeness.[75] So also in Morocco even country-folks are much more civil in their general behaviour than the large majority of Europeans. "The conversations of the Arabs," says d'Arvieux, "are full of civilities; one never hears anything there that they think rude and unbecoming."[76] Politeness is a characteristic of all the great nations of the East. The Chinese have brought the practice of it "to a pitch of perfection which is not only unknown in Western lands, but, previous to experience, is unthought of and almost unimaginable. The rules of ceremony, we are reminded in the Classics, are three {148} hundred, and the rules of behaviour three thousand."[77] In Europe courtesy was recommended as the most amiable of knightly qualities; and from "the wild and overstrained courtesies of Chivalry" has been derived our present system of manners.[78]

[Footnote 65: Waitz-Gerland, Anthropologie der Naturvölker, vi. 143 sqq. (Polynesians). Macdonald, Oceania, p. 195 (Efatese). Cranz, History of Greenland, i. 157. MacGregor, 'Lagos, Abeokuta and the Alake,' in Jour. African Soc. July, 1904, p. 466 (Yorubas).]

[Footnote 66: Brenchley, Jottings during the Cruise of H.M.S. 'Curaçoa' among the South Sea Islands, p. 349.]

[Footnote 67: Hood, _Cruise in H.M.S. 'Fawn' in the Western Pacific_, p. 59 sq.]

[Footnote 68: Dieffenbach, op. cit. ii. 108 sqq. See also Colenso, op. cit. p. 53 sqq.]

[Footnote 69: Williams and Calvert, op. cit. p. 129. Cf. ibid. pp. 128, 131 sq.; Anderson, Notes of Travel in Fiji, p. 135.]

[Footnote 70: Sibree, The Great African Island, p. 325.]

[Footnote 71: Little, Madagascar, p. 71.]

[Footnote 72: Murdoch, 'Ethn. Results of the Point Barrow Expedition,' in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. ix. 42.]

[Footnote 73: Leslie, Among the Zulus and Amatongas, p. 203.]

[Footnote 74: Bosman, Description of the Coast of Guinea, p. 317.]

[Footnote 75: Monrad, Skildring af Guinea-Kysten, p. 9.]

[Footnote 76: d'Arvieux, Travels in Arabia the Desart, p. 141.]

[Footnote 77: Smith, Chinese Characteristics, p. 35.]

[Footnote 78: Ordre of Chyualry, fol. 46. Robertson, _History of the Reign of Charles V._ i. 84. Milman, _History of Latin Christianity_, iv. 211. Turner, History of England, iii. 473. Mills, History of Chivalry, i. 161 sq. Scott, 'Essay on Chivalry,' in Miscellaneous Prose Works, vi. 58.]

The rules of politeness and good manners refer to all sorts of social intercourse and vary indefinitely in detail. They tell people how to sit or stand in each other's presence, or how to pass through a door; a Zulu would be fined for going out of a hut back first.[79] They prescribe how to behave at a meal; the Indians of British Columbia consider it improper to talk on such an occasion,[80] and it appears that in England also, in the fifteenth century, "people did not hold conversation while eating, but that the talk and mirth began with the liquor."[81] Politeness demands that a person should never interrupt another while speaking;[82] or that he should avoid contradicting a statement;[83] or, not infrequently, that he should rather tell a pleasant untruth than an unpleasant truth.[84] At times it requires the use of certain phrases, words of thanks, flattery, or expressions of self-humiliation. In Chinese there is "a whole vocabulary of words which are indispensable to one who wishes to pose as a 'polite' person, words in which whatever belongs to the speaker is treated with scorn and contempt, and whatever relates to the person addressed is honourable. The 'polite' Chinese will refer to his wife, if driven to the extremity of referring {149} to her at all, as his 'dull thorn,' or in some similar elegant figure of speech."[85]

[Footnote 79: Tyler, Forty Years among the Zulus, p. 190 sq.]

[Footnote 80: Woldt, Kaptein Jacobsens Reiser til Nordamerikas Nordvestkyst, p. 99.]

[Footnote 81: Wright, Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England during the Middle Ages, p. 396.]

[Footnote 82: Domenech, Seven Years Residence in the Great Deserts of North America, ii. 72. Richardson, Arctic Searching Expedition, i. 385 (Kutchin). Cranz, History of Greenland, i. 157. Dobrizhoffer, Account of the Abipones, ii. 136 sq. d'Arvieux, op. cit. p. 139 sq.; Wallin, Reseanteckningar från Orienten, iii. 259 (Bedouins).]

[Footnote 83: Nansen, First Crossing of Greenland, ii. 334 sq.; Cranz, op. cit. i. 157 (Greenlanders). Dobrizhofifer, op. cit. ii. 137 (Abipones). d'Arvieux, op. cit. p. 141 (Bedouins).]

[Footnote 84: Supra, ii. 111.]

[Footnote 85: Smith, Chinese Characteristics, p. 274.]

Politeness enjoins the performance of certain ceremonies upon persons who meet or part. The custom of salutation is of world-wide prevalence, though there are certain savages who are said to have no greetings except when they have learnt the practice from the whites.[86] As a ceremony prescribed by public opinion it is an obligatory tribute paid to another person's "self-feeling," whatever be the original nature of the act which has been adopted for the purpose. The form of salutation has sometimes been borrowed from questions springing from curiosity or suspicion. Among the Californian Miwok, when anybody meets a stranger he generally salutes him, "Whence do you come? What are you at?"[87] The Abipones "would think it quite contrary to the laws of good-breeding, were they to meet any one and not ask him where he was going";[88] and a similar question is also a very common mode of greeting among the Berbers of Southern Morocco. Very frequently a salutation consists of some phrase which is expressive of goodwill. It may be an inquiry about the other person's health or welfare, as the English "How are you?" "How do you do?" Among the Burmese two relatives or friends who meet begin a conversation by the expressions, "Are you well? I am well," if they have been some time separated; whereas those who are daily accustomed to meet say, "Where are you going?"[89] The Moors ask, "What is your news?" or, "Is nothing wrong?" The ordinary salutation of the Zulus is, "I see you, are you well?" after which the snuffbox, the token of friendship, is passed round.[90] Among several tribes of California, again, a person when greeting another {150} simply utters a word which means "friendship."[91] The goodwill is often directly expressed in the form of a wish, like our "Good day!" "Good night!" Among the Hebrews the salutation at meeting or entering another's house seems at first to have consisted most commonly in an inquiry after mutual welfare,[92] but in later times "Health!" or "Peace to thee!" became the current greeting.[93] According to the Laws of Manu, a Brâhmana should be saluted, "May thou be long-lived, O gentle one!"[94] The Greeks said [Greek: chai=re] ("Be joyful!"); the Romans, Salve! ("Be in health!") especially on meeting, and Vale! ("Be well!") on parting. The good wish may have the form of a prayer. The Moors say, "May God give thee peace!" "May God give thee a good night!" and the English "Good-bye" and the French Adieu are prayers curtailed by the progress of time. But there is no foundation for Professor Wundt's assertion that "the words employed in greeting are one and all prayer formulæ in a more or less rudimentary state."[95] A salutation may, finally, be a verbal profession of subjection, as the Swedish "Ödmjukaste tjänare," that is, (I am your) "most humble servant."

[Footnote 86: Krasheninnikoff, History of Kamschatka, p. 177. Dall, op. cit. p. 397 (Aleuts). Egede, _Description of Greenland_, p. 125; Rink, Danish Greenland, p. 223; Cranz, _op. cit._ i. 157 (Greenlanders). Prescott, in Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes of the United States_, iii. 244 (Dacotahs). Lewin, _Wild Races of South-Eastern India_, pp. 230 (Kumi), 256 (Kukis).]

[Footnote 87: Powers, Tribes of California, p. 347.]

[Footnote 88: Dobrizhoffer, op. cit. ii. 138.]

[Footnote 89: Forbes, British Burma, p. 69.]

[Footnote 90: Tyler, op. cit. p. 190.]

[Footnote 91: Powers, op. cit. p. 58.]

[Footnote 92: Genesis, xliii. 27. Exodus, xviii. 7.]

[Footnote 93: Judges, xix. 20. 1 Chronicles, xii. 18. Cf. Keil, Manual of Biblical Archæology, ii. 183.]

[Footnote 94: Laws of Manu, ii. 125.]

[Footnote 95: Wundt, Ethik, p. 179.]

Salutations may consist not only in words spoken, but in conventional gestures, either accompanied by some verbal expression or performed silently.[96] They may be tokens of submission or reverence, as cowering, crouching, and bowing. Or they may originally have been signs of disarming or defencelessness, as uncovering some particular portion of the body. Von Jhering suggests that the offering of the hand belongs to the same group of salutations, its object being to indicate that the other person has nothing to fear;[97] but in many cases at least handshaking seems to have the same origin as other ceremonies consisting {151} in bodily contact. Salutatory gestures may express not only absence of evil intentions but positive friendliness; among respectable Moors it is a common mode of greeting that each party places his right hand on his heart to indicate, as Jackson puts it, "that part to be the residence of the friend."[98] Various forms of salutation by contact, such as clasping, embracing, kissing, and sniffing, are obviously direct expressions of affection;[99] and we can hardly doubt that the joining of hands serves a similar object when we find it combined with other tokens of goodwill. Among some of the Australian natives, friends, on meeting after an absence, "will kiss, shake hands, and sometimes cry over one another."[100] In Morocco equals salute each other by joining their hands with a quick motion, separating them immediately, and kissing each his own hand. The Soolimas, again, place the palms of the right hands together, carry them then to the forehead, and from thence to the left side of the chest.[101] But bodily union is also employed as a method of transferring either blessings or conditional curses, and it seems probable that certain salutatory acts have vaguely or distinctly such transference in view. Among the Masai, who spit on each other both when they meet and when they part, spitting "expresses the greatest goodwill and the best of wishes";[102] and in a previous chapter I have endeavoured to show that the object of certain reception ceremonies is to transfer a conditional curse to the stranger who is received as a guest.[103] On the same principle as underlies these ceremonies, handshaking may be a means of joining in compact, analogous to a common meal[104] and the blood-covenant.[105]

[Footnote 96: See Tylor, 'Salutations,' in _Encyclopædia Britannica_, xxi. 235 sqq.; Ling Roth, 'Salutations,' in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xix. 166 sqq.]

[Footnote 97: von Jhering, Der Zweck im Recht, ii. 649 sqq.]

[Footnote 98: Jackson, Account of Timbuctoo, &c. p. 235.]

[Footnote 99: See infra, on the Origin and Development of the Altruistic Sentiment.]

[Footnote 100: Hackett, 'Ballardong or Ballerdokking Tribe,' in Curr, The Australian Race, i. 343.]

[Footnote 101: Laing, _Travels in the Timannee, Kooranko, and Soolima Countries_, p. 368.]

[Footnote 102: Thomson, Through Masai Land, p. 166.]

[Footnote 103: Supra, i. 590 sq.]

[Footnote 104: Supra, i. 587.]

[Footnote 105: See infra, on the Origin and Development of the Altruistic Sentiment.]

Being an homage rendered to other persons self-regarding {152} pride, the rule of politeness is naturally most exacting in relation to superiors. Many of its forms have, in fact, originated in humble or respectful behaviour towards rulers, masters, or elders, and, often in a modified shape, become common between equals after they have lost their original meaning.[106] It has been noticed that the cruelty of despots always engenders politeness, whereas the freest nations are generally the rudest in manners.[107] Politeness is further in a special degree shown by men to women, not only among ourselves, but even among many savages;[108] in this case courtesy is connected with courtship. Strangers or remote acquaintances, also, have particular claims to be treated with civility, whereas politeness is of little moment in the intercourse of friends; it imitates kindness, and is resorted to where the genuine feeling is wanting.[109] And in the capacity of guest, the stranger is often for the time being flattered with exquisite marks of honour, for reasons which have been stated in another connection.

[Footnote 106: See Spencer, Principles of Sociology, ii. 'Ceremonial Institutions,' passim.]

[Footnote 107: Johnston, Uganda, ii. 685.]

[Footnote 108: Dorsey, 'Omaha Sociology,' in _Ann. Rep. Bur Ethn._ iii. 270. Chanler, Through Jungle and Desert, p. 485 (Wakamba). See also supra, i. ch. xxvi.]

[Footnote 109: Cf. Tucker, Light of Nature, ii. 599 sqq.; Joubert, Pensées, i. 243.]