best share of it into annuities for the gay and illiterate youth of great families, threatens not to ftarve and ftifle the little clerical merit that is left amongst us?

All legal difpenfations from refidence proceed upon the fuppofition, that the abfentee is detained from his living, by fome engagement of equal or of greater public importance. Therefore, if in a cafe, where no fuch reafon can with truth be pleaded, it be faid that this queftion regards a right of property, and that all right of property awaits the difpofition of law; that, therefore, if the law, which gives a man the emoluments of á living, excufe him from refiding upon it, he is excused in confcience; we anfwer, that the law does not excufe him by intention, and that all other excufes are fraudulent.

CHA P. XV.

L 1 E S.

ALIE is a breach of promife: for whoever feriously addreffes his difcourfe to another, tacitly promises to speak the truth, becaufe he knows that the truth is expected.

Or the obligation of veracity may be made out from the direct ill confequences of lying to focial happiness. Which confequences confift, either in fome specific injury to particular individuals, or in the deftruction of that confidence, which is effential to the intercourfe of human life: for which latter reafon, a lie may be pernicious in its general tendency, and therefore criminal, though it produce no particular or visible mifchief to any one.

There are falfehoods which are not lies; that is, which are not criminal; as,

1. Where no one is deceived; which is the cafe in parables, fables, novels, jefts, tales to create mirth, fudicrous embellifhments of a ftory, where the declared defign of the fpeaker is not to inform, but to divert; compliments in the fubfcription of a letter, a fervant's denying his mafter, a prifoner's pleading not guilty, an advocate afferting the juftice, or his belief of the juftice of his client's caufe. In fuch inftances no confidence is deftroyed, because none was repofed; no promife to fpeak the truth is violated, because none was given, or understood to be given.

2. Where the perfon to whom you speak has no right to know the truth, or more properly, where ittle or no inconveniency refults from the want of confidence in fuch cafes; as where you tell a falfe

hood

hood to a madman, for his own advantage; to a robber, to conceal your property; to an affaffin, to defeat, or to divert him from his purpofe. The particular confequence is by the fuppofition beneficial; and, as to the general confequence, the worst that can happen is, that the madman, the robber, the affaffin, will not truft you again; which (befide, that the firft is incapable of deducing regular conclufions from having been once deceived, and the two laft not likely to come a fecond time in your way) is fufficiently compenfated by the immediate benefit which you propose by the falfehood.

It is upon this principle, that by the laws of war, it is allowed to deceive an enemy by feints, falfe colours, fpies,falfe intelligence, and the like; but, by no means, in treaties, truces, fignals of capitulation, or furrender: and the difference is, that the former fuppofe hoftilities to continue, the latter are calculated to terminate or fufpend them. In the conduct of war, and whilft the war continues, there is no ufe, or rather no place for confidence, betwixt the contending parties; but in whatever relates to the termination of war, the moft religious fidelity is expected, because without it wars could not cease, nor the victors be fecure, but by the entire deftruction of the vanquished.

Many people indulge in ferious difcourfe a habit of fiction and exaggeration, in the accounts they give of themselves, of their acquaintance, or of the extraordinary things which they have feen or heard, and fo long as the facts they relate are indif

*There have been two or three inftances of late, of English fhips decoying an enemy into their power, by counterfeiting fignals of diftrefs; an artifice which ought to be reprobated by the common indignation of mankind: for a few examples of captures effected by this ftratagem, would put an end to that promp titude in affording affiftance to fhips in diftrefs, which is the beft virtue in a feafaring character, and by which the perils of navigafion are diminished to all.

ferent,

ferent, and their narratives, though false, are inof fenfive, it may feem a fuperftitious regard to truth, to cenfure them merely for truth's fake.

In the first place, it is almoft impoffible to pronounce beforehand, with certainty, concerning any lie, that it is inoffenfive. Volat irrevocabile; and collects fometimes accretions in its flight, which entirely change its nature. It may owe poffibly its mifchief to the officiousness or mifreprefentation of those who circulate it; but the mifchief is, nevertheless, in fome degree, chargeable upon the original editor. In the next place, this liberty in converfation defeats its own end. Much of the pleasure, and all the benefit of converfation, depends upon our opi nion of the speaker's veracity; for which this rule leaves no foundation. The faith indeed of a hearer must be extremely perplexed, who confiders the fpeaker, or believes that the fpeaker confiders himfelf, as under no obligation to adhere to truth, but according to the particular importance of what he relates.

But befide and above both these reasons, white lies always introduce others of a darker complexion. I have feldom known any one who deferted truth in trifles, that could be trufted in matters of importance. Nice diftinctions are out of the queftion, upon occafions, which like thofe of fpeech, return every hour. The habit therefore, of lying, when once formed, is eafily extended to ferve the defigns of malice or intercft; like all habits, it fpreads indeed of itself.

Pious frauds, as they are improperly enough called, pretended infpirations, forged books, counterfeit miracles, are impofitions of a more ferious nature. It is poffible that they may fometimes, though feldom, have been fet up and encouraged, with a defign to do good; but the good they aim at, requires that the belief of them fhould be perpetual, which is hardly poffible; and the detection of the fraud is

fure

1

fure to difparage the credit of all pretenfions of the fame nature. Chriftianity has fuffered more injury from this cause, than from all other caufes put together.

As there may be falfehoods which are not lies, fo there may be lies without literal or direct falfehood. An opening is always left for this fpecies of prevarication, when the literal and grammatical fignification of a fentence is different from the popular and cuftomary meaning. It is the wilful deceit that makes the lie; and we wilfully deceive, when our expreffions are not true, in the fenfe in which we believe the hearer apprehends them. Besides, it is abfurd to contend for any fense of words, in oppofition to ufage, for all fenfes of all words are founded upon ufage, and upon nothing elfe.

Or a man may act a lie; as by pointing his finger in a wrong direction, when a traveller inquires of him his road; or when a tradefman fhuts up his windows to induce his creditors to believe that he is abroad: for to all moral purposes, and therefore as to veracity, fpeech and action are the fame; fpeech being only a mode of action.

Or, laftly, there may be lies of omiffion. A writer of English hiftory, who, in his account of the reign of Charles the firft, fhould wilfully fupprefs any evidence of that prince's defpotic measures and defigns, might be faid to lie; for, by entitling his book a history of England, he engages to relate the whole truth of the hiftory, or, at least, all that he knows of it.

CHAP.