A Discourse on Lying

The following are selections from The Boston Quarterly, 1840. Some things never change, human nature least of all.

It is of lying, and not of its peculiar punishment, that I propose to speak, of the sin rather than of its consequences ; because it is always on the sin, rather than on its consequences, that I would fix my own attention or that of others. That lying is a sin, doubtless, all are ready to admit; and yet it is a sin of very frequent occurrence. I apprehend that very few of us have any just conception of either its enormity or its frequency. We are not sufficiently careful to ascertain in what the lie actually consists. We regard it too often as consisting solely in the words we use, and we flatter ourselves that we are not guilty of it, when we have not put it into a form of words. We deceive, mislead people, and yet if the words we have used be literally true, we fancy we have not lied. The New-York merchant, of whom they relate a certain anecdote, probably did not regard himself as a liar. The merchant had applied to an Insurance Office for a policy of insurance on a ship he had at sea, and which he was expecting soon to arrive. Some difference arising between him and the agent of the office, the policy was delayed until the merchant received news from his ship, that it and cargo were lost. He immediately sent his boy to notify the office, that if they had not made out the policy talked of, they need not do it, for he had heard from his ship. The office concluding from this, that the news he had heard were favorable, sent him word back that the policy was ready, and immediately made it out, and thus subjected itself to the loss of the ship and its cargo. Now what the merchant said was literally true, and yet it was a lie, because it was so said as naturally to deceive.

The lie does not consist in the words we use. Elijah upbraiding the priests of Baal, and ridiculing them for their trust in that false god, said unto them, " Cry aloud, for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth and must be awaked." The words here used are false. What Elijah said was not true, and he did not believe it true ; and yet he did not lie, because he did not intend to deceive, and because he did not deceive. He speaks ironically, and by so speaking discloses more clearly than he could in any other form of speech, the absurdity of worshipping a dumb idol as a god, or the creature in place of the Creator. So when we say of a fleet animal, " he is swift as the wind," or of a raiment remarkable for its whiteness, "it is whiter than snow," or of any extraordinary swiftness of motion, " it is quicker than lightning;" we say what is literally false; but we are not liars, because there is no deception, and no intention of deception. The metaphors we use, the strong hyperboles we adopt, have their established value, and are understood in the same manner by both the speaker and the hearer.

The lie consists, so far as it concerns the liar, in the fact of his intending to deceive or mislead ; in relation to others, it consists in the fact, that he does deceive or mislead. A man tells me no lie, if he in no way deceives me, or misleads me; but he is nevertheless a liar, if he intended to do it, and is as guilty as he would have been, had he deceived me. If he has intended to deceive me, or deceived me knowingly, although all his words strictly construed are true, he is just as much a liar, as though he had told me a plump falsehood, in just so many words.

I am pursuing a thief. I ask you which way he went. You say nothing, but you point your finger in a certain direction, which is the wrong one, and thus I am led to followr it. In this case you have lied to me, just as much as though you had told me in words, that the thief went in the direction, which you knew he had not gone. Words, actions, manners, no matter which or what, that do deceive, and are intended to deceive, or which are intended to deceive, whether they do deceive or not, are falsehoods, lies. Let no one then think that he has steered clear of the lie, because he has succeeded in using a form of words not literally false. Looks, manners, deeds, lie as well as words, and often more effectually.

The worst form of lying is not that which is generally the most censured. The common falsehoods, as to occurrences and events, are bad enough, but they are by no means the worst. Mere vulgar lying deserves contempt, and usually receives it ; and very soon prevents the one who is guilty of it from doing any harm, save to his own soul. His credit is soon gone, his want of honesty is soon found out, and henceforth he can deceive nobody, for nobody trusts him.

The worst species of lying are those not usually christened with that name. One instance of the worst sort of lying, on a large scale, has been witnessed during the current year.*(Footnote: * This discourse was written and preached in this city in the winter of 1837-38, while the Massachusetts Legislature were discussing the subject of the suspension and resumption of payments by the banks. The conduct of the banks, and more especially of the business community, during the summer of 1837, and the winter following, violating, as it did, all moral principle, and threatening the very existence of the republic by its general baseness, cannot be too frequently exhibited to the general abhorrence of mankind.) Many people have had in their hands small pieces of paper called Bank Bills, on which is a promise made by certain high-minded and honorable gentlemen, called the president and directors of the bank, to pay the bearer at their banking house, during banking hours, on demand, a certain amount of money. I need not say that this promise has for nearly a year, to say the least, been only a splendid lie, a lie, which the banks, the honorable and high-minded president and directors, tell every time they issue their bills, or notes. And this is not all. Men of the highest standing in society, and the loudest in their pretensions to decency, intelligence, virtue, religion, have greatly applauded the lie ; and grave senators in our own goodly city are daily discussing the matter, whether an end ought, or ought not, to be put to this lying ; and the probability is that the majority will decide, that the public good demands its continuance. It is astonishing that a community, making some pretensions to being a moral and religious community, can tolerate, much more applaud such falsehood. Nothing can be more corrupting to the morals of our youth, or better calculated to banish truth and honesty from the land.

Communities, corporations, banks, copartnerships, are as much bound to tell the truth, as the simple individual. No man's moral sense, if he have any, can fail to be shocked, outraged at the doctrine, that companies, corporations, communities, states, nations, have a right to lie. They may have the power to go unpunished; the bank president, who signs a promise to pay, that he knows his bank will not pay according to the stipulations, may go unwhipt of justice ; but he is a sinner of as black a dye as any liar in the land, and he will one day be seen and treated as such.