A Lie Never Justifiable Part 10

[Footnote 1: See p. 75 f., _supra_.]

A distinguished professor in one of the prominent medical colleges of this country, in denying the claim of a writer on ethics that it may become the duty of a physician to deceive his patient as a means of curing him, declares that a physician acting on this theory "will not be found in accord with the best and the highest medical teaching of the present day;" and he goes on to say:[1] "In my profession to-day, the truth properly presented, we have found, carries with it a convincing and adjusting element which does not fail to bring the afflicted person to that condition of mind that is most conducive to his physical well-being, and let me add also, I believe, to his spiritual welfare." This statement was made in connection with the declaration that in the hospital which was in his charge it is not deemed right or wise to deceive a patient as to any operation to be performed upon him. And there are other well-known physicians who testify similarly as to the ethics of their profession.

[Footnote 1: In a personal communication to the author.]

An ill.u.s.tration of the possible good results of concealing an unpleasant fact from a sick person, that has been a favorite citation all along the centuries with writers on ethics who would justify emergency falsehoods, is one which is given in his correspondence by Pliny the younger, eighteen centuries ago.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Epistles of Pliny the Younger_, Book III., Epis. 16.

Pliny to Nepos.]

Caecinna Paetus and his son "were both at the same time attacked with what seemed a mortal illness, of which the son died.... His mother [Arria] managed his funeral so privately that Paetus did not know of his death. Whenever she came into his bedchamber, she pretended that her son was better, and, as often as he inquired after his health, would answer that he had rested well, or had eaten with an appet.i.te.

When she found she could no longer restrain her grief, but her tears were gus.h.i.+ng out, she would leave the room, and, having given vent to her pa.s.sion, return again with dry eyes and a serene countenance, as if she had dismissed every sentiment of sorrow."

This Roman matron also committed suicide, as an encouragement to her husband whom she desired to have put an end to his own life, when he was likely to have it taken from him by the executioner; and Pliny commends her n.o.bleness of conduct in both cases. It is common among ethical writers, in citing this instance in favor of lying, to say nothing about the suicide, and to omit mention of the fact that the mother squarely lied, by saying that her dead boy had eaten a good breakfast, instead of employing language that might have been the truth as far as it went, while it concealed that portion of the truth which she thought it best to conceal. It is common to quote her as simply saying of her son" He is better;"[1] quite a different version from Pliny's, and presenting a different issue.

[Footnote 1: See Newman Smyth's _Christian Ethics_, p. 395, where this case is stated with vagueness of phrase, and as thus stated is approved.]

It was perfectly proper for that mother to conceal the signs of her sorrow from her sick husband, who had no right to know the truth concerning matters outside of his sick-room at such a time. And if, indeed, she could say in all sincerity, as expressive of her feelings in the death of her son, by the will of the G.o.ds, "He is better," it would have been possible for her to feel that she was ent.i.tled to say that as the truth, and not as a falsehood; and in that case she would not have intended a deceit, but only a concealment. But when, on the other hand, she told a deliberate lie--spoke falsely in order to deceive--she committed a sin in so doing, and her sin was none the less a sin because it resulted in apparent good to her husband. An ill.u.s.tration does not overturn a principle, but it may misrepresent it.

Another ill.u.s.tration, on the other side of the case, is worth citing here. Victor Hugo pictures, in his _Les Miserables_,[1] a sister of charity adroitly concealing facts from a sick person in a hospital, while refusing to tell a falsehood even for the patient's good. "Never to have told a falsehood, never to have said for any advantage, or even indifferently, a thing which was not the truth, the holy truth, was the characteristic feature of Sister Simplice." She had taken the name of Simplice through special choice. "Simplice, of Sicily, our readers will remember, is the saint who sooner let her bosom be plucked out than say she was a native of Segeste, as she was born at Syracuse, though the falsehood would have saved her. Such a patron saint suited this soul." And in speaking of Sister Simplice, as never having told even "a white lie," Victor Hugo quotes a letter from the Abbe Sicard, to his deaf-mute pupil Ma.s.sieu, on this point: "Can there be such a thing as a white lie, an innocent lie? Lying is the absolute of evil. Lying a little is not possible. The man who lies tells the whole lie. Lying is the face of the fiend; and Satan has two names,--he is called Satan and Lying." Victor Hugo the romancer would seem to be a safer guide, so far, for the physician or the nurse in the sick-room, than Pliny the rhetorician, or Rothe the theologian.[2]

[Footnote 1: Book VII.]

[Footnote 2: Yet Victor Hugo afterwards represents even Sister Simplice as lying unqualifiedly, when sorely tempted--although not in the sick-room.]

A well-known physician, in speaking to me of this subject, said: "It is not so difficult to avoid falsehood in dealing with anxious patients as many seem to suppose. _Tact_, as well as _principle_, will do a good deal to help a physician out, in an emergency. I have never seen any need of lying, in my practice." And yet another physician, who had been in a widely varied practice for forty years, said that he had never found it necessary to tell a lie to a patient; although he thought he might have done so if he had deemed it necessary to save a patient's life. In other words, while he admitted the possible justification of an "emergency lie," he had never found a first-cla.s.s opening for one in his practice. And he added, that he knew very well that if he had been known to lie to his patients, his professional efficiency, as well as his good name, would have suffered. Medical men do not always see, in their practice, the supposed advantages of lying, which have so large prominence in the minds of ethical writers.

Another profession, which is popularly and wrongly accused of having a place for the lie in its system of ethics, is the legal profession.

Whewell refers to this charge in his "Elements of Morality" (citing Paley in its support). He says: "Some moralists have ranked with the cases in which convention supersedes the general rule of truth, an advocate a.s.serting the justice, or his belief in the justice, of his client's cause." But as to an advocate's right in this matter, Whewell says explicitly: "If, in pleading, he a.s.sert his belief that his cause is just, when he believes it unjust, he offends against truth; as any other man would do who, in like manner, made a like a.s.sertion."[1]

[Footnote 1: Whewell's _Elements of Morality_, -- 400.]

Chief-Justice Sharswood, of Pennsylvania, in his standard work on "Legal Ethics," cites this opinion of Whewell with unqualified approval; and, in speaking for the legal profession, he says: "No counsel can with propriety and good conscience express to court or jury his belief in the justice of his client's cause, contrary to the fact. Indeed, the occasions are very rare in which he ought to throw the weight of his private opinion into the scales in favor of the side he has espoused." Calling attention to the fact that the official oath of an attorney, on his admission to the bar, in the state of Pennsylvania, includes the specific promise to "use no falsehood," he says: "Truth in all its simplicity--truth to the court, client, and adversary--should be indeed the polar star of the lawyer. The influence of only slight deviations from truth upon professional character is very observable. A man may as well be detected in a great as a little lie. A single discovery, among professional brethren, of a failure of truthfulness, makes a man the object of distrust, subjects him to constant mortification, and soon this want of confidence extends itself beyond the Bar to those who employ the Bar. That lawyer's case is truly pitiable, upon the escutcheon of whose honesty or truth rests the slightest tarnish."[1]

[Footnote 1: Sharswood's _Essay on Professional Ethics_, pp. 57, 99,102,167 f.]

As ill.u.s.trative of the carelessness with which popular charges against an entire profession are made the basis of reflections upon the ethical standard of that profession, the comments of Dr. Hodge on this matter are worthy of particular notice. In connection with his a.s.sertion that "the principles of professional men allow of many things which are clearly inconsistent with the requirements of the ninth commandment," he says: "Lord Brougham is reported to have said, in the House of Lords, that an advocate knows no one but his client.

He is bound _per fas et nefas_, if possible, to clear him. If necessary for the accomplishment of that object, he is at liberty to accuse and defame the innocent, and even (as the report stated) to ruin his country. It is not unusual, especially in trials for murder, for the advocates of the accused to charge the crime on innocent parties and to exert all their ingenuity to convince the jury of their guilt." And Dr. Hodge adds the note that "Lord Brougham, according to the public papers, uttered these sentiments in vindication of the conduct of the famous Irish advocate Phillips, who on the trial of Courvoisier for the murder of Lord Russell, endeavored to fasten the guilt on the butler and housemaid, whom he knew to be innocent, as his client had confessed to him that he had committed the murder."[1]

[Footnote 1: Hodge's _Systematic Theology_, III., 439.]

Now the facts, in the two very different cases thus erroneously intermingled by Dr. Hodge, as given by Justice Sharswood,[1] present quite another aspect from that in which Dr. Hodge sees them, as bearing on the accepted ethics of the legal profession. It would appear that Lord Brougham was not speaking in defense of another attorney's action, but in defense of his own course as attorney of Queen Caroline, thirty years before the Courvoisier murder trial. As Justice Sharswood remarks of Lord Brougham's "extravagant" claims: "No doubt he was led by the excitement of so great an occasion to say what cool reflection and sober reason certainly never can approve." Yet Lord Brougham does not appear to have suggested, in his claim, that a lawyer had a right to falsify the facts involved, or to utter an untruth. He was speaking of his supposed duty to defend his client, the Queen, against the charges of the King, regardless of the consequences to himself or to his country through his advocacy of her cause, which he deemed a just one.

[Footnote 1: Sharswood's _Legal Ethics_, p. 86 f.]

And as to the charge against the eminent advocate, Charles Phillips, of seeking to fasten the crime on the innocent, when he knew that his client was guilty, in the trial of Courvoisier for the murder of Lord Russell, that charge was overwhelmingly refuted by the testimony of lawyers and judges present at that trial. Mr. Phillips supposed his client an innocent man until the trial was nearly concluded. Then came the unexpected confession from the guilty man, accompanied by the demand that his counsel continue in his case to the end. At first Mr.

Phillips proposed to retire at once from the case; but, on advising with eminent counsel, he was told that it would be wrong for him to betray the prisoner's confidence, and practically to testify against him, by deserting him at that hour. He then continued in the case, but, as is shown conclusively in his statement of the facts, with its accompanying proofs, without saying a word or doing a thing that might properly be deemed in the realm of false a.s.sertion or intimations.[1]

[Footnote 1: See Sharswood's _Legal Ethics_, pp. 103-107, 183-196.]

The very prominence given in the public press to the charges against Mr. Phillips, and to their refutation, are added proof that the moral sense of the community is against falsehood under any circ.u.mstances or in any profession.

Members of the legal profession are bound by the same ethical obligations as other men; yet the civil law, in connection with which they practice their profession, is not in all points identical with the moral law; although it is not in conflict with any of its particulars. As Chancellor Kent says: "Human laws are not so perfect as the dictates of conscience, and the sphere of morality is more enlarged than the limits of civil jurisdiction. There are many duties that belong to the cla.s.s of imperfect obligations, which are binding on conscience, but which human laws do not and cannot undertake directly to enforce. But when the aid of a Court of Equity is sought to carry into execution ... a contract, then the principles of ethics have a more extensive sway."[1]

[Footnote 1: Kent's _Commentaries_, Lect. 39, p. 490 f. (4th ed.); cited in Story's _Equity Jurisprudence_, VI., p. 229 (13th ed.).]

In the decisions of Equity courts, while the duty of absolute truthfulness between parties in interest is insisted on as vital, and a suppression of the truth from one who had a right to its knowledge, or a suggestion of that which is untrue in a similar case("_suggestio falsi aut suppressio veri_"), is deemed an element of fraud, the distinction between mere silence when one is ent.i.tled to be silent, and concealment with the purpose of deception, is distinctly recognized, as it is not in all manuals on ethics.[1] This is indicated, on the one hand, in the legal maxim _Aliud est celare, aliud tacere_,--"It is one thing to conceal, another to be silent;"

silence is not necessarily deceptive concealment;[2] and on the other hand in such a statement as this, in Benjamin's great work on Sales: "The nondisclosure of hidden facts [to a party in interest] is the more objectionable when any artifice is employed to throw the buyer off his guard; as by telling half the truth."[3] It is not in any principles which are recognized by the legal profession as binding on the conscience, that loose ethics are to find defense or support.

[Footnote 1: See Bispham's _Principles of Equity_, p. 261, (3d ed.); Broom's _Legal Maxims_, p. 781 f. (7th Am. ed.); Merrill's _American and English Encyclopedia of Law_, art. "Fraud."]

[Footnote 2: See Anderson's _Dictionary of Law_, p. 220; Abbott's _Law Dictionary_, I., 53.]

[Footnote 3: _Treatise on the Law of Sale of Personal Property_, p.

451 f.]

But the profession that has most at stake in this discussion, and that, indeed, is most involved in its issue, is the ministerial, or clerical, profession. While it was Jewish rabbis who affirmed most positively, in olden time, the unwavering obligations of truthfulness, it was Jewish rabbis, also, who sought to find extenuation or excuse for falsehoods uttered with a good intention. And while it was Christian Fathers, like the Shepherd of Hermas, and Justin Martyr, and Basil the Great, and Augustine, who insisted that no tolerance should be allowed to falsehood or deceit, it was also Christian Fathers, like Gregory of Nyssa, and Chrysostom, who having practiced deceit for what they deemed a good end, first attempted a special plea for such falsities as they had found convenient in their professional labors.

And it was other Christian Fathers, like Origen and Jerome, who sought to find arguments for laxity of practice, at this point, in the course of the Apostles themselves.

All the way along the centuries, while the strongest defenders of the law of truthfulness have been found among clergymen, more has been written in favor of the lie of necessity by clergymen than by men of any other cla.s.s or profession. And if it be true, as many of these have claimed, that deceit and falsehood are a duty, on the part of a G.o.d-loving teacher, toward those persons who, through weakness, or mental incapacity, or moral obliquity, are in the relation to him of wards of love, or of subjects of guardians.h.i.+p, there is no profession in which there is more of a call for G.o.dly deception, and for holy falsehood, than the Christian ministry. If it be true that a lie, or a falsehood, is justifiable in order to the saving of the physical life of another, how much better were it to tell such a lie in the loving desire to save a soul.

If the lie of necessity be allowable for any purpose, it would seem to be more important as a means of good in the exercise of the ministerial profession, than of any other profession or occupation.

And if it be understood that this is the case, what dependence can be put, by the average hearer, on the most earnest words of a preacher, who may be declaring a truth from G.o.d, and who, on the other hand, may be uttering falsehoods in love? And if it be true, also, as some of these clergymen have claimed, that G.o.d specifically approved falsehood and deception, according to the Bible record, and that Jesus Christ practiced in this line, while here on earth, what measure of confidence can fallible man place in the sacred text as it has come to him? The statement of this view of the case, is the best refutation of the claim of a possible justification for the most loving lie imaginable.

The only other point remaining untouched, in this review of the centuries of discussion concerning the possible justifiableness of a lie under conceivable circ.u.mstances, is in its relation to the lower animals. It has been claimed that "all admit" that there is no impropriety in using any available means for the decoying of fish or of beasts to their death, or in saving one's self from an enraged animal; hence that a lie is not to be counted as a sin _per se_, but depends for its moral value on the relation subsisting between its utterer and the one toward whom it is uttered.

Dr. Dabney, who is far less clear and sound than Dr. Thornwell in his reasoning on this ethical question, says: "I presume that no man would feel himself guilty for deceiving a mad dog in order to destroy him;"[1] and he argues from this a.s.sumption that when a man, through insanity or malice, "is not a rational man, but a brute," he may fairly be deemed as outside of the pale of humanity, so far as the obligations of veracity, viewed only as a social virtue, are concerned.

[Footnote 1: Dabney's _Theology_ (second edition), p. 425 f.]

Dr. Newman Smyth expands this idea.[1] He says: "We may say that animals, strictly speaking, can have no immediate right to our words of truth, since they belong below the line of existence which marks the beginning of any functions of speech." He adds that animals "may have direct claims upon our humanity, and so indirectly put us under obligations to give them straightforward and fair treatment," and that "truthfulness to the domestic animal, to the horse or the dog, is to be included as a part of our general obligation of kindness to creatures that are entirely dependent upon our fidelity to them and their wants." But he cites the driving of horses with blinders,[2] and the fis.h.i.+ng for trout with artificial flies, as evidence of the fact that man recognizes no sinfulness in the deceiving of the lower animals, and hence that the duty of veracity is not one of universal obligation.

[Footnote 1: Smyth's _Christian Ethics_, p. 398.]

[Footnote 2: Here is another ill.u.s.tration of Dr. Smyth's strange confusion of concealment with deception. It would seem as though a man must have blinders before his own eyes, to render him incapable of perceiving the difference between concealing a possible cause of fright from an animal, and intentionally deceiving that animal.]

If, indeed, the duty of truthfulness were only a social obligation, there might be a force in this reasoning that is lacking when we see that falsehood and deceit are against the very nature of G.o.d, and are a violation of man's primal nature. A lie is a sin, whenever and however and to whomsoever spoken or acted. It is a sin against G.o.d when uttered in his sight.

Man is given authority from G.o.d over all the lower animals;[1] and he is empowered to take their lives, if necessary for his protection or for his sustenance. In the exercise of this right, man is ent.i.tled to conceal from the animals he would kill or capture the means employed for the purpose; as he is ent.i.tled to conceal similarly from his fellow-man, when he is authorized to kill him as an enemy, in time of war waged for G.o.d. Thus it is quite proper for a man to conceal the hook or the net from the fish, or the trap or the pitfall from the beast; but it is not proper to deceive an animal by an imitation of the cry of the animal's offspring in order to lure that animal to its destruction; and the moral sense of the human race makes this distinction.

[Footnote 1: Gen. 1:28; 9:1-3.]

An ill.u.s.tration that has been put forward, as involving a nice question in the treatment of an animal, is that of going toward a loose horse with a proffered tuft of gra.s.s in one hand, and a halter for his capture concealed behind the back in the other hand. It is right to conceal the halter, and to proffer the gra.s.s, provided they are used severally in their proper relations. If the gra.s.s be held forth as an a.s.surance of the readiness of the man to provide for the needs of the horse, and it be given to him when he comes for it, there is no deception practiced so far; and if, when horse and man are thus on good terms, the man brings out the halter for its use in the relation of master and servitor between the two, that also is proper, and the horse would so understand it. But if the man were to refuse the gra.s.s to the horse, when the two had come together, and were to subst.i.tute for it the halter, the man would do wrong, and the horse would recognize the fact, and not be caught again in that way.

Even a writer like Professor Bowne, who is not quite sure as to the right in all phases of the lying question, sees this point in its psychological aspects to better advantage than those ethical writers who would look at the duty of truthfulness as mainly a social virtue: "Even in cases where we regard truth as in our own power," he says, "there are considerations of expediency which are by no means to be disregarded. There is first the psychological fact that inexactness of statement, exaggeration, unreality in speech, are sure to react upon the mental habit of the person himself, and upon the estimate in which his statements are held by others. In dealing with children, also, however convenient a romancing statement might momentarily be, it is unquestionable that exact truthfulness is the only way which does not lead to mischief. Even in dealing with animals, it pays in the long run to be truthful. The horse that is caught once by false pretenses will not be long in finding out the trick. The physician also who dissembles, quickly comes to lose the confidence of his patient, and has thereafter no way of getting himself believed."[1]

[Footnote 1: Bowne's _Principles of Ethics_, p. 224.]

The main question is not whether it is fair toward an animal for a man to lie to him, but whether it is fair toward a man's self, or toward G.o.d the maker of animals and of men, for a man to lie to an animal. A lie has no place, even theoretically, in the universe, unless it be in some sphere where G.o.d has no cognizance and man has no individuality.