A Lie Never Justifiable: A Study in Ethics. H. Clay Trumbull
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to truth in speech and act is still the standard, and a lie is abhorrent to the normal instincts of the race. Of the Khonds of Central India it is said that they, "in common with many other wild races, bear a singular character for truthfulness and honesty;"[1] and that especially "the aborigine is the most truthful of beings."[2] "The Khonds believe that truthfulness is one of the most sacred of duties imposed by the gods."[3] "They are men of one word."[4] "The truth is by a Sonthals held sacred." [5] The Todas "call falsehood one of the worst of vices."[6] Although it is said by one traveler that the Todas "practice dissimulation toward Europeans, yet he recognizes this as a trait consequent on their intercourse with Europeans."[7] The Bheels, which were said to be "a race of unmitigated savages, without any sense of natural religion." [8] and "which have preserved their rude habits and manners to the present day," are "yet imbued with a sense of truth and honor strangely at contrast with their external character."[9] Bishop Heber says that "their word is more to be depended on than that of their conquerors."[10] Of the Sowrahs it is said: "A pleasing feature in their character is their complete truthfulness. They do not know how to tell a lie."[11] Indeed, as Mr. Spencer sums up the case on this point, there are Hill Tribes in India "originally distinguished by their veracity, but who are rendered less veracious by contact with the whites. 'So rare is lying among these aboriginal races when unvitiated by the 'civilized,' that of those in Bengal, Hunter singles out the Tipperahs as 'the only Hill Tribe in which this vice is met with.'"[12]
[Footnote 1: Glasfurd, cited in Cycl. of Descrip. Sociol., V., 32.]
[Footnote 2: Forsyth, Ibid.]
[Footnote 3: Macpherson, cited in Ibid.]
[Footnote 4: Ibid.]
[Footnote 5: Sherwill, cited in Ibid.]
[Footnote 6: Harkness, cited in Cycl. of Descrip. Sociol., V., 31.]
[Footnote 7: Spencer's Principles of Sociology, II., 234.]
[Footnote 8: Marshman, cited in Cycl. of Descrip. Sociol., V., 31.]
[Footnote 9: Wheeler, cited in Ibid.]
[Footnote 10: Cited in Ibid.]
[Footnote 11: Shortt, cited in Ibid.]
[Footnote 12: Spencer's Principles of Sociology, II., 234 ff.]
The Arabs are more truthful in their more primitive state than where they are influenced by "civilization," or by dealings with those from civilized communities.[1] And the same would seem to be true of the American Indians.[2] Of the Patagonians it is said: "A lie with them is held in detestation." [3] "The word of a Hottentot is sacred;" and the good quality of "a rigid adherence to truth," "he is master of in an eminent degree."[4] Dr. Livingstone says that lying was known to be a sin by the East Africans "before they knew aught of Europeans or their teaching."[5] And Mungo Park says of the Mandingoes, among the inland Africans, that, while they seem to be thieves by nature," one of the first lessons in which the Mandingo women instruct their children is the practice of truth." The only consolation of a mother whose son had been murdered, "was the reflection that the poor boy, in the course of his blameless life, had never told a lie."[6] Richard Burton is alone among modern travelers in considering lying natural to all primitive or savage peoples. Carl Bock, like other travelers, testifies to the unvarying truthfulness of the Dyaks in Borneo,[7] and another observant traveler tells of the disgrace that attaches to a lie in that land, as shown by the "lying heaps" of sticks or stones along the roadside here and there. "Each heap is in remembrance of some man who has told a stupendous lie, or failed in carrying out an engagement; and every passer-by takes a stick or a stone to add to the accumulation, saying at the time he does it, 'For So-and-so's lying heap.' It goes on for generations, until they sometimes forget who it was that told the lie, but, notwithstanding that, they continue throwing the stones."[8] What a blocking of the paths of civilization there would be if a "lying heap" were piled up wherever a lie had been told, or a promise had been broken, by a child of civilization!
[Footnote 1: Denham, and Palgrave, cited in Cycl. of Des. Social., V., 30,31.]
[Footnote 2: See Morgan's League of the Iroquois, p. 335; also Schoolcraft, and Keating, on the Chippewas, cited in Cycl. of Descrip. Sociol., VI., 30.]
[Footnote 3: Snow, cited in Ibid.]
[Footnote 4: Kolben, and Barrow, cited in Cycl. of Descrip. Sociol., IV., 25.]
[Footnote 5: Cycl. of Descrip. Sociol., IV., 26.]
[Footnote 6: Cycl. of Descrip. Social., IV., 27.]
[Footnote 7: Head Hunters of Borneo, p. 209. See also Boyle, cited in Spencer's Cycl. of Descrip. Social., III., 35.]
[Footnote 8: St. John's Life in the Forests of the Far East, I., 88 f.]
The Veddahs of Ceylon, one of the most primitive of peoples, "are proverbially truthful."[1] The natives of Java are peculiarly free from the vice of lying, except in those districts which have had most intercourse with Europeans.[2]
[Footnote 1: Bailey, cited in Spencer's Cycl. of Descrip. Social., III., 32.]
[Footnote 2: Earl, and Raffles, cited in Ibid., p. 35.]
It is found, in fact, that in all the ages, the world over, primitive man's highest ideal conception of deity has been that of a God who could not tolerate a lie; and his loftiest standard of human action has included the readiness to refuse to tell a lie under any inducement, or in any peril, whether it be to a friend or to an enemy. This is the teaching of ethnic conceptions on the subject. The lie would seem to be a product of civilization, or an outgrowth of the spirit of trade and barter, rather than a natural impulse of primitive man. It appeared in full flower and fruitage in olden time among the commercial Phoenicians, so prominently that "Punic faith" became a synonym of falsehood in social dealings.
Yet it is in the face of facts like these that a writer like Professor Fowler baldly claims, in support of the same presupposed theory as that of Lecky, that "it is probably owing mainly to the development of commerce, and to the consequent necessity, in many cases, of absolute truthfulness, that veracity has come to take the prominent position which it now occupies among the virtues; though the keen sense of honor, engendered by chivalry, may have had something to do in bringing about the same result."[1]
[Footnote 1: Principles of Morality, II., 220.]
III.
BIBLE TEACHINGS.
In looking at the Bible for light in such an investigation as this, it is important to bear in mind that the Bible is not a collection of specific rules of conduct, but rather a book of principles illustrated in historic facts, and in precepts based on those principles—announced or presupposed. The question, therefore, is not, Does the Bible authoritatively draw a line separating the truth from a lie, and making the truth to be always right, and a lie to be always wrong? but it is, Does the Bible evidently recognize an unvarying and ever-existing distinction between a truth and a lie, and does the whole sweep of its teachings go to show that in God's sight a lie, as by its nature opposed to the truth and the right, is always wrong?
The Bible opens with a picture of the first pair in Paradise, to whom God tells the simple truth, and to whom the enemy of man tells a lie; and it shows the ruin of mankind wrought by that lie, and the author of the lie punished because of its telling.[1] The Bible closes with a picture of Paradise, into which are gathered the lovers and doers of truth, and from which is excluded "every one that loveth and doeth a lie;"[2] while "all liars" are to have their part "in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone; which is the second death."[3] In the Old Testament and in the New, God is represented as himself the Truth, to whom, by his very nature, the doing or the speaking of a lie is impossible,[4] while Satan is represented as a liar and as the "father of lies."[5]