Chapter 2

As Harischandra strikes at the neck of Chandravati, "the sword, instead of harming her, is transformed into a necklace of pearls, which winds itself around her. The gods of heaven, all sages, and all kings, appear suddenly to the view of Harischandra," and Siva, the first of the gods, commends him for his fidelity to truth, and tells him that his dead son shall be brought again to life, and his kingdom and treasures and honors shall be restored to him. And thus the story of Harischandra stands as a rebuke to the Christian philosopher who could suppose that God, or the gods, would co-work with a man who acted on the supposition that there is such an anomaly in the universe as "a lie of necessity."

The old Scandinavian heroes were valiant in war, but they held that a lie was not justifiable under any pressure of an emergency. Their Valhalla heaven was the home of those who had fought bravely; but there was no place for liars in it. A fine illustration of their conception of the unvarying duty of truthfulness is given in the saga of Fridthjof. Fridthjof, heroic son of Thorstein, loved Ingeborg, daughter of his father's friend, King Bele. Ingeborg's brother Helge, successor to his father's throne, opposed the match, and shut her up within the sacred enclosure of the god Balder. Fridthjof ventured within the forbidden ground, in order to pledge to her his manly troth. The lovers were pure in purpose and in act, but, if their interview were known, they would both be permanently harmed in reputation and in standing. A rumor of their secret meeting was circulated, and Fridthjof was summoned before the council of heroes to answer to the charge. If ever a lie were justifiable, it would seem to be when a pure woman's honor was at stake, and when a hero's happiness and power for good pivoted on it. Fridthjof tells to Ingeborg the story of his sore temptation when, in the presence of the council, Helge challenges his course.

"'Say, Fridthjof, Balder's peace hast thou not broken, Not seen my sister in his house while Day Concealed himself, abashed, before your meeting? Speak! yea or nay!' Then echoed from the ring Of crowded warriors, 'Say but nay, say nay! Thy simple word we'll trust; we'll court for thee,--Thou, Thorstein's son, art good as any king's. Say nay! say nay! and thine is Ingeborg!' 'The happiness,' I answered, 'of my life On one word hangs; but fear not therefore, Helge! I would not lie to gain the joys of Valhal, Much less this earth's delights. I've seen thy sister, Have spoken with her in the temple's night, But have not therefore broken Balder's peace!' More none would hear. A murmur of deep horror The diet traversed; they who nearest stood Drew back, as I had with the plague been smitten."[1]

[Footnote 1: Anderson's _Viking Tales of the North_, p. 223.]

And so, because Fridthjof would not lie, he lost his bride and became a wanderer from his land, and Ingeborg became the wife of another; and this record is to this day told to the honor of Fridthjof, in accordance with the standard of the North in the matter of truth-telling.

In ancient Persia, the same high standard prevailed. Herodotus says of the Persians: "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."[1] "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."[2] Here the one duty in the realm of morals is truth-telling. In the famous inscription of Darius, the son of Hystaspes, on the Rock of Behistun,[3] there are repeated references to lying as the chief of sins, and to the evil time when lying was introduced into Persia, and "the lie grew in the provinces, in Persia as well as in Media and in the other provinces." Darius claims to have had the help of "Ormuzd and the other gods that may exist," because he "was not wicked, nor a liar;" and he enjoins it on his successor to "punish severely him who is a liar or a rebel."

[Footnote 1: Rawlinson's _Herodotus_, Bk. I., § 139.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., Bk. I., § 136.]

[Footnote 3: Sayce's _Introduction to Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther_, pp. 120-137.]

The Zoroastrian designation of heaven was the "Home of Song;" while hell was known as the "Home of the Lie."[1] There was in the Zoroastrian thought only two rival principles in the universe, represented by Ormuzd and Ahriman, as the God of truth, and the father of lies; and the lie was ever and always an offspring of Ahriman, the evil principle: it could not emanate from or be consistent with the God of truth. The same idea was manifest in the designation of the subordinate divinities of the Zoroastrian religion. Mithra was the god of light, and as there is no concealment in the light, Mithra was also god of truth. A liar was the enemy of righteousness.[2]

[Footnote 1: Müller's _Sacred Books of the East_, XXXI., 184.]

[Footnote 2: Müller's _Sacred Books of the East_, XXIII., 119 f., 124 f., 128, 139. See reference to Jackson's paper on "the ancient Persians' abhorrence of falsehood, illustrated from the Avesta," in _Journal of Am. Oriental Soc_., Vol. XIII., p. cii.]

"Truth was the main cardinal virtue among the Egyptians," and "falsehood was considered disgraceful among them."[1] Ra and Ma were symbols of Light and Truth; and their representation was worn on the breastplate of priest and judge, like the Urim and Thummim of the Hebrews.[2] When the soul appeared in the Hall of Two Truths, for final judgment, it must be able to say, "I have not told a falsehood," or fail of acquittal.[3] Ptah, the creator, a chief god of the Egyptians, was called "Lord of Truth."[4] The Egyptian conception of Deity was: "God is the truth, he lives by truth, he lives upon the truth, he is the king of truth."[5] The Egyptians, like the Zoroastrians, seemed to count the one all-dividing line in the universe the line between truth and falsehood, between light and darkness.

[Footnote 1: Wilkinson's _Ancient Egyptians_, I., 299; III., 183-185.]

[Footnote 2: Exod. 39: 8-21; Lev. 8: 8.]

[Footnote 3: Bunsen's _Egypt's Place in Universal History_, V., 254.]

[Footnote 4: Wilkinson's _Anc. Egyp_., III., 15-17.]

[Footnote 5: Budge's _The Dwellers on the Nile_, p. 131.]

Among the ancient Greeks the practice of lying was very general, so general that writers on the social life of the Greeks have been accustomed to give a low place relatively to that people in its estimate of truthfulness as a virtue. Professor Mahaffy says on this point: "At no period did the nation ever attain that high standard which is the great feature in Germanic civilization. Even the Romans, with all their coarseness, stood higher in this respect. But neither in Iliad nor in Odyssey is there, except in phrases, any reprobation of deceit as such." He points to the testimony of Cicero, concerning the Greeks, who "concedes to them all the high qualities they choose to claim save one--that of truthfulness."[1] Yet the very way in which Herodotus tells to the credit of the Persians that they allowed no place for the lie in their ethics[2] seems to indicate his apprehension of a higher standard of veracity than that which was generally observed among his own people. Moreover, in the Iliad, Achilles is represented as saying: "Him I hate as I do the gates of Hades, who hides one thing in his heart and utters another;" and it is the straightforward Achilles, rather than "the wily and shiftful Ulysses," who is the admired hero of the Greeks.[3] Plato asserts, and argues in proof of his assertion, that "the veritable lie ... is hated by all gods and men." He includes in the term "veritable lie," or "genuine lie," a lie in the soul as back of the spoken lie, and he is sure that "the divine nature is incapable of a lie," and that in proportion as the soul of a man is conformed to the divine image, the man "will speak, act, and live in accordance with the truth."[4] Aristotle, also, while recognizing different degrees of veracity, insists that the man who is in his soul a lover of truth will be truthful even when he is tempted to swerve from the truth. "For the lover of truth, who is truthful where nothing is at stake [or where it makes no difference], will yet more surely be truthful where there is a stake [or where it does make a difference]; for he will [then] shun the lie as shameful, since he shuns it simply because it is a lie."[5] And, again, "Falsehood abstractly is bad and blamable, and truth honorable and praiseworthy; and thus the truthful man being in the mean is praiseworthy, while the false [in either extreme, of overstating or of understating] are both blamable, but the exaggerating man more so than the other."[6]

[Footnote 1: Mahaffy's _Social Life in Greece_, pp. 27, 123. See also Fowler's _Principles of Morals_, II., 219-221.]

[Footnote 2: _Hist_., Bk. I., §139.]

[Footnote 3: Professor Fowler seems to be quite forgetful of this fact. He speaks of Ulysses as if he had precedence of Achilles in the esteem of the Greeks. See his _Principles of Morals_, II., 219.]

[Footnote 4: Plato's _Republic_, II., 382, a, b.]

[Footnote 5: Aristotle's _Eth. Nic_., IV., 13, 1127, a, b.]

[Footnote 6: _Ibid_., IV.]

Theognis recognizes this high ideal of the duty and the beauty of truthfulness, when he says: "At first there is a small attractiveness about a lie, but in the end the gain it brings is both shameful and harmful. That man has no fair glory, in whose heart dwells a lie, and from whose mouth it has once issued."[1]

[Footnote 1: Theognis, 607.]

Pindar looks toward the same standard when he says to Hiero, "Forge thy tongue on the anvil of truth;"[1] and when he declares emphatically, "I will not stain speech with a lie."[2] So, again, when his appeal to a divinity is: "Thou that art the beginning of lofty virtue, Lady Truth, forbid thou that my poem [or composition] should stumble against a lie, harsh rock of offense."[3] In his tragedy of the Philoctetes, Sophocles makes the whole play pivot on the remorse of Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, over his having lied to Philoctetes (who is for the time being an enemy of the Greeks), in order to secure through him the killing of Paris and the overthrow of Troy. The lie was told at the instigation of Ulysses; but Neoptolemus repents its utterance, and refuses to take advantage of it, even though the fate of Troy and the triumph of Greek arms depend on the issue. The plain teaching of the tragedy is that "the purposes of heaven are not to be served by a lie; and that the simplicity of the young son of truth-loving Achilles is better in the sight of heaven, even when it seems to lead to failure, than all the cleverness of guileful Ulysses."[4]

[Footnote 1: Pythian Ode, I, 86.]

[Footnote 2: Olympian Ode, 4, 16.]

[Footnote 3: Bergk's _Pindar_, 183 [221].]

[Footnote 4: Professor Lamberton]

It is admitted on all hands that the Romans and the Germans had a high ideal as to the duty of truthfulness and the sin of lying.[1] And so it was in fact with all peoples which had any considerable measure of civilization in former ages. It is a noteworthy fact that the duty of veracity is often more prominent among primitive peoples than among the more civilized, and that, correspondingly, lying is abhorred as a vice, or seems to be unknown as an expedient in social intercourse. This is not always admitted in the theories of writers on morals, but it would seem to be borne out by an examination into the facts of the case. Lecky, in his study of "the natural history of morals,"[2] claims that veracity "usually increases with civilization," and he seeks to show why it is so. But this view of Lecky's is an unfounded assumption, in support of which he proffers no evidence; while Herbert Spencer's exhibit of facts, in his "Cyclopaedia of Descriptive Sociology," seems to disprove the claim of Lecky; and he directly asserts that "surviving remnants of some primitive races in India have natures in which truthfulness seems to be organic; that not only to the surrounding Hindoos, higher intellectually and relatively advanced in culture, are they in this respect far superior, but they are superior to Europeans."[3]

[Footnote 1: See Fowler's _Principles of Morals_, II., 220; also Mahaffy's _Social Life in Greece_, p. 27. Note, for instance, the high standard as to truthfulness indicated by Cicero, in his "Offices," III., 12-17, 32. "Pretense and dissimulation ought to be banished from the whole of life." "Reason ... requires that nothing be done insidiously, nothing dissemblingly, nothing falsely." Note, also, Juvenal, Satire XIII., as to the sin of a lie purposed, even if not spoken; and Marcus Aurelius in his "Thoughts," Book IX.: "He ... who lies is guilty of impiety to the same [highest] divinity." "He, then, who lies intentionally is guilty of impiety, inasmuch as he acts unjustly by deceiving; and he also who lies unintentionally, inasmuch as he is at variance with the universal nature, and inasmuch as he disturbs the order by fighting against the nature of the world; for he fights against it, who is moved of himself to that which is contrary to truth, for he had received powers from nature through the neglect of which he is not able now to distinguish falsehood from truth."]

[Footnote 2: _History of European Morals_, I., 143.]

[Footnote 3: See Spencer's _Principles of Sociology_, II., 234 ff.; also his _Inductions of Ethics_, p. 405 f.]

Among those Hill Tribes of India which have been most secluded, and which have retained the largest measure of primitive life and customs, fidelity 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]

[Footnote 1: Gen. 2, 3.]

[Footnote 2: Rev. 22.]

[Footnote 3: Rev. 21: 5-8.]

[Footnote 4: Psa. 31:5; 146:6; John 14:6; Num. 23:19; 1 Sam. 15:29; Titus 1:2; Heb. 6:18; 1 John 5:7.]

[Footnote 5: John 8:44.]

While the human servants of God, as represented in the Bible narrative, are in many instances guilty of lying, their lies are clearly contrary to the great principle, in the light of which the Bible itself is written, that a lie is always wrong, and that it cannot have justification in God's sight. The idea of the Bible record is that God is true, though every man were a liar.[1] God is uniformly represented as opposed to lies and to liars, and a lie in his sight is spoken of as a lie unto him, or as a lie against him. In the few cases where the Bible narrative has been thought by some to indicate an approval by the Lord of a lie, that was told, as it were, in his interest, an examination of the facts will show that they offer no exception to the rule that, by the Bible standard, a lie is never justifiable.

[Footnote 1: Rom. 3:4.]

Take, for example, the case of the Hebrew midwives, who lied to the officials of Pharaoh, when they were commanded to kill every Hebrew male child;[1] and of whom it is said that "God dealt well with the midwives;... and ... because the midwives feared God,... he made them houses."[2] Here it is plain that God commended their fear of him, not their lying in behalf of his people, and that it was "because the midwives feared God" not because they lied, "that he made them houses." It was their choice of the Lord above the gods and rulers of Egypt that won them the approval of the Lord, even though they were sinners in being liars; as in an earlier day it was the approval of Jacob's high estimate of the birthright, and not the deceits practiced by him on Esau and his father Isaac, that the Lord showed in confirming a blessing to Jacob.[3]

[Footnote 1: Exod. 1: 15-19.]

[Footnote 2: Exod. I: 20, 21.]

[Footnote 3: Gen. 25: 27-34; 27; 1-40; 28: 1-22]