CHAPTER III.. Of Speaking the Truth.

OF SPEAKING THE TRUTH.

SECTION I.--Of the Definition of a Lie.

1. "Let none doubt," says St. Augustine, "that he lies, who utters what is false for the purpose of deceiving. Wherefore the utterance of what is false with a will to deceive is unquestionably a lie." The only question is, whether this definition does not contain more than is necessary to the thing defined. The objective falseness of what is said makes a material falsehood: the will to utter what is false makes a formal falsehood (Ethics, c. iii., s. ii., n. 7, p. 33): the will to create a false impression regards, not the falsehood itself, but the effect to follow from it. If a person says what is not true, but what he takes to be the truth, he tells indeed a material lie, but at the same time he puts forth no human act (Ethics, c. i., n. 2, p. 1) of lying. If on the other hand he says what he believes to be false, though it turns out true, he tells a formal lie, though not a material one, and moreover, he does a human act of lying. But human acts are the subject-matter of morality. The moralist therefore is content to define the formal lie: the material aspect of the lie is irrelevant to his enquiry. A formal lie is saying what one believes not to be true, or promising what one intends not to perform: briefly, it is speaking against one's mind.

2. We shall show presently that to speak against one's mind is intrinsically, necessarily, and always evil. But when a thing is thus evil in itself, there is no need to bring into the definition of the act, from a moral point of view, the intention with which it is done. There is no use in prying into ends, when the means taken is an unlawful means for any end. If a person blasphemes, we do not ask why he blasphemes: the intention is not part of the blasphemy: the utterance is a sin by itself. But if a person strikes, we ask why he strikes, to heal or to slay, in self-defence or in revenge. So, if speaking against one's mind is a thing indifferent and colourless in point of morality, and all depends on the intention with which we do it, so that we may speak against our minds to put another off, but not to deceive him, then certainly the intention to deceive must be imported into the definition of lying. But if, as we shall prove presently, the act of so speaking is by no means indifferent and colourless, but is fraught with an inordinateness all its own, then the intention may be left out of the question, the act is to be characterised on its own merits, and speech against one's mind is the definition of a lie.

3. Then, some one will say, it would be a lie for a prisoner in solitary confinement to break the silence of his cell with the exclamation, Queen Anne is not dead. The answer is simple: it takes two to make a speech. A man does not properly speak to himself, nor quarrel with himself, nor deal justly by himself. Not that it would be a lie to deny the death of Queen Anne even in public: for speech is an outward affirmation, the appearance of a serious will to apply predicate to subject: but in this case there is no appearance of a serious will: on the contrary, from the manifest absurdity of the assertion, it is plain that you are joking and do not mean to affirm anything. This perhaps is as far as we can go in permission of what are called lies in jest.

Readings.--St Thos., 2a 2æ, q. 110, art. 1.