The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-06-21
rHE ErH1cs or FALsEHoop.

THE ETHICS OF FALSEHOOD.
remarkable pamphlet has been is
sued in Paris. 1t is from the pen of a
priest, and was published with the
permission of the Vicar General. The
title of it is, Lying. Properly So Call
ed" The author is a professor of the
! ology and a man of much learning.
He takes the ground that falsehOod,
or, in plain language. lying is under
certain circumstances not only per-
! MISSILE but preferable to tell
/ ing the truth. This is very
daring position for professor
! of theology to take; but he
goes even further and does a thing
| even moro daring. He claims that he
has divine precedent to support his po-
sition; In short, that Jesus himself
told falsehood. "Our Lord" he says,
certainly knew everything about the
last day, when He declared of that
day that the hour knoweth no man,
no, not even the angels which are in
Heaven, neither the Son" According
to the Paris priest and author. He
merely exercised the right of every
man to keep a secret.
"Timid, simple souls" says the pro-
fessor, "often find a moral stumbling
block in the fact that truth is not al
ways possible or desirable" For the
support of such persons he lays down
rules and regulations showing under
what circumstances truth may be sac
rificed. A lie of the wicked sort, he
says, is the deceiving of some person
who has a right to know the truth.
There are two classes of permissible
lies, those told to guard a secret and
those told in self defense. The false
hoods told in diplomacy and war, for
the purpose of deceiving the country's
enemy or to guard the country's
secrets, are held to be justfiable. And
one may lie to save his own skin or
his neck A witness before a court
may lie if he thinks telling the truth
would result in harm to himself. Even
a confessor has not the right to the
whole truth if he asks questions con-
corning a sin which has been already
absolved or questions concerning the
temporal affairs of his penitent. The
professor goes on to say that there are
occasions with respect to which hus-
bands and wives may lie to each other,
and children lie to their parents.
Knowing very well that any such po-
sition assumed by a churchman would
be sure to cali down criticism, the
professor says: MANY Puritans will
object to this point of view there still
being many hypocrites in the world"
And he was right in anticipating
criticism. So remarkable and danger
Gus an opinion from a preacher and
teacher of morals could not fail to at
tract attention and condemnation. If
the position taken by this professor
were admitted to be correct, it would
be extremely difficult to draw the line
between permissible and wicked lying.
There is no middle ground that can
be assumed in this matter. While it
may be true, as Sir John Falstaff said,
that this world is given to lying, in
diligence is not justification. 1t may
be- too, that the exact truth told al
ways and under all circumstances,
would be productive of much suffering
and hard feeling. Yet it is dangerous,
extremely dangerous, to temporize
with the lie and try to soften it down
to the point of being a necessary eX-
pedient. There should be no compro-
mise between truth and falsehood.