manded that they should be fed and sent back to their master. Examples of this kind of deception are numerous in the Old Testament. Some of them are simply recorded facts, without anything to indicate how they were regarded in the sight of God ; but others, as in the cases above cited, received either directly or by implication the divine sanction. Of our blessed Lord himself it is said in Luke xxiv. 28, " He made as though (7rpoo-€7rot€tTo, he made a show of) he would have gone further." He so acted as to make the impression on the two disciples that it was his pur- pose to continue his journey. (Comp. Mark vi. 48.) Many the- ologians do not admit that the fact recorded in Luke xxiv. 28, involved any intentional deception ; because the " simulatio non fuerit in verbis veritati contradicentibus, sed in gestibus veritati consentientibus. Christus .... agebat, ut qui iturus esset longius, et revera iturus fuerat, nisi rogatus fuisset a discipulis,
alia fortasse ratione se iis manifesturus Alii dicunt, simu-
lationem fuisse tentatoriam, aeque ac illam, quae in Abrahami historia a scriptore sacro commemoratur Gen. xxii. 2. In eandem sententiam descendunt Beausobre et L'Enfant, qui in notis gal- licis ad Luc. xxiv. 28, ita scribunt : C'est un feinte innocente et pleine d'amour, par laquelle Je*sus-Christ veut e"prouver la foi de ses disciples. Ainsi en usent les medicins a l'e*gard des malades, et les pdres a regard de leurs enfans.', x
It is the general sentiment among moralists that stratagems in war are allowable ; that it is lawful not only to conceal intended movements from an enemy, but also to mislead him as to your intentions. A great part of the skill of a military commander is evinced in detecting the intentions of his adversary, and in con- cealing his own. Few men would be so scrupulous as to refuse to keep a light in a room, when robbery was apprehended, with the purpose of producing the impression that the members of the household were on the alert.
On these grounds it is generally admitted that in criminal false- hoods there must be not only the enunciation or signification of what is false, and an intention to deceive, but also a violation of some obligation. If there maybe any combination of circum- stances under which a man is not bound to speak the truth, those to whom the declaration or signification is made have no right to expect him to do so. A general is under no obligation to reveal his intended movements to his adversary ; and his adversary has no right to suppose that his apparent intention is his real purpose.
1 Gerhard, Loci Theobgici, xiii. 177; edit Tubingen, 176«, vol. v. p. 346, Cotta's note.
442 PART IH. Ch. XIX. — THE LAW.
Elisha was under no obligation to aid the Syrians in securing his person and taking his lif e ; and they had no right to assume that he would thus assist them. And, therefore, he did no wrong in misleading them. There will always be cases in which the rule of duty is a matter of doubt. It is often said that the rule above stated applies when a robber demands your purse. It is said to be right to deny that you have anything of value about you. You are not bound to aid him in committing a crime ; and he has no right to assume that you will facilitate the accomplishment of his object. This is not so clear. The obligation to speak the truth is a very solemn one ; and when the choice is left a man to tell a lie or lose his money, he had better let his money go. On the other hand, if a mother sees a murderer in pursuit of her child, she has a perfect right to mislead him by any means in her power ; because the general obligation to speak the truth is merged or lost, for the time being, in the higher obligation. This principle is not invalidated by its possible or actual abuse. It has been greatly abused. Jesuits taught that the obligations to promote the good of the Church absorbed or superseded every other obliga- tion. And, therefore, in their system not only falsehood and mental reservation, but perjury, robbery, and assassination be- came lawful if committed with the design of promoting the in- terests of the Church. Notwithstanding this liability to abuse, the principle that a higher obligation absolves from a lower stands firm. It is a dictate even of the natural conscience. It is evi- dently right to inflict pain in order to save life. It is right to sub- ject travellers to quarantine, although it may grievously interfere with their wishes or interests, to save a city from pestilence. The principle itself is clearly inculcated by our Lord when He said, " I will have mercy and not sacrifice ; " and when He taught that it was right to violate the Sabbath in order to save the fife of an ox, or even to prevent its suffering. The Jesuits erred in assuming that the promotion of the interests of the Church (in their sense especially of the word Church) was a higher duty than obedience to the moral law. They erred also in assuming that the interests of the Church could be promoted by the commission of crime ; and their principle was in direct violation of the Scriptural rule that it is wrong to do evil that good may come.
The question now under consideration is not whether it is ever right to do wrong, which is a solecism ; nor is the question whether it is ever right to lie ; but rather what constitutes a lie. It is not simply an " enunciatio falsi," nor, as it is commonly defined by
§ is.] THE NINTH COMMANDMENT. 443
the moralists of the Church of Rome, a u locutio contra mentem loquentis ; " 1 but there must be an intention to deceive when we are expected and bound to speak the truth. That is, there are circumstances in which a man is not bound to speak the truth, and therefore there are cases in which speaking or intimating what is not true is not a lie. The Roman moralists just referred to, answer the question, Whether it is ever lawful to lie ? in the nega- tive. Dens, for example goes so far as to say : " Non licet mentiri (*. e., to utter what is not true, as he defines the word ■ menda- cium ') ad avertendum mortem aut interitum Reipublicae, vel quas- cunque alia mala : in hujusmodi perplexitatibus debent homines confugere ad auxilium Dei, angeli custodis," etc.2 This is a sound rule, provided the obligation to speak the truth exists. It is far better that a man should die or permit a murder to be committed, than that he should sin against God. Nothing could tempt the Christian martyrs to save their own lives or the lives of their brethren by denying Christ, or by professing to believe in false gods ; in these cases the obligation to speak the truth was in full force. But in the case of a commanding general in time of war, the obligation does not exist to intimate his true intentions to his adversary. Intentional deception in his case is not morally a falsehood. Although the Romanist theologians lay down the rule that a mendaoium is never lawful, and although they define mendacium as stated above, yet they teach that if a confessor is asked whether he knows a fact confided to him in the confessional, he is at liberty to answer, No ; meaning that he does not know it scientia communicdbili. That is, he is authorized, according to their own definition of the word, to tell a downright falsehood. He may be right to reply to the question, Whether he knows a fact communicated to him in his character of confessor, by saying, " I am not at liberty to answer ; " but it is hard to see how he could be justified in a direct falsehood.*
In order to include the third element entering into the nature of criminal falsehood, Paley defines a lie to be a violation of a promise. Every violation of a promise is not a lie, for it may not
1 This definition is given by Dens, Theologia, De Mendacio, N. 242, edit. Dublin, 1832, vol. iv. p. 306.
2 Ibid. N. 243, p. 308.
8 " Confessarius interrogatus a tyranno an Titius confessus sit homicidium, respondere potest et debet: ' nescio; ' quia confessarius id nescit scientia communicabili. Imo, etiamsi instaret tyrannus, et diceret, ' An hoc nescis scientia sacramentali ? ' Respondere adhuc posset: ' nescio.' Ratio est, quia tyrannus bene scit se de hoc jus interrogandi non habere, nee confessarius ut homo scit se scire, sed uti vicarius Dei et scientia incommunicabili." John Peter Gury, Compendium Theologies Moralis, ne\r edit. Tornaci, vol. i. p. 201.
444 PART m. Ch. XIX. — THE LAW.