first learned about the thing, always slipping back into the mind, drive out recollection of the false, or modified, added details. When they invent altogether, inasmuch as there is no contrary impression to oppose their falsification, they seem to have so much the less reason to be afraid of making a mistake. Yet, even then, because it is a vague, bodiless thing, not easily held, it readily escapes the memory, unless it be very reliable. (b) Whereof I have often seen amusing proof, at the expense of those who make it their business so to frame their speech as will best serve in their negotiations, and will be agreeable to those in high station with whom they are talking; for as these circumstances to which they choose to subordinate their faith and conscience are subject to frequent changes, their language must needs be changed likewise; from which it comes about that they call the same thing now grey and now yellow; say this to one man and that to another; and if, by chance, these men bring together as common booty their so inconsistent pieces of information, what becomes of that noble art? Besides, they too often imprudently embarrass themselves; for what memory could suffice to keep in mind the multitude of different forms they have given to a single subject? I have known many of my contemporaries to envy the reputation for this noble kind of prudence, who do not see that, if there be the reputation, there cannot be the effect.
(c) In truth, lying is an accursed vice.[1] We are men only by speech, and are only thereby bound to one another. If we understood the horribleness and the weight of it, we should drag it to the stake more justly than other crimes. I find that people ordinarily busy themselves most ill-advisedly with punishing children for harmless mistakes, and worry them about heedless acts which leave no trace or consequence. Lying alone, and in a less degree obstinacy, seem to me to be the faults whose birth and progress we should most insistently combat; they increase with the child’s growth, and when the tongue has been given this false direction, it is wonderful how impossible it is to turn it. Whence it comes about that we see those who are otherwise excellent
- ↑ Cf. infra, Book II, chap. 18 (“Of Lying”): C'est un vilain vice que le mentir.
