Sometimes it
assumes the form of equivocation or moral dodging--twisting and
so stating the things said as to convey a false impression--a
kind of lying which a Frenchman once described as "walking round
about the truth."
There are even men of narrow minds and dishonest natures, who
pride themselves upon their jesuitical cleverness in equivocation,
in their serpent-wise shirking of the truth and getting out of
moral back-doors, in order to hide their real opinions and evade
the consequences of holding and openly professing them.
Institutions or systems based upon any such expedients must
necessarily prove false and hollow. "Though a lie be ever so well
dressed," says George Herbert, "it is ever overcome." Downright
lying, though bolder and more vicious, is even less contemptible
than such kind of shuffling and equivocation.
Untruthfulness exhibits itself in many other forms: in reticency
on the one hand, or exaggeration on the other; in disguise or
concealment; in pretended concurrence in others opinions; in
assuming an attitude of conformity which is deceptive; in making
promises, or allowing them to be implied, which are never intended
to be performed; or even in refraining from speaking the truth
when to do so is a duty. There are also those who are all things
to all men, who say one thing and do another, like Bunyan's Mr.
Facing-both-ways; only deceiving themselves when they think they
are deceiving others--and who, being essentially insincere, fail
to evoke confidence, and invariably in the end turn out failures,
if not impostors.
Pages:
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275