IX. Veracity

Here let us contemplate some of the illustrations of' ve~ racityand unveracity-chiefly unveracity-furnishedby vari ous human races. § 157. The members of wild tribes in diffei'entpartsof the world, who, as· hunters or asnotnads,are more or-less hostile to their 'neighbours; are nearly always reprobated by travellers for their untruthrulness; as are also the nlembers of larger societiesconsQlidated by conquest··under .de~potic rulers. . Says Burton' of' the Dakotas-" The Indian, like other savages, never tells the truth." Of the Mishmis, Griffith writes-" They have so little regard .for truth, that one cannot rely much on what they say." And a general relnark, d propos of ·the Kirghiz, is to the same effect. " Truth, throughout Central Asia, is subservient to the pow erful, and the ruler who governs leniently commands 'but little respect." . Of the settled societies, the first to benalned is the Fijian.

Willialns tells us that" Among the Fijians the propensity to lie is so strong, that they seem to have no wish to deny its existence.... Adroitness in lying is attained by the constant use made of it to conceal the schemes and plots of the Chiefs, to whom a ready and clever liatis' a valuable acquisitiom .•. ~A Fijian truth' has been regard<Klas a synonym for a lie.'" Of kindred nature,underkindred conditions, is the trait dis played by the people'.of Uganda~ c '" In comrbon with all savage tribes, truth is held in very low estimation, and it is never considered wrong to .tell 'lies; indeed,' a successful liar .is considered a smart, clever fellow, andratheradmired.". So, too, was it among the'.ancient semi-civilized' peoples '0£ Central America. De ·Laet says .of ·certain 'of ·them, living under a despotic and bloody regime-" they are liars, like most of the Indians." And concerning the -modernIndians, 402 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

who nlay be supposed to have preserved more or less the character of their progenitors, ~Dunlop writes :"I never have found any native of Central America, who would admit that there could be any vice in lying; and when one has succeeded in cheating another, however gross and infamous the fraud may be, the na tives will only remark, ' Que hombre vivo' (What a clever fellow)." A like fact is given by Mr. Foreman in his work on the Philippine Islands. He says the natives do not "appear to regard lying as a sin, hut rather as a legitimate, though cun ning, convenience." § 158. The literatures of ancient semi-civilized peoples yield evidence of stages during which truth ,vas little es teemed, or rather, during which lying was tacitly or openly applauded. As we saw in a recent chapter (§ 127) decep tion, joined with atrocity, was occasionally inculcated in the early Indian literature as a means to personal advancement.

vVe have proof in the Bible that, apart from the lying which constituted false witness, and was to the injury of a neigh bour, there was among the Hebrews but little reprobation of lying. Indeed it would be remarkable were itother,vise, considering that J ahveh set the example; as ,vhen, to ruin Ahab, he commissioned" a lying spirit" (1 Kings, xxii, 22) to deceive his prophets; or as when, according to Ezekiel, xiv, 9, he threatened to use deception as a means of vengeance.' "If the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel." Evidently from a race-character which evolved such a con ception of a deity's principles. there naturally came no great regard for veracity. This 'we see in sundry cases; as when Isaac said Rebeeca was not his wife but his sister, and never theless received the same year a bountiful harvest: "the Lord blessed hinl" (Gen. xxvi, 12); or as 'when Rebecca in duced Jacob to tell a lie to his father and defraud Esau--a lie not condemned but shortly follo,ved by a divine pronlise of prosperity; or as ,vhen Jeremiah tells a falsehood at the VERACITY. 403 king's suggestion. Still we must not overlook the fact that in the writings of the Hebre'w prophets, as also in parts of the New Testament, lying is strongly reprobated. A verag~ ing the evidence, we Inay infer that along with the settled life of the Heb~ews there had grown up among them an increased truthfulness.

Much regard for veracity was hardly to be expected among the Greeks. In the Iliad the gods are represented not only as deceiving men but as deceiving one another. The chiefs" do not hesitate at all manner of lying." Pallas Athbne is described as loving Ulysses because he is so de ceitful; and, in the ,vords of lJIahafIy, the Homeric society .is full of " guile and falsehood." * N or was it widely other wise in later days. The trait alleged of the Cretans "always liars "-though it may have been more marked in them than in Greeks at large, did not constitute an essential difference. lYlahaffydescribes Greek conduct in the Attic age as characterized by "treachery" and " selfish knavery," and says that Darius thought a Greek who kept his word a notable exception. Evidence of the relation bet"reen chronic hostilities and utter disregard of truth, is furnished throughout the history of Europe. In the Merovingian period - "the era of * Marvelous are t.he effects of educational bias. Familiarity with the doings of these people, guilty of so many" atrocities," characterized by such "revolting cruelty of manners," as Grote says, who were liars through all grades from their gods down to their slaves, and whose religion was made up of gross and brutal superstitions, distinguishes one of our leading 8tat.esmen; and, joined to familiarity with the doings of other Greeks, it is thought by him to furnish the best possible preparation for life of the highest kind. In a speech at Eton, reported in The Times, of 16 March, 1891,Mr. Gladstone said-" If the purpose of education is to fit the human mind for the efficient performance of the greatest functions, the ancjent culture, and, above all, Greek culture, is by far the best, the most lasting, and the most elastio instrument that can possibly be applied to it." Other questions aside, one might ask with puzzled curiosity which of lir. Gladstone's creeds, as a statesman, it is which we must ascribe to the influence of Greek culture- ...

whether the creed with which he set out as a Tory when fresh from Ox ford, or the extreme radical creed. which he has adopted of late years f 404 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS. " blood" -oaths taken by rulers, even with their hands on the altar, ","ere forthwith broken; and Salvian writes-" If a :Frank forswear hinlself, where's the wonder, when he thinks perjury but a form of speech, not of crinle?" After perpetual wars during the two hundred years of the Carolingian period, with Arabs, Saracens, Aquitanians, Sax ons, Lombards, Slavs, Avars, Normans, came the early feudal period, of which H. ~Iartin says :"The tenth [century] may pass for the era of fraud and deceit. At no other epoch of our history does the moral sense appear to have been so com pletely effaced from the human soul as in that first period of feudalism." And then,as an accompaniment and consequence of the internal conflicts which ended in the establishment of the French monarchy, there was a still-continued treachery: the aristocracy in their relations ,vith one another "were without truth, loyalty, or disinterestedness . . . N either life nor character was safe in their hands." Though Mr. Lecky ascribes the medireval "indifference to truth" to other causes than chronic militancy, yet he furnishes a sentence \vhich indirectly yields support to the induction here Illade, and is the more to be valued because it is not intended to yield such support. He relnarks that "where the indus trial spirit has not penetrated, truthfulness rarely occupies in the popular mind the same prominent position in the catalogue of virtues " as it does among those "educated in the haLits of industrial life."

N or do we fail to see at the present time, in the contrasts between the Eastern and Western nations of Europe, a like relation of phenomena. § 15.9. Reflection shows, however, that this relation is not a direct one. There is no immediate connexion between bloodthirstiness and the telling of lies. N or because a lnan is kind-hearted does it follow that he is truthful. If, as above inlplied, a lifeofarnity is conduci.ve to veracity, while a life of enmity fosters unveracity, the dependencies must be VERACITY. 405 indirect~ After glancing at· SOIne further facts, we shall understand better in what "rays these traits of life and character are usually associated. In respect of veracity, as in respect of other virtues, I have again to instance various aboriginal peoples who have been thrust by invading races into undesirable habitats; and have there been left either. in absolute tranquillity or free from chronic hostilities with their neighbours. Saying of the Kois that they all seeln to suffer from chronic fever (which sufficiently 'shows why they are left unmolested in their malarious \vilds)J\!Iorris tells us that"They are noted for truthfulness, and are quite an example in. this re spect to the civilized and more cultivated inhabitants of the plains."

According to Shortt, in his Hill Ranges pf Southern India"A pleasing feature in their [Sowrahs] character is their complete truthfulness~ They do not know how to tell a lie. They are not suffi": ciently civilized· to be able to invent." 1-nlay remark .. in passing that. I· have heard other Anglo Indians assign lack of intelligence as the cause of this good trait-a not very respectable endeavour. to save the credit of the higher.· races. Considering that small children tell lies, and that lies are told, if not in speech .yet in acts, "by dogs, considerable hardihood is shown in ascribing the truthful ness of these and kindred peoples. to stupidity. In his Highlands of Oentral India, Forsyth ,vrites:" The aborigine is the most. truthful of beings, and rarely denies either a money obligation or a crime really chargeable against him." Describing the R:ilnosis, Sinclair alleges that"1'hey are as great liars as the most civilized races, differing in this from the Hill tribes proper, and from the ParWarlS, of whom I once knew a Brahman to say: 'The Kunabis, if they have made a promise, will keep it, but a l\1~ahar [Parwari] is such a fool that he will tell the truth without any reason at all.'"

.A.ndthis opinion expressed by the Brahman, well illustrates the way in which their more civilized neighbours corrupt these veracious aborigines; for while Sherwill,· writing of another tribe, says -" The truth is by a Sonthal held sacred, offering in this respect a bright exanlple to . their 406 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS. lying neighbours the Bengalis," it is remarked 0:£ them by Man that" Evil comm unications are exercising their baneful influences over them, and soon, I fear, the proverbial veracity of the Sonthal will cease to become a by-word." In The Principles if Sociology, vol. ii, §§ 43'7 and 574, I gave the names of others of these Indian hill-tribes noted for veracity-the Bodo and Dhil1uUs, the Carnatic abori gines, the Todas, the Hos; and here I rnay add one more, the Puluyans, whose refuge is "hen1111ed in on all sides by mountains, \voods, back"raters, swamps, and the sea," and who "are sornetinles distinguished by a rare character for truth and honour, which their superiors in the caste scale might well emulate." So too is it in a neighbouring land, Ceylon. Wood-Veddahs are described as " proverbially truth ful and honest." From other regions there comes kindred evidence. Of SOITIe Northern Asiatic peoples, who are ap parently without any organization for offence or defence, we read :,.-" To the credit of the Ostiaks and Sanloiedes it must be said, that they are eminently distinguished for in tegrity and truthfulness."

But novv we have to note facts which rnake us pause. There are instances of truthfulness an10ng peoples who are but partially peaceful, and alTIOng others who are any thing but peaceful. Though characterized as " lnild, quiet, and timid," the Hottentots have not infrequent wars about territories; and yet, in agreement ·with Barrow, Kolben saysThe Word of a Hottentot "is sacred: and there is hardly any Thing upon Earth they look upon as a fouler Crime than breach of Engagement." ~Iorgan, writing of the Iroquois, states that "the love of truth was another marked trait of the Indian character." And yet, though the Iroquois league \vas formed avowedly for the preservation of peace, and achieved this end in respect of its component nations, these nations carried on hostilities with their·· neighbours. The Patagonian tribes VERACITY. 407 have frequent fights with one another, as well as with the aggressiv~. Spaniards; and yet Snow says-" A lie with them is held in detestation." The Khonds, too, who believe that truthfulness is one of the most sacred duties hnposed by the gods, have "sanguinary contlicts" bet","'een tribes respecting their lands. And of the Kolis, inhabiting the highlands of the Dekhan, w'e read that though "nlanly, simpIe, and truthful," they are "great plunderers" and guilty of " unrelenting cruelty."

What is there in common between these truthful and pa cHic tribes and these truthful tribes which are more or less warlike ~ The COlnnlon trait· is that they are not subject to coercive rule. That this is so with tribes which are peace ful, I have shown elsewhere \ (Principle8 of Sociology, ii, §§ 573-4); and here we come upon the significant fact that it is so, too, with truthful tribes which are not peaceful. The Hottentots are governed by an assembly deciding by a majority, and the head Inen have hut little authority. The Iroquois were under the control of a council of fifty elected sacheln~, 'who could be deposed by their tribes;' and military expeditions, led, by chiefs chosen for merit, were left to private enterprise and vo1u~tary service. .Among the Patagonians there. was but feeble government: followers deserting their chiefs if dissatisfied. Writing of the Khonds' " system of society" Macphe.rson says-" The spirit of equal ity pervades its whole constitution, society is governed by the nloral influence of its natural heads alone; to the entire ex clusion of the principle of coercive authority."

§ 160. In the remarks of sundry travellers, we find evi dence that it is the presence or absence of despotic rule which leads to prevalent falsehood or prevalent truth. . Reference to the Report8 on the Di8covery if Peru of . Xeres and Pizarro (pp. 68-9, 85-6, 114-120), makes it manifest that the general untruthfulness described was due to the intimidation the Indians were subject to. So, too, respect408 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS. ing the Mexicans, the Franciscan testimony was-" They are liars, but to those who treat them well they speak the truth readily." A clear conception of the relation between mendacity and fear was given to Livingstone by his experi ences. Speaking of the falsehood of the East Africans he says"But great as this failing is among the free,.it is much more annoying among the slaves.. One can scarcely induce a slave to translate anything truly: he is so intent on thinking of what will please."

And he further remarks that "untruthfulness is a sort of refuge for the weak and oppressed." A glance over civilized communities at once furnishes verification. Of European .peoples, those subject to the most absolute rule, running down from their autocrat through all grades, are the Russians; and their extreme untruthfulness is notorious. Among the Egyptians, long subject to a despotism administered by despotic officials, a man prides himself· on successful lying, and will even ascribe a defect in his work to failure in deceiving sorne one. Then we have the case of the Hindus, who, in their early days irresponsibly governed, afterwards subject for a long period to the brutal rule of the JVIahometans,and since that time to the scarcely-less brutal rule of th~ Ohristians, are so utterly untruthful that oaths in Oourts of Justice are of no avail, and lying is confessed to without shame. Histories tell like tales of a mendacity which, beginning ,vith the ruled, infects the rulers. Writing of the later feudal period in France, ~Iichelet says :--" It is curious to trace froll1 year to year the lies and tergiversations of the royal false coiner"; but nowadays political deceptions in France, though still practised, are nothing like so gross. N or has it been other wise among ourselves. If ,vith the "universal and loath some treachery of 'which every statesman of every party 'was continually guilty," during Elizabeth's reign, 'while rnonarch ical power was still but little qualified, we contrast the ve racity of statesmen in recent days, we see a kindred instance VERACITY. 409 of the relations between the untruthfulness which accom panies. tyranny and the truthfulness which arises along with increase of liberty.

Hence such connexions as we trace between mendacity and a life of external enluity, and between veracity and a life of internal amity, are not due to any direct relations between violence and lying and bet\veen peacefulness and truth-telling; but. are due to the coercive social structure which chronic external· enmity develops, and to the non-coercive social structure developed by a life of internal amity. To which it /should be added that under the one set of conditions there is little or no ethical, or rather pro-ethical, reprobation of. lying; while u:ndel' the other set of conditions the pro-ethical reprobation of lying, and in. considerable measure the· ethical reprobation, becoIlle strong.