The origin and development of the moral ideas

According to Zoroastrianism, truthfulness is a most sacred duty. Lying is a creation of the evil spirits, and the most efficacious weapon against it is the holy religion revealed to man by Zarathustra.190 In one of the Pahlavi texts it is said that when the Spirit of Wisdom was asked, “Through how many ways and motives and good works do people arrive most at heaven?” he answered thus: “The first good work is liberality, the second truth.”191 Contracts are inviolable, both those which are pledged with hand or pawn, and those by a mere word.192 It is a duty to keep faith even with an unbeliever:—“Break not the contract, O Spitama, neither the one that thou hadst entered into with one of the unfaithful, nor the one that thou hadst entered into with one of the faithful who is one of thy own faith.”193 Greek historians and cuneiform inscriptions also bear witness to the great detestation in which falsehood was held by the ancient Persians. Herodotus writes:—“Their sons are carefully instructed from their fifth to their twentieth year in three things alone—to ride, to draw the bow, and to speak the truth…. The most disgraceful thing in the world, they think, is to tell a lie; the next worse, to owe a debt: because, among other reasons, the debtor is obliged to tell lies.”194 In the inscriptions of Darius lying is taken as representative of all evil. He is favoured by Ormuzd “because he was not a heretic, nor a liar, nor a tyrant.”

His great fear is lest it may be thought that any part of the record which he has set up has been falsely related; and he even abstains from narrating certain events of his reign “lest to him who may hereafter peruse the tablet, the many deeds that have been done by him may seem to be falsely recorded.”195 Professor Spiegel tries to prove that falsehood, not truthfulness, was a national characteristic of the ancient Eranians, to which their noblest men offered fruitless resistance;196 but the facts he quotes in support of his opinion refer to their dealings with foreign nations, and have consequently little bearing on the subject. The modern Persians are notorious liars, who do not even claim to be believed, and smile when detected in a lie.197 The nomad alone is faithful to his word; the expression, “I am a nomad,” means, “You may trust me.”198

Falsehood is a prevailing vice in other Muhammedan countries also. “Constant veracity,” says Mr. Lane, “is a virtue extremely rare in modern Egypt”; and a deceitful disposition in commercial transactions is one of the most notorious faults of the Egyptian.199 Mr. Lane partly ascribes this habit to the influence of Islam, which allows, and even commands, falsehood in certain cases. The common Moslem doctrine is, that a lie is permissible when told in order to save one’s own life, or to reconcile persons at variance with each other, or to please or persuade one’s wife, or to obtain any advantage in a war with the enemies of the faith.200 But in other cases lying was highly reprobated by the Prophet; and that the people have not forgotten its sinfulness appears from the phrase, “No, I beg forgiveness of God, it was so and so,” which they seldom omit when retracting an unintentional mis-statement.201 I think it is erroneous to regard the want of truthfulness among Muhammedan nations as a result of their religion. The Eastern Christians and Buddhists are no less addicted to falsehood than the Muhammedans.202

The Homeric poems make us acquainted with gods and men who have recourse to fraud and lying whenever it suits their purpose.203 The great Zeus makes no difficulty in sending a lying dream to Agamemnon. Pallas Athene is guilty of gross deceit and treachery to Hector; she expressly recommends dissimulation, and loves Odysseus on account of his deceitful character.204 No man deals more in feigned stories than this master of cunning, who makes a boast of his falsehood.205 In the period which lies between the Homeric age and the Persian wars veracity made perhaps some progress among the Greeks,206 but it never became one of their national virtues.207 Yet in the Greek literature deceit is frequently condemned as a vice, and truthfulness praised as a virtue.208 Achilles expresses his horror of lying.209 “Not to tell a lie,” was one of the maxims of Solon.210 Pindar strongly censures a character like that of Odysseus,211 and ends up his eulogy on Psaumis by the assurance that he never would contaminate his speech with a lie.212 According to Pythagoras, men become like gods when they speak the truth.213 According to Plato, the habit of lying makes the soul ugly214; “truth is the beginning of every good thing, both to gods and men.”215 Yet a distinction should be made between different kinds of untruth.

Though the many are too fond of saying that at proper times and places falsehood may often be right,216 it must be admitted that a lie is in certain cases useful and not hateful, as in dealing with enemies, or when those whom we call our friends in a fit of madness or illusion are going to do some harm.217 Moreover, the rulers of the State are allowed to lie for the public good, just as physicians make use of medicines; and they will find a considerable dose of falsehood and deceit necessary for this purpose.218 On the other hand, if the ruler catches anybody besides himself lying in the State, lie will punish him for introducing a practice “which is equally subversive and destructive of ships or State.”219 Next to him who takes a false oath, he who tells a falsehood in the presence of his superiors—elders, parents, or rulers—is most hateful to the gods.220

Not without reason did the Romans of the republican age contrast their own fides with the mendacity of the Greeks and the perfidy of the Phœnicians. “The goddess of faith (of human and social faith),” says Gibbon, “was worshipped, not only in her temples, but in the lives of the Romans; and if that nation was deficient in the more amiable qualities of benevolence and generosity, they astonished the Greeks by their sincere and simple performance of the most burdensome engagements.”221 Their annals are adorned with signal examples of uprightness, which, though to a great extent fictitious, yet bear testimony to the estimation in which that quality was held.222 The Greeks had no Regulus who “chose to deliver himself up to a cruel death rather than to falsify his word to the enemy.”223 The basest forms of falsehood were severely punished by law. According to the Twelve Tables, any one who had slandered or libelled another by imputing to him a wrongful or immoral act, was to be scourged to death,224 and capital punishment was also inflicted on false witnesses225 and corrupt judges.226 However, already before the end of the Republic dishonesty, perjuries, and forgeries became common in Rome.227