question of danger or expedience.

3. As to Johnson's case of a murderer asking you which way a man had
gone, I should have anticipated that, had such a difficulty happened
to him, his first act would have been to knock the man down, and to
call out for the police; and next, if he was worsted in the conflict,
he would not have given the ruffian the information he asked, at
whatever risk to himself. I think he would have let himself be killed
first. I do not think that he would have told a lie.

4. A secret is a more difficult case. Supposing something has been
confided to me in the strictest secrecy, which could not be revealed
without great disadvantage to another, what am I to do? If I am a
lawyer, I am protected by my profession. I have a right to treat with
extreme indignation any question which trenches on the inviolability
of my position; but, supposing I was driven up into a corner, I think
I should have a right to say an untruth, or that, under such
circumstances, a lie would be _material_, but it is almost an
impossible case, for the law would defend me. In like manner, as a
priest, I should think it lawful to speak as if I knew nothing of
what passed in confession. And I think in these cases, I do in fact
possess that guarantee, that I am not going by private judgment,
which just now I demanded; for society would bear me out, whether as
a lawyer or as a priest, that I had a duty to my client or penitent,
such, that an untruth in the matter was not a lie. A common type of
this permissible denial, be it _material lie_ or _evasion_, is at the
moment supplied to me: an artist asked a Prime Minister, who was
sitting to him, "What news, my Lord, from France?" He answered,
"_I do not know_; I have not read the Papers."

5. A more difficult question is, when to accept confidence has not
been a duty. Supposing a man wishes to keep the secret that he is
the author of a book, and he is plainly asked on the subject. Here
I should ask the previous question, whether any one has a right
to publish what he dare not avow. It requires to have traced the
bearings and results of such a principle, before being sure of it;
but certainly, for myself, I am no friend of strictly anonymous
writing. Next, supposing another has confided to you the secret of
his authorship: there are persons who would have no scruple at all in
giving a denial to impertinent questions asked them on the subject. I
have heard a great man in his day at Ox