s in danger may have; it may
bring his distemper to a crisis, and that may cure him. Of all lying
I have the greatest abhorrence of this, because I believe it has been
frequently practised on myself."--Boswell's Life, vol. iv. p. 277.

There are English authors who allow of mental reservation and
equivocation; such is Jeremy Taylor.

He says, "In the same cases in which it is lawful to tell a lie, in
the same cases it is lawful to use a mental reservation."--Ibid. p.
374.

He says, too, "When the things are true in _several senses_, the not
explicating in _what sense_ I mean the words is not a criminal
reservation.... But 1, this liberty is not to be used by inferiors,
but by superiors only; 2, not by those that are interrogated, but by
them which speak voluntarily; 3, not by those which speak of duty,
but which speak of grace and kindness."--Ibid. p. 378.

Bishop Butler, the first of Anglican authorities, writing in his
grave and abstract way, seems to assert a similar doctrine in the
following passage:

"Though veracity, as well as justice, is to be our rule of life, it
must be added, otherwise a snare will be laid in the way of some
plain men, that the use of common forms of speech generally
understood, cannot be falsehood; and, in general, that there can be
no designed falsehood without designing to deceive. It must likewise
be observed, that, _in numberless cases, a man may be under the
strictest obligations to what he foresees will deceive, without his
intending it_. For _it is impossible not to foresee_, that the words
and actions of men in different ranks and employments, and of
different educations, _will perpetually be mistaken by each other_;
and it cannot but be so, whilst they will judge with the utmost
carelessness, as they daily do, _of what they are not perhaps enough
informed to be competent judges of_, even though they considered it
with great attention."--_Nature of Virtue_, fin. These last words
seem in a measure to answer to the words in Scavini, that an
equivocation is permissible, because "then we do not deceive our
neighbour, but allow him to deceive himself." In thus speaking, I
have not the slightest intention of saying anything disrespectful to
Bishop Butler; and still less of course to St. Alfonso.

And a third author, for whom I have a great respect, as different
from the above two as they are from each other, bears testimony to
the same effect in his "Comment on Scripture," Thomas