92-403]

In considering "the so-called lies of necessity," Dr. Smyth declares
with frankness: "Some moralists in their supreme regard for truth will
not admit that under any conceivable circumstances a lie can be
deemed necessary, not even to save life or to prevent a murderer from
accomplishing his fiendish purpose." And then over against this he
indicates his fatal confusion of mind and weakness of reasoning in
the suggestion: "But the sound human understanding, in spite of the
moralists, will prevaricate, and often with great vigor and success,
in such cases. Who is right,--Kant, or the common moral sense? Which
should be followed,--the philosophic morality, or the practice of
otherwise most truthful men?"

It is to be noted that, in these two declarations, Dr. Smyth puts
lying as if it were synonymous with prevarication; else there is no
reason for his giving the one as over against the other. And this
indicates a peculiar difficulty in the whole course of Dr. Smyth's
argument concerning the "so-called lie of necessity." He essays no
definition of the "lie." He draws no clear line of distinction between
a lie, a falsehood, a deceit, and a prevarication, or between a
justifiable concealment and an unjustifiable concealment; and in
his various illustrations of his position he uses these terms
indiscriminately, in such a way as to indicate that he knows no
essential difference between them, or that he does not care to
emphasize any difference.

If, in the instance given above, Dr. Smyth means that "the sound human
understanding, in spite of the moralists," will approve lying, or
falsifying with the intention to deceive, he ought to know that the
sound human understanding will not justify such a course, and that it
is unfair to intimate such a thing.[1] And when he asks, in connection
with this suggestion, "Who is right,--Kant, or the common moral sense?
Which should be followed, the philosophic morality, or the practice of
otherwise most truthful men?" his own preliminary assertions are his
conclusive answer. He says specifically, "Kant was profoundly right
when he regarded falsehood as a forfeiture of personal worth, a
destruction of personal integrity;" and the "common moral sense" of
humanity is with Kant in this thing, in accordance with Dr. Smyth's
primary view of the case, as over against the intimation of Dr.
Smyth's question. As to the suggested "practice of otherwise most
truthful men" in this thing,--if m