pture the means employed
for the purpose; as he is entitled to conceal similarly from his
fellow-man, when he is authorized to kill him as an enemy, in time of
war waged for God. Thus it is quite proper for a man to conceal the
hook or the net from the fish, or the trap or the pitfall from the
beast; but it is not proper to deceive an animal by an imitation of
the cry of the animal's offspring in order to lure that animal to
its destruction; and the moral sense of the human race makes this
distinction.

[Footnote 1: Gen. 1:28; 9:1-3.]

An illustration that has been put forward, as involving a nice
question in the treatment of an animal, is that of going toward a
loose horse with a proffered tuft of grass in one hand, and a halter
for his capture concealed behind the back in the other hand. It is
right to conceal the halter, and to proffer the grass, provided they
are used severally in their proper relations. If the grass be held
forth as an assurance of the readiness of the man to provide for the
needs of the horse, and it be given to him when he comes for it, there
is no deception practiced so far; and if, when horse and man are
thus on good terms, the man brings out the halter for its use in the
relation of master and servitor between the two, that also is proper,
and the horse would so understand it. But if the man were to refuse
the grass to the horse, when the two had come together, and were to
substitute for it the halter, the man would do wrong, and the horse
would recognize the fact, and not be caught again in that way.

Even a writer like Professor Bowne, who is not quite sure as to the
right in all phases of the lying question, sees this point in its
psychological aspects to better advantage than those ethical writers
who would look at the duty of truthfulness as mainly a social virtue:
"Even in cases where we regard truth as in our own power," he says,
"there are considerations of expediency which are by no means to be
disregarded. There is first the psychological fact that inexactness of
statement, exaggeration, unreality in speech, are sure to react upon
the mental habit of the person himself, and upon the estimate in which
his statements are held by others. In dealing with children, also,
however convenient a romancing statement might momentarily be, it is
unquestionable that exact truthfulness is the only way which does not
lead to mischief. Even in dealing with animals, it pays in the long
run to be