wholeness is a requisite, it would be his duty to
make known his defect; and the concealment of it from the parties
interested would be in the realm of the lie.

So, again, if a man were proposing marriage, or were entering into
confidential relations with a partner in business, or were seeking
financial aid from a bank, he would have no right to conceal from the
party interested many a fact which he could properly conceal from the
public.

A man who would be justified in concealing from the general public
his mental troubles, or his business embarrassments, or his spiritual
perplexities, could not properly conceal the essential facts in the
case from his chosen adviser in medicine, or in law, or in matters of
religion. It is a man's duty to disclose the whole truth to him who
has a right to know the whole truth. It is a man's right, and it may
become his duty, to conceal a measure of the truth from one who is not
entitled to know that portion of the truth, so far as he can properly
make concealment. But as a lie is never justifiable, it is never a
proper means of concealment; and if concealment be, in any case, a
mode of lying, it is as bad as any other form of lying.

But concealment, even when it is of facts that others have no right to
know, may cause others to be deceived, and deliberate deceit is one
form of a lie. How, then, can concealment that is sure to result in
deception be free from the sin that invariably attaches to a lie in
any form, or of any nature whatsoever?

Concealment which is for the _purpose_ of deception, is one thing;
concealment which is only for the purpose of concealment, but which is
sure to _result_ in deception, is quite another thing. The one is not
justifiable, the other may be. In the one case it is a man's purpose
to deceive his fellow-man; in the other case it is simply his purpose
to conceal what his fellow-man has no right to know, and that
fellow-man receives a false impression, or deceives himself, in
consequence.

We may, or we may not, be responsible for the obvious results of our
action; and the moral measure of any action depends on the measure of
our responsibility in the premises. A surgeon, who is engaged in an
important and critical operation, is told that he is wanted elsewhere
in a case of life and death. If he sees it to be his duty to continue
where he is because he cannot safely leave this case at this time, he
obviously is not responsible for results which c