LIE, in morals, denotes a criminal breach of veracity. Archdeacon Paley, in treating of this subject, observes, that there are falsehoods which are not lies, that is, which are not criminal; and that there are lies which are not literally and directly false.
Cases of the first class are those, 1. where no one is deceived; as, for instance, in parables, fables, novels, jests, tales to create mirth, or ludicrous embellishments of a story, in which the declared design of the speaker is not to inform, but to divert; compliments in the subscription of a letter; a prisoner's pleading not guilty; an advocate asserting the justice, or his belief of the justice, of his client's cause. In such instance no confidence is destroyed, because none was reposed; no promise to speak the truth is violated, because none was given or understood to be given. 2. Where the person you speak to has no right to know the truth, or, more properly, where little or no inconvenience results from the want of confidence in such cases; as where you tell a falsehood to a madman for his own advantage; to a robber, to conceal your property; to an assassin, to defeat or to divert him from his purpose. It is upon this principle that, by the laws of war, it is allowable to deceive an enemy by feints, false colours, spies, false intelligence, and the like; but by no means in treaties, truces, signals of capitulation or surrender. The difference is, that the former suppose hostilities to continue, whilst the latter are calculated to terminate or suspend them.
As there may be falsehoods which are not lies, so there may be lies without literal or direct falsehood. An opening is always left for this species of prevarication, when the literal and grammatical signification of a sentence is different from the popular and customary meaning. It is the wilful deceit that makes the lie; and we wilfully deceive when our expressions are not true in the sense in which we believe the hearer apprehends them. Besides, it is absurd to contend for any sense of words, in opposition to usage; for all senses of all words are founded upon usage, and upon nothing else. A man may also act a lie; as by pointing his finger in a wrong direction, when a traveller inquires of him his road; or when a tradesman shuts up his windows, to induce his creditors to believe that he is abroad; for to all moral purposes, and therefore as to veracity, speech and action are the same, speech being only a mode of action.