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 there are lies which are not literally and directly false.

1. 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 instances no confidence is destroyed, because none was repose; 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 assasin to defeat or to divert him from his purpose. It is upon this principle, that, by the laws of war, it is allowed to deceive an enemy by feints, false colours, spies, spies, false intelligence, and the like; but, by no means, in treaties, truces, signals of capitulation, or surrender: and the difference is, that the former suppose hostilities to continue, the latter are calculated to terminate or suspend them.

Many people indulge in serious discourse a habit of fiction and exaggeration, in the accounts they give of themselves, of their acquaintance, or of the extraordinary things which they have seen or heard; and so long as the facts they relate are indifferent, and their narratives though false are inoffensive, it may seem a superstitious regard to truth to censure them merely for truth's sake. Yet the practice ought to be checked; for, in the first place, it is almost impossible to pronounce beforehand, with certainty, concerning any lie, that it is inoffensive; or to say what ill consequences may result from a lie apparently inoffensive: And, in the next place, the habit, when once formed, is easily extended to serve the designs of malice or interest; like all habits, it spreads indeed of itself. Pious frauds, as they are improperly enough called, pretended inspirations, forged books, counterfeit miracles, are impostures of a more serious nature. It is possible that they may sometimes, though seldom, have been set up and encouraged with a design to do good: but the good they aim at requires, that the belief of them should be perpetual, which is hardly possible; and the detection of the fraud is sure to disparage the credit of all pretensions of the same nature. Christianity has suffered more injury from this cause than from all other causes put together.

II. 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. Or a man may 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.