OF SPEAKING THE TRUTH.
SECTION I.--_Of the Definition of a Lie_.
1. "Let none doubt," says St. Augustine, "that he lies, who utters
what is false for the purpose of deceiving. Wherefore the utterance of
what is false with a will to deceive is unquestionably a lie." The
only question is, whether this definition does not contain more than
is necessary to the thing defined. The objective falseness of what is
said makes a _material_ falsehood: the will to utter what is false
makes a _formal_ falsehood (_Ethics_, c. iii., s. ii., n. 7, p. 33):
the will to create a false impression regards, not the falsehood
itself, but the effect to follow from it. If a person says what is not
true, but what he takes to be the truth, he tells indeed a material
lie, but at the same time he puts forth no _human act_ (_Ethics_, c.
i., n. 2, p. 1) of lying. If on the other hand he says what he
believes to be false, though it turns out true, he tells a formal lie,
though not a material one, and moreover, he does a _human act_ of
lying. But _human acts_ are the subject-matter of morality. The
moralist therefore is content to define the _formal lie_: the
_material_ aspect of the lie is irrelevant to his enquiry.
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