3. Then, some one will say, it would be a lie for a prisoner in
solitary confinement to break the silence of his cell with the
exclamation, _Queen Anne is not dead_. The answer is simple: it takes
two to make a speech. A man does not properly speak to himself, nor
quarrel with himself, nor deal justly by himself. Not that it would be
a lie to deny the death of Queen Anne even in public: for speech is an
outward affirmation, the appearance of a serious will to apply
predicate to subject: but in this case there is no appearance of a
serious will: on the contrary, from the manifest absurdity of the
assertion, it is plain that you are joking and do not mean to affirm
anything. This perhaps is as far as we can go in permission of what
are called _lies in jest_.
_Readings_.--St Thos., 2a 2a, q. 110, art. 1.
SECTION II.--_Of the Evil of Lying_.
1. Human society cannot go on, if men are to be allowed
indiscriminately to lie to one another. Thucydides (iii., 83) gives as
the reason of the extravagant length to which faction ran in Greece in
his time: "For there was no power to reconcile the parties, no
plighted word reliable, no oath held in awe.
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