Silence would serve no better, for silence gives
consent, and is eloquent at times. There is nothing left for it in
such cases but to lock your secret up, as it were, in a separate
compartment of your breast, and answer according to the remainder of
your information, which is not secret, private, and confidential. This
looks very much like lying, but it is not lying, it is speaking the
truth under a _broad mental reservation_.
3. _Mental reservation_ is an act of the mind, limiting the spoken
phrase so that it may not bear the full sense which at first hearing
it seems to bear. The reservation, or limitation of the spoken sense,
is said to be _broad_ or _pure_, according as it is, or is not,
indicated externally. A _pure mental reservation_, where the speaker
uses words in a limited meaning, without giving any outward clue to
the limitation, is in nothing different from a lie, and is wrong as a
lie is always wrong. A good instance is Archbishop Cranmer's oath of
fealty to the Pope, he having previously protested--of course out of
hearing of the Pope or the Pope's representative--that he meant that
oath in no way to preclude him from labouring at the reformation of
the Church in England, that is, doing all the evil work which Henry
VIII.
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