even by comparative strangers, he would be appalled. With all our mistaken reading of one another, we err least, I think, in our estimate of one another's truthfulness. And with what minuteness we form that estimate, all unconsciously too! How easily we could arrange a table of percentages attached to the names of all our acquaintances in definite order, from the one hundred per cent of our hero and our heroine down to the zero of the poor wretch who will lie even when the truth would serve him better.

From policy, the lowest of all motives to do right, if from no other, never deceive. There is no surer way of

disarming yourselves.

XXII.

TRUTH AND TRUTHFULNESS, CONTINUED.

ALL that has been said of the well-nigh irresistible power of habit might be repeated with especial emphasis in dealing with our present subject. The Castle of Truth cannot be erected in the soul without long and patient effort. Its foundations must be strong and deep-laid; its walls and columns must be solid to the centre of each massive block. Then only will it stand firm and unshaken amid the storms of temptation.

Julia Taylor. Why, then, are little children so often made a proverb of truthfulness?

Dr. Dix. In little children the virtues are chiefly those of negative innocence. They are like tender flowers blooming in the virgin soil where a future city is to be built. They are fragrant and beautiful, indeed: but life is more than a garden; its sweetest flowers must erelong give place to castles or hovels, temples or dungeons.

Habit, habit, habit. iteration of the word.

There can scarcely be too much
Habit determines almost infalli-

bly what a man shall do in any given situation; it determines with positive certainty what his first unthinking impulse shall be.

"I spoke without thinking," says a boy detected in a falsehood. "If I had stopped to think a moment I should have told the truth." Does he know that he has confessed not one but a thousand falsehoods? If he had declared that he had resisted his first good impulse and had sinned deliberately, it would have been bad enough, indeed, but better, immeasurably better than

it was. My hero would have done neither the one thing nor the other. From his brave, clear eyes and his ready tongue the truth would have leaped forth instantly, pure, whole, unsullied.

There are certain vices that men are more or less proud of. No one is proud of falsehood. The lowest vagrant will scowl and show fight at being called a liar, though he may rarely open his mouth but to lie; for of all the virtues of good men there is none he admires more than their truthfulness; there is none that in his estimation more distinctly marks the difference between them and himself.

I have spoken of the advantage which a reputation for truthfulness gives a man among his fellows. Of infinitely greater value than the mere reputation is the reality. The instant one begins to deviate, though never so slightly, from the truth, he has given his moral structure a wrench that has loosened its very foundation stones. Whatever others may think of him, he knows that he is, in some degree at least, a sham; that there is a hollow place in what may still seem on the outside solid and whole to the centre. Every succeeding lie, whether discovered or not, gives another wrench and takes away another stone, until at last there is nothing left but a shell. There are sins that men may commit and still retain some measure of self-respect, but what must the habitual liar think of himself? He at least, if no one else, can look within and behold the moral void.

Archibald Watson. How, then, can any man retain his self-respect? Are not all men liars ?

Dr. Dix. Compared with Absolute Truth all men are liars. So, seen against the face of the sun, a candle flame is a black cone. But all men are not habitual nor intentional liars. As a race, they are earnest lovers of and seekers for the truth. They long to discover it, reveal it to their fellows, and hand it down to their

descendants. What long ages of patient toil they have given to this single pursuit! What expense or pains too great to purge from human knowledge its alloy of error? It was easy to trace upon the map the supposed sources of the Nile, but who was satisfied with the supposed sources? It is a pleasing thought that \ beyond the icebergs and ice fields there may be a calm, clear sea, in which ships may ride as safely as in their own harbors. But of what value is the mere thought? It is the truth men yearn for, and it is this yearning that has sent so many to the death-chill of the frozen North. And they want the exact truth, not a mere approach to it. Men have for instance, known, for a long time very nearly the distance of our earth from the sun, so nearly that the addition or subtraction of a small fraction of a hair's breadth in instrumental measurements would probably give its exact distance. Every few years an opportunity comes to lessen still further this fraction of error, when the leading governments fit out expeditions at great expense, and scientific men leave their homes and sail to the antipodes, if need be, to take full advantage of these opportunities.

One of our future Talks will be on the moral effect of purely secular study. What possible relation, for instance, can there be between mathematics and virtue ? I will anticipate that Talk to say that, whatever its other effects may be, there can be no question that secular study tends very powerfully to develop a love for the truth, the exact truth, and a contempt for error. It is the untrained and untaught mind that is satisfied. with half-truth and half-falsehood. The weakness and indolence of ignorance are responsible for more lies and half-lies than all other causes combined. One of the richest fruits of intellectual training is accuracy.

George Williams. I have sometimes felt an uncomfortable doubt as to whether accuracy may not be gained at the expense of breadth and vigor.

Dr. Dix. Such a result is by no means impossible; but a sensible man is not likely to make so foolish and unnecessary a blunder. Wholesome, properly conducted intellectual training not only quickens the perceptions, but enlarges their range. A child's or a savage's picture of a horse satisfies his own eye both in detail and in general outline: training would reveal to him the slovenliness of the one no sooner than the gross disproportion of the other. The untrained taste and intellect are satisfied with disproportion in outline and slovenliness in detail in everything, — pictures, architecture, dress, stories, histories, arguments; that is to say, they are as likely to be lacking in breadth and vigor as in accuracy. And when to untrained taste and intellect is added an untrained moral sense, which is satisfied with what I may call slovenly truthfulness, what chance remains for either art or truth?

Julia Taylor. Dr. Dix, I appreciate all that has been said of the importance of truth and truthfulness; but language has other uses besides to impart knowledge: to amuse, for instance; to make us laugh; to please the taste and fancy, as in the cases of fairy tales and mythology, of which you have approved. Has not fiction an important office to perform?

Dr. Dix. Most certainly. I have compared the use of language to communicate knowledge to the use of the art of engraving to produce bank-notes, the representatives of value; but the art of engraving has uses besides that of producing bank-notes. A beautiful picture has an intrinsic value consisting in its beauty; but an ugly scrawl upon a soiled scrap of paper may have a representative value that will purchase a thousand pictures. So the eloquence of an actor on the stage may have an intrinsic value, consisting in its beauty, force, skilfully simulated passion; but an awkwardly expressed statement of fact from an authority may have a representative value outweighing it a thousand times.