Some Unnoticed Evils of Untruth

BY WILLIAM Ivey Cranford, Ph. D.,

Professor of Philosophy in Trinity College.

This claims to be an age of progress. It is a time when all that now is must vindicate its right to remain or else be hurried on and replaced by something else. It is an age of rapid advancement and quick succession. The world, with the weight of all its problems, seems to have been gathering momentum, as it has passed from age to age, until it is now advancing at such a pace that the danger resulting from an error in its guidance has been alarmingly increased. One false step today carries the traveler farther from the correct course than it ever would have done before.

This is also an age of reforms. There is hardly a system of thought or of practice that some one or many, is not trying to reform; while every existing institution, whether of church or of state, is looked upon by many as but a temporary affair soon to be replaced by a better.

This makes it an age of intense activity; and every element or factor of being seems to be hurrying on to the accomplishment of some end. These are hopeful signs for present and future humanity, provided only that it be rational and good. But there is one fact that it behooves man always to recognize and to take into all his calculations when he plans to attain any end or to accomplish any good result. Man must remember that there is a world about him that is not the creation of his own will. He must keep in mind the fact that neither his word nor his wish makes truth. He must consider that there are being and action that do not spring from his conscious volition. In other words, if man would act wisely and well, he must never forget that there is truth and there is untruth.

Now truth and untruth are not entities, but only relationsthey are not things but relations-relations between the state or states of some mind and something other than such state or states. No further attempt will be made in this place to define untruth. Something will be said of its nature in the proper

place later on; but that there is untruth there is no room for the honest and intelligent to doubt. Nor can the truthful deny that untruth is unnatural, that is to say, untruth is a burden, very heavy and grievous to be borne, which man has imposed upon himself, in return for carrying which he gets no reward save the pain of bearing the burden.

Untruth is, psychologically, a contradiction to man's nature; it is a foreign growth in the soil of the human soul, and must be cultivated with extra labor at the expense of noble growth; it must be specially guarded, and shaded, and covered from the light, and watered with bitterness, and fed with foreign food at great expense of time and pains and at a great loss of genuine growth and pleasure. But nevertheless it is planted and nourished in many a soul.

Philosophically, untruth is insanity. It is an attempt to contradict the course of the universe, to beat back the tide of events, and to swim up stream against the current of being. Philosophically, untruth is an attempt to substitute chaos for law and order, darkness for light, ignorance for knowledge, and the bad for the good. Yet that father of discord and darkness, whoever he may be, has introduced untruth into the realm of the real world, and its existence is a sad fact with which man has forced himself to reckon.

Ethically considered, untruth designs to make morality impossible. Untruth wills to cut all the foundations from under moral obligation and strives to make it impossible to do the right, and seeks to make the right the greatest wrong. Yet thousands who were intended for moral agents have deliberately chosen thus to strike a blow at the heart of moral life, so that all progress should become retrogression and all reforms should make conditions

worse.

From the religious standpoint, untruth is the rankest rebellion against God and the highest treason against heaven. It attempts to drive God out from the field of human affairs and to enthrone in his stead the father of falsehood. There will be no attempt made in this place to point out any element that may be false in any religion, but the effort will be to treat the relation of untruth to true religion.

But strange and unnatural as may be untruth in its origin psychologically, irrational, absurd and insane as it may be philosophically, destructive to all moral law and authority as it may be ethically, and rebellious and sinful as it may be relig iously, nevertheless there is hardly any department of human living that has not been invaded by it in some form and been injured by its presence. It is a question whether there be anything in this age that retards the real progress of all that is good and noble and valuable in man and his world more than does the willful use of untruth. In some form and in some amount it has crept into almost all work and all methods of work and into the minds of all workers. It is used by the highest and by the lowest, by the worst and by the best. It has entered every profession and found expression in every form. The tramp depends upon it to bring him his means of support. He lives by lying. No man can be always idle and always truthful. Untruth makes tramping possible, and without it that occupation would never have existed.

But tramps are not the only ones who make use of falsehood. The labor of many a wage-earner is made harder because he labors to hide the truth or to make the false appear true. The factory, the farm, the mill, the mine, all fail to bring forth for humanity all the good they might, were they manned by men that were all true and always true. The contribution made by these to the wellbeing of the world is far inferior to what it would be if all that entered them were true. The whole world of productive industry, in all its branches, has been, and is today, retarded in its progress and made to yield disproportionate returns for honest labor by the fact that untruth has crept into too many of the men and women who make up the great producing force of the world. The transportation of the world's passengers and products has been made more dangerous, retarded in speed, and rendered more burdensome than it would have been, had not untruth crept into the life, or action, or speech, of some car builder, or road builder, or brakeman, or fireman, or conductor, or road official. The business of exchange would have brought more and far richer blessings to mankind than have yet been given through that channel, had every man and every woman who buys and sells been a strict adherent to the truth.

Sickness and death have caused more pain and wrought more ruin in the world than they would have done had not untruth entered the medical profession and given the wrong prescription or withheld the right remedy, replaced care with neglect and duty with ease, or knowledge with ignorance. Far as the world has advanced in learning and skill, it would have been immeasurably farther still, had not untruth entered the teaching profession and pretended to lead the world into the light of wisdom and truth, while in reality it has been hiding the light of truth and dimming the eye of wisdom and deafening the ear of understanding and befogging the whole mind of the learner. But untruth not only sometimes sits in the teacher's chair, but sometimes too it sits in the learner's seat and behind the pupil's desk, and there exchanges cheating, by word, or look, or act, of some sort or other, for honest work well done. Untruth has entered the legal profession and set the guilty free and made the innocent pay the penalty of others' crimes, and thus helped to keep back the coming of justice and to check the march of righteousness. Untruth has gone into legislative halls and been seated in executive chambers, whence it has accomplished the downfall of nations and worked the ruin of civilizations and checked the progress of peoples. It has entered the pulpit and been seated in the pew, whence it has led souls to perdition and kept many from heaven. In fact, no weapon of wickedness has been wielded with more disastrous results.

If there be any truth in these statements, it behooves everyone who would be aught for himself or for others, to pay some heed to the fact and to the effect of untruth in this age. Whatever be the superstructure, if it be founded on untruth, it must tumble to ruin sooner or later; whatever be the foundation, if untruth enter the superstructure, it makes the building worse than useless and will ensure its overthrow.

William Lowndes

BY FANNIE WHITE CARR, A. M.

Few Americans know much about William Lowndes, the contemporary and friend of Calhoun. With the exception of a limited number of South Carolinians and here and there a special student of American history, the present generation, even Southerners, have rarely heard his name. And yet there was not a member of congress between 1811 and 1822 who was more highly regarded by his contemporaries for integrity of character, sound judgment, and ability to influence the House, of which during these years he was a member. This was the period, too, when Clay, Webster, Calhoun, and Cheves were coming into prominence. When Lowndes was Clay's opponent in debate, as on the Mexican question, he was acknowledged to be the latter's superior. Though Clay was a more popular orator, Lowndes could reason more clearly, and with his reasoning he had the power to carry conviction. When the names of Calhoun and Lowndes were under consideration for the presidency, South Carolina chose the latter. The feeling which the people had for him is well expressed by Clay: "If the nation were in great peril and Mr. Lowndes recommended one policy and Mr. Calhoun an opposite one, I think the majority of the American people would have said, 'Intrust the guidance of the American people to William Lowndes, follow his counsel.'" Yet, Calhoun has been remembered and Lowndes well-nigh forgotten. There seem to be at least two reasons for this. Lowndes died at the early age of forty when, as Clay wrote, "his capacity for public usefulness was most mature, and in full vigor; when his country had such high hopes and expectations of him." Calhoun lived long enough for the world to measure his capacities to the full. His doctrine of nullification, because of the opposition it aroused, would of itself have made Calhoun famous.

There is another reason why we have allowed the fame of Lowndes to grow dim. Till recently the history of his life has not been written. His character, which we cannot afford to forget; his intellectual powers, which, if known, would have been an