particular that its influence will be most pronounced and most beneficial in the intellectual life of the world at large.
This little essay has been intended simply to give some of the most important principles of veracity in a purely abstract statement. Special questions and problems have, therefore, been purposely left untouched. All moralists, it may be assumed, will agree that, in the actual ordering of life, there are occasions when not only are we not called upon to speak the truth, but when even by direct lying we incur no proper reproach. To mislead the would-be robber concerning the exact whereabouts of the family plate is clearly justifiable; and so, too, is the false statement of his condition by means of which, as every physician knows, a patient is often given a better chance of recovery. Numerous cases of these or other kinds will occur in common experience; there is unfortunately no single rule of conduct which can be taken as inflexible and universal in its applicability; and we must each of us face the individual crisis when it arises as best we can. But meanwhile it may be useful sometimes to consider general and fundamental principles in ethics without relating them to exceptional issues. After indulging in such a discussion as the foregoing we may, it is possible, be inclined to say that, as Rasselas was convinced by Imlac that no human being could ever be a poet, so are we fully convinced that we can never be wholly and consistently truthful. Yet it may help us none the less to have the ideal distinctly set before us, and whatever difficulties may be in the way of our approach to it, it will never cease to be our duty to hold it steadily and bravely in view.
