commensurate with the labor it represents? A great deal of current expense in dressing, in entertaining, in eating, could be saved by a sensible economy, with no appreciable loss in enjoyment. We must not forget that everything we consume has been produced by the labor and time of others. What fortune, or our own cleverness, has put into our hands that we do not need for making fair and free our own lives, and the lives of those dependent upon us, we should pass on to those whose need is greater than ours.

Is it wrong to gamble, bet, or speculate?

A corollary to our discussion of the duties appertaining to the use of money must be a condemnation of gambling. Its most obvious evil is the danger of loss of needed money; most gamblers cannot rightly afford to throw away what ought to be used for their real needs and those of their families. Notably is this the case with college students, supported by their parents, who heedlessly waste the money that others have worked hard to save. But even if a man be rich, he should steward his wealth for purposes useful to society. And he must remember that if he can afford to lose, perhaps his opponent cannot.

Moreover, if many cannot afford to lose, no one can afford to win. Insidiously this getting of unearned money promotes laziness, and the desire to acquire more money without work. It makes against loving relations with others, since one always gains at another's expense. It quickly becomes a morbid passion, an unhealthy excitement, which absorbs too much energy and kills more natural enjoyments. The gambling mania, like any other reckless dissipation, easily leads to other dissipations, such as drinking and sex indulgence. These disastrous consequences are, of course, by no means always incurred. But in order that the weaker may be saved from them, it behooves the stronger to abstain.

All betting, all playing games for money, all gambling in stocks is wrong in principle, liable to bring needless unhappiness. The honorable man will hate to take money which has not been fairly earned; he will wish to help protect those who are prone to run useless risks against themselves. The safest place to draw the line is on the near side of all gambling, however trivial.1

General relations to others: F. Paulsen, System of Ethics, bk. III, chap. IX, sec. 6; chap. x, secs. 3, 4, 5. G. Santayana, Reason in Society. J. S. Mackenzie, Manual of Ethics, 2d ed., chap. IX. Emerson, Society and Solitude title essay. P. G. Hamerton, The Intellectual Life, pt. ix.

Friendship: Aristotle, Ethics, bks. VIII, IX. Emerson, "Friendship" (in Essays, vol. 1). H. C. Trumbull, Friendship the Master Passion. Randolph Bourne, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 110, p. 795.

Luxury: E. de Laveleye, Luxury. E. J. Urwick, Luxury and Waste of Life. Tolstoy, What Shall We Do Then? (or, What To Do?) Maeterlinck, "Our Social Duty" (in Measure of the Hours). F. Paulsen, System of Ethics, bk. III, chap. IV, secs. 3, 4. T. W. Higginson, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 107, p. 301. H. Sidgwick, Practical Ethics, chap. vII. Hibbert Journal, vol. 11, p. 39. H. R. Seager, Introduction to Economics, chap. IV, secs. 43–45.

1 See H. Jeffs, Concerning Conscience, Appendix. R. E. Speer, A Young Man's Questions, chap. XI. B. S. Rowntree, Betting and Gambling. International Journal of Ethics, vol. 18, p. 76.

CHAPTER XIX

TRUTHFULNESS AND ITS PROBLEMS

SINS of untruthfulness are not so seductive or, usually, so serious as those we have been considering; but for that reason they are perhaps more pervasive we are less on

our guard against them.

What are the reasons for the obligation of truthfulness? Truthfulness means trustworthiness. The organization of society could not be maintained without mutual confidence. This general need and the specific harm done to the individual lied to, if he is thereby misled, are sufficiently plain.1 The evil resulting to the man who lies is less generally recognized. We may summarize it under three heads:

(1) It is much simpler and less worrisome, usually, to tell the truth. A lie is apt to be discovered unless we are con

1 I will content myself with quoting one sentence from Mill (Utilitarianism, chap. II), warning the reader to take a deep breath before he plunges in: "Inasmuch as the cultivation in ourselves of a sensitive feeling on the subject of veracity is one of the most useful, and the enfeeblement of that feeling one of the most hurtful, things to which our conduct can be instrumental; and inasmuch as any, even unintentional, deviation from truth does that much towards weakening the trustworthiness of human assertion, which is not only the principal support of all present social well-being, but the insufficiency of which does more than any one [other] thing that can be named to keep back civilization, virtue, everything on which human happiness on the largest scale depends, we feel that the violation, for a present advantage, of a rule of such transcendent expediency, is not expedient, and that he who, for the sake of a convenience to himself or to some other individual, does what depends on him to deprive mankind of the good, and inflict upon them the evil, involved in the greater or less reliance which they can place in each others' words, acts the part of one of their worst enemies."

stantly on our guard; and one lie is very likely to need propping by others. We are led easily into deep waters, and dis

cover

"what a tangled web we weave

When first we practise to deceive."

But when we tell the truth, we have no need to remember what we said; there is a care-free heartiness about the life that is open and aboveboard that the liar, unless he has given up trying to maintain a reputation, never knows.

(2) Lying is usually a symptom of selfishness, vanity, greed, slovenliness, or some other vicious tendency which a man cannot afford to tolerate. Refusing to give vent in speech to these undesirable states of mind helps to atrophy them, while every expression of them insures them a deeper hold. Untruthfulness is the great ally of all forms of dishonesty; and strict scruples against lying make it much. easier to clear them from the soul. This is the best vantagepoint from which to attack the half-conscious egotism which seeks to create a false impression of one's virtues or powers, the insidiously growing avarice that instinctively overvalues goods for sale and disparages what is offered. It is a good vantage-point from which to attack carelessness, inaccuracy, and negligence; the man who has trained himself to precision of speech, who is painstakingly honest in his statements, who qualifies and discriminates, and hits the bull's eye in his descriptions of fact, can be pretty safely depended upon to do things rightly as well. The selfish lie is never justifiable, because selfishness is never justifiable; the cowardly lie "lying out of" unpleasant consequences is wrong, because cowardice is wrong. To banish the symptoms may not wholly banish the underlying causes, but it is one good way to go about it. At least, the lies are danger signals.

(3) The habit of lying is very easily acquired; and the habitual liar is sure, sooner or later, to be caught and to be

despised. He has forfeited the confidence of men and will find it almost impossible to regain it or to win a position of trust. If one must lie, then, it pays to lie boldly, as a definite and authorized exception to one's general rule; in this way one may keep from sliding unawares into the habit. All equivocations and dissimulations, all literal truths that are really deceptions, all attempts to salve one's own conscience by making one's statements true "in a sense," and yet gain the advantage of an out-and-out lie, are miserable makeshifts and utterly demoralizing. There is "not much in a truthfulness which is only phrase-deep." Whether we deceive others or no, we cannot afford to deceive ourselves; we should never deviate a hair's breadth from the truth without acknowledging the deviation to ourselves as a necessary but unfortunate evil. A man may say nothing but what is true, and yet intentionally give a wrong impression; “truth in spirit, not truth to the letter, is the true veracity." "A lie may be told by a truth, or a truth conveyed by a lie." "A man may have sat in a room for hours and not opened his teeth, and yet come out of that room a disloyal friend or a vile calumniator." 1

If a man lies deliberately and regretfully, for an end that seems to him to require it, he may be making a mistake; but he is escaping the worst danger of lying. He is not corrupting his soul, blurring his vision of the line between sincerity and insincerity, and numbing his conscience so that presently he will lie as a matter of course and be universally distrusted.

All of this is very clear, and sufficiently explains our ideal of veracity. But it is not enough for moralists to dwell upon the general necessity of truthfulness; the problems connected therewith arise when one asks, Are there not legiti1 Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque, chap. IV.