Question II: On lying

THE INTERCOURSE of human society requires that the lips accord with the heart, nor that one thing be uttered by the mouth and another conceived in the mind; whence, since by the Author of nature the voice was instituted as the vehicle of the interior concept, if it displays something alien outwardly, it will suffer a grave injury to the right of nature, being both frustrated of its end, and defrauding the trusting expectation of the other hearer; whence this sin cannot be made honest by any circumstance; yet in lying one can propose to himself diverse ends, and by these the greater or lesser malice of the lie will be specified, and although it never passes out of the species of sin, yet within that species it can sometimes be venial, sometimes mortal. But these things will be made clearer from the definitions of the lie soon to be given; wherefore, that the truth may shine forth more clearly from the very lie, I shall weigh this matter concisely and elegantly through dubitations.