is of Articles of Religion in order to maintain such Unity. Let us then take our subjects in the order here mentioned; beginning with Veracity.

But if any one will persist in saying, that nothing can properly be concerned in assenting, but Veracity; I would not directly contradict such person; I would indulge him so as to express the thing differently:-and I would say, that the occasion and purpose in view make a part of the sense, and therefore, that speaking according to them makes a part of veracity. Still it will suit us best, in examining the nature of religious Society, to take the occasion of it, and its end and purpose separately from other parts of Veracity.

СНАР.

CHAP. II.

OF VERACITY.

1. VERACITY may perhaps be most conveniently defined," an habitual abstinence from falsehood;" though that definition will bring on another; "falsehood is deceiving those whom we undertake to inform, by the use of signs, agreed upon between us.”

2. This manner of defining, will shew us the difference between real and apparent falsehood: which it is often of great importance to know. For it follows from the definitions, that we cannot be guilty of real falsehood if we deceive no one; (nor attempt to deceive) nor if we only deceive those whom we have not undertaken to inform nor lastly, though we do happen to deceive those whom we are engaged to inform, if it be by the use of signs whose meaning has not been sufficiently agreed upon between us:-or without those signs whose meaning has been sufficiently determined.-Yet we may be guilty of apparent falsehood, even though we deceive no one, though we do not attempt to deceive, if our words, or other signs, are such as appear likely to deceive; such as might through custom deceive, if some particular circumstances did not prevent it. -We may be guilty of apparent falsehood, if we deceive persons who depend upon us, though in reality we have not, expressly or tacitly, undertaken to inform them:-or if, when it is clear that we do address ourselves to them, the signs which we make use of, are hastily and rashly interpreted, on a presumption that their meaning is known,

though

though in reality nothing has passed to settle it. In the first case, we apparently intend to deceive; in the second we seem to undertake to inform; in the third we seem to use signs in a sense agreed upon; though we really do not any of the three.

That we are not guilty of real falsehood in the three cases now mentioned, may farther appear from the consideration, that confidence, the mutual confidence of men, is not hurt or diminished in any of them. He who is not deceived, will continue to trust what men say:-he who is deceived by listening to what is said to other men, or by relying on information for which no one is accountable to him, will soon recollect that he has deceived himself and so will he who has trusted to signs, the purport of which has been conjectured, not agreed upon:-He may be vexed for a while, but his disappointment will generate caution and prudence, not distrust.-Now the great evil of real falsehood is, that it destroys confidence, and hinders men from uniting with each other, or profiting by each other's experience.

Another material deduction from our manner of defining is, that no one can speak real falsehood but to some particular person: no one can be charged with falsehood absolutely; the charge must exhibit a misleading of some person whom the speaker has undertaken to inform, and with whom he has agreed, expressly or tacitly, about the meaning of certain signs. I use person in the singular number, but our person may be an artificial person, a society or body of men, consisting of any number of individuals.

3. One cause of error, with respect to veracity, is, that custom is apt to pass for nature; I mean, that the connexion between words and the ideas annexed to them, which is merely arbitrary, and the work

of

of custom, is looked upon as some thing in the nature of things. Not that persons do not know and understand the contrary, when they think; but they suffer habit to prevent their thinking.-Even visible signs are arbitrary, and so may emblematical actions be called properly, though there is some faint analogy between the sign and the thing signified some sort of natural connexion;-but between words and ideas there is none at all: (for it is not worth mentioning that some few words are made to express something by a sound; so that the sound is an echo to the sense.) Yet custom ties words and ideas so closely together, that thinking men to do not always separate them; the unthinking

scarce ever.

When those who have not been used to examine into these matters, are put in mind that any sound might have been made to stand for any thing, or idea, they will be apt to ask; how has an agreement been made that a certain word shall be a sign of a certain thing? and what is the nature of such agreement? We may answer, probably a word has come to stand for a certain idea imperceptibly, by a great number of trials, the nature of which cannot be described; it is most likely, that those who made such trials could not have described them, even at the time they were made; so that the manner in which words were fixed upon as signs, makes a separate and curious subject. It is enough for us, that the connexion between a word and its meaning has been very frequently recognized; and the reasonable expectation which men have, that it will be continued, is a claim to have it continued, when nothing is said to the contrary. An agreement

See Book i. Chap. xvii. Sect. 6 and 18. The precious metals have, by a like series of trials, come to be given and taken in exchange for all valuable commodities.

agreement very frequently executed, is an agreement ratified. The agreement of which we now speak, is, in its origin at least, of the tacit sort, but that tacit agreements are valid, both moralists and Lawyers teach. If every idea had its own sign, I do not see why this agreement would not be strict and definite; but as far as the senses of words are indefinite, so far must the agreement be indefinite, by which any word is made a sign:-but agreements not well defined, are valid, though more easy to be evaded than such as are definite.

4. The agreement (that a certain word shall be a sign of a certain idea) may be changed, either tacitly or expressly. The tacit changes in the allowed sense of a word, are brought about in the same manner in which a sense is first given to a word: perhaps not without some falsehood in those who begin changing. Words in Old English have very different meanings from what they have in modern English. The word Knave used to signify merely a servant; St. Paul was once the Knave of Jesus Christ: and Villain meant formerly only a very low kind of Tenant, not indeed very much above a slave: something like one of the Spartan Helotes.

d

Express changes may be made for various purposes, as for that of writing in cypher.-And for whatever purpose they are made, if the rules expressed are observed, (and affirmations are according to Fact) no falsehood can ensue. Suppose you and I agree to call the Sun by the name of moon, and the moon by the name of Sun; then I speak truth, to you, if I say, The Moon is many times greater than the Sun; the Sun is an opake body, and shines only by the light falling upon it from the Moon, and reflected to the earth' but if I say, 'the Sun is many

< Rom. i. 1. d Blackstone, Index, Villein.