being honest. The object of an oath
might be of the least important kind, but he could neither allow himself
to play with it, nor believe that a man could abase his profession in
public opinion, without at the same time abasing himself. '_You shall do
as you will_,' he said; '_for my own part, it is impossible for me to
wear a mask all my life_.'[16]

[Footnote 16: Dupont de Nemours. Condorcet's _Vie de Turgot_, pp. 8-10.]

His clear intelligence revolted from the dominant sophisms of that time,
by which philosophers as well as ecclesiastics brought falsehood and
hypocrisy within the four corners of a decent doctrine of truth and
morality. The churchman manfully argued that he could be most useful to
the world if he were well off and highly placed. The philosopher
contended that as the world would punish him if he avowed what he had
written or what he believed, he was fully warranted in lying to the
world as to his writing and belief; for is not the right to have the
truth told to you, a thing forfeitable by tyranny and oppression?[17]
Truth is not mocked, and these sophisms bore their fruit in due season.
Perhaps if there had been found on either side in France a hundred
righteous men like Turgot, who would not fight in masks, the end might
have been other than it was. The lesson remains for those who dream that
by reducing pretence to a nicely graduated system, and by leaving an
exactly measured margin between what they really believe and what they
feign to believe, they are serving the great cause of order. French
history informs us what becomes of social order so served. After all, no
man can be sure that it is required of him to save society; every man
can be sure that he is called upon to keep himself clean from mendacity
and equivoke. Such was Turgot's view.

[Footnote 17: 'La necessite de mentir pour desavouer un ouvrage est une
extremite qui repugne egalement a la conscience et a la noblesse du
caractere; mais le crime est pour les hommes injustes qui rendent ce
desaveu necessaire a la surete de celui qu'ils y forcent. Si vous avez
erige en crime ce qui n'en est pas un, si vous avez porte atteinte, par
des lois absurdes ou par des lois arbitraires, au droit naturel qu'ont
tous les hommes, non seulement d'avoir une opinion, mais de la rendre
publique, alors vous meritez de perdre celui qu'a chaque homme
d'entendre la verite de la bouche d'un autre, droit qui fonde seule
l'obligation rigoureuse de ne pas menti