rsons out of ten swear more or
less, and spontaneously confirm statements which are in the least degree
strange or difficult of belief, or promises to which they wish to give an
air of sincerity and earnestness, by the strongest oaths they dare to use.
This comes of a felt necessity, which will exist as long as preeminent
sanctity is attached to legal oaths.

*Oaths are notoriously ineffective in insuring* truth and fidelity. So far
as their educational influence is concerned, they tend, as we have seen,
to undermine the reverence for truth in itself considered, which is the
surest safeguard of individual veracity. Then too, so far as reliance is
placed upon an oath, the attention of those concerned is directed with the
less careful scrutiny to the character for veracity borne by him to whom
it is administered. In point of fact, men swear falsely whenever and
wherever they would be willing to utter falsehood without an oath. In
courts of justice, the pains and penalties of perjury undoubtedly prevent
a great deal of false swearing; but precisely the same penalties are
attached to the affirmation of persons who, on the ground of religious
scruples, are excused from swearing, and they certainly are none too
severe for false testimony, in whatever way it may be given.
Notwithstanding this check, however, it is well known that before a
corrupt or incompetent tribunal, an unprincipled advocate never finds any
difficulty in buying false testimony; and even where justice is uprightly
and skilfully administered, it is not rare to encounter between equally
credible witnesses such flagrant and irreconcilable contradictions as to
leave no room for any hypothesis other than perjury on one side or both.
Perjury in transactions with the national revenue and with municipal
assessors is by no means unprecedented among persons of high general
reputation. False oaths of this description are, indeed, not infrequently
preceded by some fictitious formalism, such as an unreal and temporary
transfer of property; but this is done, not in order to evade the guilt of
perjury, but, in case of detection, to open a technical escape from its
legal penalty. Promissory oaths are of equally little worth. There is not
a public functionary from the President of the United States to the
village constable, who does not take what is meant to be a solemn oath
(though often administered with indecent levity) to be loyal to the
constitution of the country or st