themselves is with the
French not a vice, but a way of speaking. He who would enhance this
testimony, might say that it is now a virtue in them; men form and
fashion themselves to it as to an exercise of honour; for dissimulation
is one of the most notable qualities of this age.

I have often considered whence this custom that we so religiously observe
should spring, of being more highly offended with the reproach of a vice
so familiar to us than with any other, and that it should be the highest
insult that can in words be done us to reproach us with a lie. Upon
examination, I find that it is natural most to defend the defects with
which we are most tainted. It seems as if by resenting and being moved
at the accusation, we in some sort acquit ourselves of the fault; though
we have it in effect, we condemn it in outward appearance. May it not
also be that this reproach seems to imply cowardice and feebleness of
heart? of which can there be a more manifest sign than to eat a man's own
words--nay, to lie against a man's own knowledge? Lying is a base vice;
a vice that one of the ancients portrays in the most odious colours when
he says, "that it is to manifest a contempt of God, and withal a fear of
men." It is not possible more fully to represent the horror, baseness,
and irregularity of it; for what can a man imagine more hateful and
contemptible than to be a coward towards men, and valiant against his
Maker? Our intelligence being by no other way communicable to one
another but by a particular word, he who falsifies that betrays public
society. 'Tis the only way by which we communicate our thoughts and
wills; 'tis the interpreter of the soul, and if it deceive us, we no
longer know nor have further tie upon one another; if that deceive us, it
breaks all our correspondence, and dissolves all the ties of government.
Certain nations of the newly discovered Indies (I need not give them
names, seeing they are no more; for, by wonderful and unheardof example,
the desolation of that conquest has extended to the utter abolition of
names and the ancient knowledge of places) offered to their gods human
blood, but only such as was drawn from the tongue and ears, to expiate
for the sin of lying, as well heard as pronounced. That good fellow of
Greece--[Plutarch, Life of Lysander, c. 4.]--said that children are
amused with toys and men with words.

As to our diverse usages of giving the lie, and the laws of honour in
that