rhetoric. What is a lie? The question
is worth asking, once and away, by the practical English mind.

A voluntary spoken divergence from the fact as it stands, as it has
occurred and will proceed to develop itself: this clearly, if adopted by
any man, will so far forth mislead him in all practical dealing with
the fact; till he cast that statement out of him, and reject it as an
unclean poisonous thing, he can have no success in dealing with the
fact. If such spoken divergence from the truth be involuntary, we lament
it as a misfortune; and are entitled, at least the speaker of it is,
to lament it extremely as the most palpable of all misfortunes, as the
indubitablest losing of his way, and turning aside from the goal instead
of pressing towards it, in the race set before him. If the divergence is
voluntary,--there superadds itself to our sorrow a just indignation: we
call the voluntary spoken divergence a lie, and justly abhor it as the
essence of human treason and baseness, the desertion of a man to the
Enemy of men against himself and his brethren. A lost deserter; who has
gone over to the Enemy, called Satan; and cannot _but_ be lost in the
adventure! Such is every liar with the tongue; and such in all nations
is he, at all epochs, considered. Men pull his nose, and kick him out
of doors; and by peremptory expressive methods signify that they can and
will have no trade with him. Such is spoken divergence from the fact; so
fares it with the practiser of that sad art.

But have we well considered a divergence _in thought_ from what is the
fact? Have we considered the man whose very thought is a lie to him and
to us! He too is a frightful man; repeating about this Universe on every
hand what is not, and driven to repeat it; the sure herald of ruin to
all that follow him, that know with _his_ knowledge! And would you learn
how to get a mendacious thought, there is no surer recipe than carrying
a loose tongue. The lying thought, you already either have it, or will
soon get it by that method. He who lies with his very tongue, _he_
clearly enough has long ceased to think truly in his mind. Does he, in
any sense, "think"? All his thoughts and imaginations, if they
extend beyond mere beaverisms, astucities and sensualisms, are false,
incomplete, perverse, untrue even to himself. He has become a false
mirror of this Universe; not a small mirror only, but a crooked,
bedimmed and utterly deranged one. But all loose tongues too