[Footnote 1:  Book VII.]

[Footnote 2:  Yet Victor Hugo afterwards represents even Sister Simplice as lying unqualifiedly, when sorely tempted—­although not in the sick-room.]

A well-known physician, in speaking to me of this subject, said:  “It is not so difficult to avoid falsehood in dealing with anxious patients as many seem to suppose. Tact, as well as principle, will do a good deal to help a physician out, in an emergency.  I have never seen any need of lying, in my practice.”  And yet another physician, who had been in a widely varied practice for forty years, said that he had never found it necessary to tell a lie to a patient; although he thought he might have done so if he had deemed it necessary to save a patient’s life.  In other words, while he admitted the possible justification of an “emergency lie,” he had never found a first-class opening for one in his practice.  And he added, that he knew very well that if he had been known to lie to his patients, his professional efficiency, as well as his good name, would have suffered.  Medical men do not always see, in their practice, the supposed advantages of lying, which have so large prominence in the minds of ethical writers.

Another profession, which is popularly and wrongly accused of having a place for the lie in its system of ethics, is the legal profession.  Whewell refers to this charge in his “Elements of Morality” (citing Paley in its support).  He says:  “Some moralists have ranked with the cases in which convention supersedes the general rule of truth, an advocate asserting the justice, or his belief in the justice, of his client’s cause.”  But as to an advocate’s right in this matter, Whewell says explicitly:  “If, in pleading, he assert his belief that his cause is just, when he believes it unjust, he offends against truth; as any other man would do who, in like manner, made a like assertion."[1]

[Footnote 1:  Whewell’s Elements of Morality, sec. 400.]

Chief-Justice Sharswood, of Pennsylvania, in his standard work on “Legal Ethics,” cites this opinion of Whewell with unqualified approval; and, in speaking for the legal profession, he says:  “No counsel can with propriety and good conscience express to court or jury his belief in the justice of his client’s cause, contrary to the fact.  Indeed, the occasions are very rare in which he ought to throw the weight of his private opinion into the scales in favor of the side he has espoused.”  Calling attention to the fact that the official oath of an attorney, on his admission to the bar, in the state of Pennsylvania, includes the specific promise to “use no falsehood,” he says:  “Truth in all its simplicity—­truth to the court, client, and adversary—­should be indeed the polar star of the lawyer.  The influence of only slight deviations from truth upon professional character is very observable.  A man may as well be detected in a great as a little lie.  A single discovery, among professional brethren, of a failure of truthfulness, makes a man the object of distrust, subjects him to constant mortification, and soon this want of confidence extends itself beyond the Bar to those who employ the Bar.  That lawyer’s case is truly pitiable, upon the escutcheon of whose honesty or truth rests the slightest tarnish."[1]