36.  The casuists have very diligently distinguished lies into their several classes, according to their various degrees of malignity; but they have, I think, generally omitted that which is most common, and, perhaps, not less mischievous; which, since the moralists have not given it a name, I shall distinguish as the lie of vanity.

To vanity may justly be imputed most of the falsehoods which every man perceives hourly playing upon his ear, and perhaps most of those that are propagated with success.

37.  To the lie of commerce, and the lie of malice, the motive is so apparent, that they are seldom negligently or implicitly received:  suspicion is always watchful over the practices of interest; and whatever the hope of gain, or desire of mischief, can prompt one man to assert, another is, by reasons equally cogent, incited to refute.  But vanity pleases herself with such slight gratifications, and looks forward to pleasure so remotely consequential, that her practices raise no alarm, and her stratagems are not easily discovered.

38.  Vanity is, indeed, often suffered to pass unpursued by suspicion; because he that would watch her motions, can never be at rest; fraud and malice are bounded in their influence; some opportunity of time and place is necessary to their agency; but scarce any man is abstracted one moment from his vanity; and he, to whom truth affords no gratifications, is generally inclined to seek them in falsehoods.

39.  It is remarked by Sir Kenelm Digby, “that every man has a desire to appear superior to others, though it were only in having seen what they have not seen.”

Such an accidental advantage, since it neither implies merit, nor confers dignity, one would think should not be desired so much as to be counterfeited; yet even this vanity, trifling as it is, produces innumerable narratives, all equally false, but more or less credible, in proportion to the skill or confidence of the relater.

40.  How many may a man of diffusive conversation count among his acquaintances, whose lives have been signalized by numberless escapes; who never cross the river but in a storm, or take a journey into the country without more adventures than befel the knight-errants of ancient times in pathless forests or enchanted castles!  How many must he know, to whom portents and prodigies are of daily occurrence; and for whom nature is hourly working wonders invisible to every other eye, only to supply them with subjects of conversation!

41.  Others there are who amuse themselves with the dissemination of falsehood, at greater hazard of detection and disgrace; men marked out by some lucky planet for universal confidence and friendship, who have, been consulted in every difficulty, entrusted with every secret, and summoned to every transaction:  it is the supreme felicity of these men, to stun all companies with noisy information; to still doubt, and overbear opposition, with certain knowledge or authentic intelligence.