In his general statement of "the duty of speaking the truth," Dr. Smyth is also clear, sound, and emphatic.[1] "The law of truthfulness is," he says, "a supreme inward law of thought." "The obligation of veracity ... is an obligation which every man owes to himself. It is a primal personal obligation. Kant was profoundly right when he regarded falsehood as a forfeiture of personal worth, a destruction of personal integrity.... Truthfulness is the self-consistency of character; falsehood is a breaking up of the moral integrity. Inward truthfulness is essential to moral growth and personal vigor, as it is necessary to the live oak that it should be of one fiber and grain from root to branch. What a flaw is in steel, what a foreign substance is in any texture, that a falsehood is to the character,--a source of weakness, a point where under strain it may break.... Truthfulness, then, is due, first by the individual to himself as the obligation of personal integrity. The unity of the personal life consists in it." [Footnote 1: _Ibid_., pp. 386-389.] And in addition to the obligation of veracity as a duty to one's self, Dr. Smyth recognizes it as a duty to others. He says: "Truthfulness is owed to society as essential to its integrity. It is the indispensable bond of social life. Men can be members, one of another in a social organism only as they live together in truth. Society would fall, to pieces without credit; but credit rests on the general social virtue of truthfulness.... The liar is rightly regarded as an enemy to mankind. A lie is not only an affront against the person to whom it is told, but it is an offense against humanity." If Dr. Smyth had been content to leave this matter with the explicit statement of the principles that are unvaryingly operative, he would have done good service to the world, and his work could have been commended as sound and trustworthy in this department of ethics; but as soon as he begins to question and reason on the subject, he begins to waver and grow confused; and in the end his inconclusive conclusions are pitiably defective and reprehensible.[1] [Footnote 1: Smyth's _Christian Ethics_, pp. 392-403] In considering "the so-called lies of necessity," Dr. Smyth declares with frankness: "Some moralists in their supreme regard for truth will not admit that under any conceivable circumstances a lie can be deemed necessary, not even to save life or to prevent a murderer from accomplishing his fiendish purpose." And then over against this he indicates his fatal confusion of mind and weakness of reasoning in the suggestion: "But the sound human understanding, in spite of the moralists, will prevaricate, and often with great vigor and success, in such cases. Who is right,--Kant, or the common moral sense? Which should be followed,--the philosophic morality, or the practice of otherwise most truthful men?"