It is to be noted that, in these two declarations, Dr. Smyth puts lying as if it were synonymous with prevarication; else there is no reason for his giving the one as over against the other. And this indicates a peculiar difficulty in the whole course of Dr. Smyth's argument concerning the "so-called lie of necessity." He essays no definition of the "lie." He draws no clear line of distinction between a lie, a falsehood, a deceit, and a prevarication, or between a justifiable concealment and an unjustifiable concealment; and in his various illustrations of his position he uses these terms indiscriminately, in such a way as to indicate that he knows no essential difference between them, or that he does not care to emphasize any difference. If, in the instance given above, Dr. Smyth means that "the sound human understanding, in spite of the moralists," will approve lying, or falsifying with the intention to deceive, he ought to know that the sound human understanding will not justify such a course, and that it is unfair to intimate such a thing.[1] And when he asks, in connection with this suggestion, "Who is right,--Kant, or the common moral sense? Which should be followed, the philosophic morality, or the practice of otherwise most truthful men?" his own preliminary assertions are his conclusive answer. He says specifically, "Kant was profoundly right when he regarded falsehood as a forfeiture of personal worth, a destruction of personal integrity;" and the "common moral sense" of humanity is with Kant in this thing, in accordance with Dr. Smyth's primary view of the case, as over against the intimation of Dr. Smyth's question. As to the suggested "practice of otherwise most truthful men" in this thing,--if men who generally tell the truth, lie, or speak falsely, or deceive, under certain circumstances, they are much like men who are generally decent, but who occasionally, under temptation, are unchaste or dishonest; they are better examples in their uprightness than in their sinning. [Footnote 1: See pp. 9-32, _supra_.] It would seem, indeed, that, notwithstanding his sound basis of principles, which recognizes the incompatibility of falsehood with true manhood and with man's duty to his fellows, Dr. Smyth does not carry with him in his argument the idea of the essential sinfulness of a lie, and therefore he is continually inconsistent with himself. He says, for example, in speaking of the suspension of social duties in war time: "If the war is justifiable, the ethics of warfare come at once into play. It would be absurd to say that it is right to kill an enemy, but not to deceive him. Falsehood, it may be admitted, as military strategy, is justifiable, if the war is righteous."