Dr. Newman Smyth expands this idea.[1] He says: "We may say that animals, strictly speaking, can have no immediate right to our words of truth, since they belong below the line of existence which marks the beginning of any functions of speech." He adds that animals "may have direct claims upon our humanity, and so indirectly put us under obligations to give them straightforward and fair treatment," and that "truthfulness to the domestic animal, to the horse or the dog, is to be included as a part of our general obligation of kindness to creatures that are entirely dependent upon our fidelity to them and their wants." But he cites the driving of horses with blinders,[2] and the fishing for trout with artificial flies, as evidence of the fact that man recognizes no sinfulness in the deceiving of the lower animals, and hence that the duty of veracity is not one of universal obligation. [Footnote 1: Smyth's _Christian Ethics_, p. 398.] [Footnote 2: Here is another illustration of Dr. Smyth's strange confusion of concealment with deception. It would seem as though a man must have blinders before his own eyes, to render him incapable of perceiving the difference between concealing a possible cause of fright from an animal, and intentionally deceiving that animal.] If, indeed, the duty of truthfulness were only a social obligation, there might be a force in this reasoning that is lacking when we see that falsehood and deceit are against the very nature of God, and are a violation of man's primal nature. A lie is a sin, whenever and however and to whomsoever spoken or acted. It is a sin against God when uttered in his sight. Man is given authority from God over all the lower animals;[1] and he is empowered to take their lives, if necessary for his protection or for his sustenance. In the exercise of this right, man is entitled to conceal from the animals he would kill or capture the means employed for the purpose; as he is entitled to conceal similarly from his fellow-man, when he is authorized to kill him as an enemy, in time of war waged for God. Thus it is quite proper for a man to conceal the hook or the net from the fish, or the trap or the pitfall from the beast; but it is not proper to deceive an animal by an imitation of the cry of the animal's offspring in order to lure that animal to its destruction; and the moral sense of the human race makes this distinction. [Footnote 1: Gen. 1:28; 9:1-3.]