Coming next to moral reputation, we find that the ethical rule requiring respect for the moral character of others is even more exacting, and that any contravention of it deserves an even more strenuous reprobation. The Decalogue prohibits the bearing of false witness and this rule is extensible from courts of law to ordinary conversation, since the principle involved is the same. The Sermon on the Mount menacingly warns against judging others: “Judge not that ye be not judged.” Buddha enjoins his followers to refrain from malicious gossip, and includes a prohibition to this effect among the principal pronouncements of his religion. All the great teachers of ethics and religion insist on this point, perhaps because the natural propensities of men constantly tend in the opposite direction, and are so hard to restrain. To stab one’s neighbor in the back, morally speaking, to insinuate base motives, to spread damaging reports about him, to suggest as possibly and then as probably true rumors which one does not positively know to be untrue, to allow private repugnance to take the place of evidence,—are infringements of the moral reputation of others with some of which notoriously many even of the so-called best people are chargeable. I do not here speak of the grosser attacks, attacks on character inspired by envy, rivalry, and greed. The soundness of the rule is generally admitted, though its violations are past belief and without number. But is the rule itself as to moral reputation tenable? There is a difference between intellectual and moral reputation at which we must at least cast a glance. Intellectual reputation is a fairly safe index of merit; moral reputation is not. A man’s mind is reflected in his intellectual performances. Is the same true of his moral character? Is not the moral character an interior, elusive thing? The real character escapes the eye of the outside spectator and judge; and if this be so, why should it be so important a matter to safeguard a man’s moral reputation, seeing that the reputation he deserves is past finding out? A public official, for instance, is accused of corrupt practices. He is innocent, and his friends and he are indignant at the damaging accusations brought against him. But if not guilty of the palpable derelictions with which he is charged, yet, in view of his opportunities and education, he may not be less blameworthy for other acts with which he has not been charged, and in his heart of hearts he knows that this is so. Why then, this outcry? Other examples might be adduced. The honor of a young woman is attacked by the circulation of atrocious rumors, and the reaction at this most sensitive point is certain to be extreme when the falseness of the accusation is exposed. But is outward decorum, correct behavior, always a sure sign of inward purity?