XII. I could give more examples of the same sort; but am aware, that it may be said in answer to them, that these are unforeseen accidents; but they notwithstanding, are the evil accidental consequences of lies, which although the person who tells them cannot foresee, are not unworthy the attention of the legislature; and of their taking measures to prevent the mischiefs arising from them, by assigning some species of punishment to all kinds of lies whatever. At least, the motive of preventing these accidental mischiefs, should operate jointly with the reasons we have already given, to induce the legislature, to fall upon some mode of punishment to curb the vice of lying. SECT. V. XIII. But the principal mischiefs that are produced by lies, which are called jocose and officious, do not only happen by accident, but such lies have in their own nature, a tendency to bring on those mischiefs. Of this sort are all flattering lies. Of the many apophthegms we meet with, that have been severe upon liars, there is no one seems to me to be better pointed, than that of Bion one of the seven wise men of Greece. He being one day asked, what animal he esteemed the most pernicious? answered, that to the world at large it was a tyrant, and in private life, a flatterer. For so it is, that flattery always, or nearly always, is pernicious to the person to whom it is addressed. The same man, who if the incense of unmerited applause was not offered to him, would be gentle, prudent, and modest, would by the application of it, be corrupted to such a degree, as to become proud, fierce, intolerable, and ridiculous. It is not one man only, that a flattering lie may be the undoing of, but it is also capable of ruining a whole kingdom; and this is a fatality that has often happened. Many princes, who have had a portion of the taint of ambition in their compositions, if there had not been those about them, who fomented this evil tendency of their minds, would have led happy and peaceable lives, but upon being persuaded by a flatterer, that their greatest glory consisted in adding new dominions to their crown, have become bloody scourges, both to their own subjects, and those of their neighbours.