2. But it is lawful to take life in pursuance of the just judgment of authority: it is lawful to seize upon property in self-preservation. These exceptions stand very harmoniously with the well-being of society, or rather are required by it, as we shall see later on. The law against lying, so far as it is founded on the general prejudice done to society by the shock of social confidence, and on the particular annoyance of the party lied to, may seem to admit of similar exceptions. Whoever has no reasonable objection to having life and property taken from him in certain contingencies, can he reasonably complain of any hurt or inconvenience that he may suffer from a lie being told him at times? 3. I put forward this difficulty, not as though it were without its answer in the principle of General Consequences: still it is a difficulty. Besides, if the whole harm of lying is in the unpleasant effect wrought upon the deceived hearer, and the scandal and bad consequences to society at large, it is a long way to go round to show that lying is impossible to God. He in whose dominion are all the rights and claims of man, is not to be restrained by the mere reluctance of His creatures to be deceived, or by the general bad effects of a lie upon the edifice of human credit. As Master He might impose this annoyance upon the individual, these bad consequences upon society: or by His Providence He might prevent their occurring, whenever He willed in His utterances to swerve from the truth. The only help for the argument for the Divine veracity on these grounds, is to urge with Plato that none of the motives which lead men to lie can ever find place in the mind of God: that a lie is a subterfuge, an economy, a device resorted to under stress of circumstances, such as can never serve the turn of the Supreme Being. But though God be inaccessible to human reasons for departing from the truth, may He not have higher reasons, mysterious, and unsearchable, for such a deviation? It is long arguing out this point. Better bring the discussion sharp round with the question: Is there not some element in the Divine Nature itself, which makes it impossible for God to speak false?