8. By our rejection of Grotius' theory we are enabled to answer Milton's question: "If all killing be not murder, nor all taking from another, stealing why must all untruths be lies?" Because, we say, killing and taking away of goods deal with rights which are not absolute and unlimited, but become in certain situations void; whereas an untruth turns, not on another's right, but on the exigency of the speaker's own rational nature calling for the concord of the word signifying with the thought signified, and this exigency never varies. _Untruth_ and _falsehood_ are but polite names for a _lie_. _Readings_.--St. Thos., 2a 2æ, q. 110, art. 3, in corp., ad. 4; _ib_., q. 109, art. 2, 3, in corp.; Ar., _Eth_., IV., vii.; Plato, _Rep_., 382, 389 B, C. SECTION III.--_Of the keeping of Secrets without Lying_. 1. There are _natural_ secrets, secrets of _promise_, and secrets of _trust_. A _natural_ secret is all a man's own private history, which he would not have made public, as also all that he discovers by his own observation of the similar private history of his neighbours. If a man finds out something about his neighbour, and, after he has found it out for himself, the neighbour gets him to promise not to publish it, that is a secret of _promise_. Lastly, if one man comes to another, as to a lawyer, or a surgeon, for professional advice, or simply to a friend for moral counsel, and in order thereto imparts to him some of his natural secrets, those secrets, as they are received and held by the person consulted, are called secrets of _trust_. This latter kind of secret is privileged above the other two. A natural secret, and also a secret of promise, must be delivered up on the demand of an authority competent to inquire in the department where the secret lies. But a secret of trust is to be given up to no inquirer, but to be kept against all who endeavour to come by it, except where the matter bodes mischief and wrong to a third party, or to the community, and where at the same time the owner of the secret cannot be persuaded to desist from the wrong. This proviso does not hold for the _seal of confession_, which is absolutely inviolable.