“I know how the great basement of all power Is frankness, and a true tongue to the world; And how intriguing secrecy is proof Of fear and weakness, and a hollow state.” An artificial system must maintain itself by suppressing the free play of social forces and inculcating its own artificial ideas in place of those derived from experience. Free association, free speech, free thinking, in so far as they touch upon matters vital to authority, are and always have been put down under such systems, and this means that the whole mind of the people is emasculated, as the mind of Italy was by Spanish rule and religious reaction in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. “Oriental mendacity” is ascribed to the insecurity of life and property under arbitrary rule; but it is not merely life and property that are affected. The very idea of truth and reason in human affairs can hardly prevail under a system which affords no observation to corroborate it. The fact that in diplomacy, for instance, there is a growing belief that it pays to be simple and honest, I take to be a reflection of the fact that the international system, based more and more on intelligent public opinion, is gradually coming to be a medium in which truth is fit to live. Perhaps something of this hostility to truth will linger in all establishments, however they may be humanized: they all involve a kind of vested interest in certain ideas which is not favorable to entire frankness. It sometimes appears that one who would be quite honest and stand for human nature should avoid not only religious, political and educational allegiance, but law, journalism, and all positions where one has to speak as part of an institution. As a rule the great seers and thinkers have stood as much aside from institutions as the nature of the human mind permits. Still another reason for the keener sense of truth in our day is the need to economize attention. In societies where life is dull, fiction, circumlocution and elaborate forms of intercourse serve as a sort of pastime; and the first arouses no resentment unless some definite injury is attempted by it. Although the Chinese are upright in keeping their pecuniary engagements, we are told that mere truth is not valued by them, and is not inculcated by their classic moralists. So in Italy the people seem to think that a courteous and encouraging lie is kinder than the bare truth, as when a man will pretend to give you information when he knows nothing about the matter. A strenuous civilization like ours makes one intolerant of all this. It is not that we are always hurried; but we are so often made to feel the limitations of our attention that we dislike to waste it. Thought is life, and we wish to get the most reality for a given outlay of it that is to be had. We wish to come at once to the Real Thing, whether it be a business proposition or the most subtle theory.