Given the tendency of human nature, English or foreign, to shield itself from unpleasant consequences at the expense of truth, it is unsafe to supply the public with a general principle, which, precisely on account of its universality, might be made to cover with some show of reason, many an unwarrantable _jeu de mots_. There are many exceedingly useful drugs which it would be unwise to throw into the open market. Hence, I quite recognise the partial validity of the objection to the doctrine in question. But since the doctrine is so often thrust in the public face, it is as well it should appear in its true colours. This leads me to a point which I think ought to be insisted upon, namely, that those features, which are most objectionable to Englishmen in the scholastic doctrine were devised by their authors with the intention of _limiting_ the realm of Equivocation and of safeguarding the truth more closely. All rational men are agreed that there are circumstances in which words must be used that are _primâ facie_ contrary to truth——in war, in diplomacy, in the custody of certain professional secrets. In such instances the non-Catholic rule seems to be: Tell a lie, and have done with it. The basis of such a principle is Utilitarian Morality, which estimates Right and Wrong _merely_ by the consequences of an action. The peripatetic philosopher, on the other hand, who maintains the _intrinsic_ moral character of certain actions, and who holds _mordicus_ to the love of truth for its own sake, is not content to rest in a lie, however excusable, but endeavours, for the honour of humanity, to demonstrate that such apparent deviations from truth are not such in reality. For he perceives in them _two_ meanings——whence the name _Equivocation_——one of which may be true, while the other is false. The speaker utters the words in their true meaning, and that the hearer should construe them in the other sense is the latter’s own affair. “_Not at home_” may mean “_out of the house_” or “_not inclined to receive visitors_.” It is the visitor’s own fault if he attaches the first meaning to the phrase rather than the second, or _vice versâ_. No sensible man would consider a prisoner to be “lying” in his plea of “_Not Guilty_,” because a certain juryman, in his ignorant simplicity, should carry off the impression of the prisoner’s _absolute_, and not merely of his _legal_, innocence. Yet the plea may mean either both or only the latter. Similarly, an impertinent ferretter-out of an important secret needs blame none but himself if he conceives the answer “_No_” to intimate anything else than that he should mind his own business. As to such _facts_ there is, I should say, an overwhelming agreement of opinion. That they differ from what we all recognise as a sheer “_lie_” is pretty evident. It is, therefore, convenient and scientific to label them with some other name, and the Scholastic hit upon the not inapt one of _Equivocation_.