The malice of lying consists, according to Utilitarian Philosophy, in the destruction of that mutual confidence which is so absolutely necessary for the proper maintenance and development of civilized life. But the Scholastic, while fully admitting this ground, looks for a still deeper root, and finds it in the very fact of the discrepancy between the speaker’s internal thought and its outward expression. The difference between the two positions may be more clearly apprehended in the following formula:——The first would define a lie as “_speaking with intent to deceive_;” whereas the second defines it “_speaking contrary to one’s thought_” (_locutio contra mentem_), even where there is no hope (and therefore no intent) of actual deception. The latter is clearly the stricter view, yet very closely allied with, and supplementing, the former. For we may perhaps say with Cardinal de Lugo——and _à la_ Kant——that the malice of the discrepancy mentioned above lies in the self-contradiction which results in the liar, between his inborn desire for the trust of his fellow-men and his conviction that he has rendered himself unworthy of it——that he has, in other words, degraded his nature. Now, where there do not exist relations of mutual confidence, such malice cannot exist. An enemy, a burglar, a lunatic, an impudent questioner, etc., are, _in their distinguishing character_, beyond the pale of mutual confidence——_i.e._, when acting professionally as enemies, burglars, etc. In regard to such outlaws from society, some moralists would accordingly maintain that the duty of veracity is non-existent, and that here we may “answer a fool according to his folly.” If a burglar asks where is your plate, you may reply at random “_In the Bank_,” or “_At Timbuctoo_,” or “_I haven’t any_.” If a lunatic declares himself Emperor of China, you may humour him, and give him _any_ information you may imagine about his dominions, etc. Such is the teaching of, _v.gr._, Professor Paulsen, of Berlin, in his “_System of Ethics_,” in which he is at one with Scholasticism, though, I daresay, we should not follow him in all his applications of the principle. He prefers to call such instances “_necessary lies_,” whereas we should say they were not lies at all, because they would not be rightly considered to imply _speaking_ strictly understood, that is, the communication of one’s mind to another. There is no real speech where there are no relations of mutual confidence. Practically, however, it is so far a question of name rather than of reality, of theory rather than of fact.