The same author shows further how divers functions are necessarily divided in society.

We must, therefore, admit that all activity usefully employed is work, and that all work, whether manual or intellectual, mercenary[107] or gratuitous, is noble and legitimate.

Work being taken in its most general sense, may be set down as being a pleasure, a necessity, a duty.

Kant, who, as we have seen, refuses to admit in morals any other principle but that of duty, would probably disagree with us when we say that work is a pleasure and a necessity. But if it be true, why should we not say so? Is it necessary, in order that the duty of work be truly accomplished, that it be both painful and useless? Wisdom nowise requires this. Providence having attached to work, whilst making it the necessary condition of our self-preservation, a certain pleasure, lightening thereby our efforts, morality nowise forbids us to enjoy this pleasure and accept this necessity.

It will be easily granted that work is a necessity; but it is more difficult to obtain from men the admission that it is a pleasure. Man, if he will not die of hunger, must work, unquestionably, they will say; but that it is a pleasure is quite another thing.

If the pleasure of work is put to question, no one at least will maintain that it is a pleasure not to work. For when does rest, leisure, recreation give us most pleasure? Everybody knows, it is when we have worked. Recall to mind any unusually heavy work, any hurried and necessary task, or even our daily or weekly duty scrupulously fulfilled: what joy is it not when the task is done to give ourselves a holiday!

Idleness brings with it satiety, weariness, disgust, disorder, the ruin of the family, the destruction of health, and other evils still more baleful. Work, on the contrary, makes repose enjoyable. Without the fatigue of the day’s work, no pleasure in sleep, and even no sleep at all. A manifest proof that Providence did not intend us for repose, but for action, for effort, for struggle, for energetic and constant work.

We should even go so far as to say that work is not only a stimulant, but that it is in itself a pleasure and a joy.

There is, in the first place, the joy of self-love. We all experience joy when we have accomplished something; when we have succeeded in a difficult work, and the more difficult it was, the prouder we are of it. Besides, the exercise which accompanies activity is in itself a great good. The unfolding of strength, physical or moral, is the source of the truest pleasures. Activity is life itself: to live, is to act. Work, again, gives us the pleasure which accompanies any kind of struggle: in working we struggle against the forces of nature, we subdue them, discipline them, we teach them to obey us. Unquestionably the first efforts are painful: but when once the first difficulties are overcome, work is so little a fatigue that it becomes a pleasant necessity. One is even obliged to make an effort to take rest. Yes, after having in childhood had trouble to get accustomed to work, what in the long run becomes the most difficult, is not to work. One is almost obliged to fight against himself, to force himself to recreation and rest. Leisure in its turn becomes a duty to which we almost submit against our will, and only because reason bids us to submit to it; for we know that we must not abuse the strength Providence has entrusted to us.

It is not necessary to dwell long on this point to fix in our memory that work alone insures security and comfort. Certainly it does not always secure them; this is unfortunately too true; but if we are not quite sure that by working we can provide for wife and children, and secure a legitimate rest for our old age, we may, on the other hand, be quite sure that without work we shall bring upon ourselves and our family certain misery. There have not yet been found any means whereby wealth may be struck out of the earth without work. This wealth which dazzles our eyes; these palaces, carriages, splendid dresses, this furniture, luxury, all these riches and others more substantial: machinery, iron-works, land produce, all this is accumulated work. Between the condition of savages that wander about famished in the forests of America, and the condition of our civilized societies, there is no other difference but work. Suppose (a thing impossible) that in a society like this our own, all work should all at once be stopped: distress and hunger would be the immediate and inevitable consequence. Spain, on discovering the gold mines of America, thought herself enriched forever; she ceased work; it was her ruin; for from being Europe’s sovereign mistress, as she then was, she fell to the rank we see her occupy to-day. Laziness brings with it misery; misery beggary, and beggary is not always satisfied with asking merely—it steals.

Work is not only a pleasure or a necessity, it is also a duty; though painful and joyless, work is, nevertheless, an obligation for man; it were still an obligation for him if he could live without it. Work does not only insure security: it secures dignity. Man was created to exercise the faculties of his mind and body. He was created to act. I do not speak here of what he owes to others, but of what he owes to himself. “The happy man,” says Aristotle, “is not the man asleep, but the man awake,” and to be awake is to work and act.

CHAPTER XIII.

The different duties of man toward himself, considered as a moral being, are naturally deduced from the divers faculties of which this moral being is composed. Plato is the first, to our knowledge, who has employed this mode of deduction.[108] It is after having distinguished three parts or three faculties in the soul, that he attributes to each of them a virtue proper, “virtue being,” he says, “the quality by means of which one does a thing well.” It is thus that the virtue of wisdom corresponds to the faculty of the understanding; the virtue of courage to the irascible or courageous faculty, or to the heart; temperance, to that of desire or appetite. To these three virtues, Plato adds another which is but the harmony, the accord, the equilibrium between these, namely, justice. Cicero afterwards took up this deduction from another standpoint.[109]

In applying this ancient method to the present divisions of psychology, we shall admit, with Plato and Cicero, an order of virtues relative to the mind, and which we will call wisdom; and another class of virtues relating to the will, and which would correspond with courage or strength of mind (virtus, magnitudo animi). As to sensibility, if we take into consideration the appetites and physical desires, the virtue relating to them is temperance, of which we have already spoken. There remain the emotions, the affections of the heart which relate more particularly to the duties toward others. Yet they may, in a certain respect, be also considered as duties toward one’s self, although language does not designate this kind of virtue by a particular name.[110]

147. Duties relative to the investigation of truth.—Intellectual virtues.—There are two classes of virtues which have been often distinguished: the strict duties and the broad duties: the strict duties to consist in not injuring one’s faculties; the broad, to develop and perfect them; it is not easy to apply this distinction here; and, concerning intelligence, to separate self-preservation from self-improvement. In such a case, not to gain is inevitably to lose; he who does not cultivate his intellect, impairs it by that very fact.

One could not then, without pedantic investigation and subtlety, try to distinguish here, in one and the same duty, two distinct duties: the one prohibitive, the other imperative. They are both bound up in the general duty to cultivate one’s intellect. It is not so with the relations existing between one’s own intellect and the intellect of others; the expression of a thought gives rise to a strict duty: not to lie; which is the immediate consequence of the duty of the intellect toward itself, and which consequently should, by way of corollary, also belong to the present chapter.

The first question which presents itself to us is to know whether we should admit, with Aristotle, intellectual virtues, properly so called, distinct from the moral virtues, the first having regard to the intellect, the second to the passions. It would seem that the various faculties pointed out by Aristotle under the name of intellectual virtues, are rather qualities of the mind than virtues: art, science, prudence, wisdom, intelligence[111] (not to mention the difficulty of determining the various shades of meaning of these terms), are natural or acquired aptitudes, but which do not appear to have any moral merit: a scholar, an artist, a clever man, a man of good sense and good counsel are naturally distinguished from virtuous men. It would seem then that the intellectual virtues are opposed to the moral virtues, as the mind is to the heart: now, for every one, it is the heart rather than the mind that is the seat of virtue.

These difficulties are only apparent, and Aristotle himself gives us the means of solving them:

It is not the natural faculties of the mind then, no more than those of the heart and body, that deserve the name of virtues. It is those same faculties, developed and cultivated by the will: on this condition alone do they deserve esteem and respect. The intellect is in itself of a higher order than the senses, the appetites, the passions: it is therefore incumbent upon us to give it the largest share in our personal development. “It is to that we are allied,” says Pascal, “not to space and time. Let our efforts then tend to think well; this is the principle of morality.” The intellect presents two particular forms: it is either contemplative or active, theoretical or practical. The virtue of the contemplative intellect is knowledge; that of the practical intellect prudence. Finally a third virtue might be admitted: judgment or common sense, which is a critical,[113] not a practical faculty, and which partakes at the same time of both sides of the understanding.

These subtle distinctions of Aristotle have not lost their correctness and application with time. One can, in fact, employ his mind in three ways: either contemplate absolute truth by the means of science;—or judge of events and men and foresee future things without contributing toward their occurrence;—or again deliberate as to what is to be done or not to be done to bring about actions useful to one’s self and to others. Hence three kinds of men: the wise, the intelligent, the prudent.

Knowledge.—Taking up again, one after the other, these three qualities, we ought to ask ourselves whether knowledge is a duty for man; if he is held to develop his mind in a theoretical manner and without any practical end. But before we examine whether it is a duty, let us first find out whether it is lawful.

The scientific and speculative culture of the mind on the part of man, has often been regarded as a proud or conceited refinement.

This opinion was expressed by some writers of the seventeenth century—for instance, by Nicole, in the preface to the Logique de Port Royal:

Malebranche expresses himself in about the same terms:

In expressing themselves so disdainfully concerning the sciences, Nicole and Malebranche meant, in fact, only that one should not prefer speculative knowledge to the science of man or to the science of God; and it is most true that if we view the sciences from a standpoint of dignity, we must admit that the moral sciences have greater excellence than the physical sciences. But that which is equally true is, that we must not measure the merit of the sciences by their material or even moral or logical utility. Science is in itself, and without regard to any other end but itself, worthy to be loved and studied. Intelligence, in fact, was given to man that he might know the truth of things; investigation is its natural food. Man, in raising himself to science, increases thereby the excellence of his nature; he becomes a creature of a higher order; for in the order of divine creatures, the most perfect are at the same time those who know the most, and the highest degree of happiness promised to religious faith, is to know truth face to face. It is therefore no frivolous amusement to increase here below the sum of knowledge we are capable of, though this knowledge be only that of the things of this world, and not yet the higher and direct knowledge of God.

Without admitting that science is of itself a legitimate object of research, it will be recognized that it is lawful to study it, either in our own interest or for the love of others, or for the love of God. But this is not enough: to see in science nothing but a means to be useful to ourselves (as, for example, to make a living),[114] is a servile and mercenary view, which does not deserve to be discussed. To maintain that science should only be cultivated because of its utility to others, is the same as to say that man has no duties toward himself, and that he is not obliged, letting alone the interest of others, to respect or perfect his own self: a thing we have already refuted. Finally, to say that science should be cultivated as a gift from God, and for the love of God, may be true; but this is not any more applicable to that occupation than to any other; and the same may be said of any other kind of duty without exception. Certainly, science should not make one proud; but pride is only an adventitious and not a necessary consequence, which, in speaking of cultivating science, should not be confounded with the fact itself.

Besides, when Malebranche says that the scientist is not any happier or wiser for his science, he is mistaken: for the greatest happiness is sometimes derived from science alone; and as to the wisdom of it, a taste for elevated thought is already a guarantee against the allurements of the passions; finally, whilst we cultivate science, we are safe from other less innocent inclinations.

To the opinions of Nicole and Malebranche, let us oppose the testimony of two men who possessed in the highest degree the respect and love of science:

Let us now hear Descartes:

If, from a standpoint of somewhat mystical piety, some minds of the seventeenth century regarded the sciences as useless, a paradoxical stoicism accused them in the eighteenth to be a cause of corruption and decay in society. Such is J. J. Rousseau’s celebrated thesis in his first speech at the Academy of Dijon.

This celebrated paradox, which has created so much excitement in the past century, and which is even an historical event (for it was the first attack against the society of the time), has since been so decried that it is useless to dwell on it. Let us make a brief résumé of J. J. Rousseau’s arguments:

1. Progress in letters and sciences serves for nothing else but to conceal the vices and put hypocrisy in the place of an ill-bred rusticity.

2. All great nations ceased to be invincible as soon as the sciences penetrated among them. Egypt, after the conquest of Cambyses; Greece, after Pericles; Rome, after Augustus. If, on the contrary, we look for examples of healthy, honest, vigorous nations, we find them among the ancient Persians, Scythians, Spartans, the first Romans, the Swiss.

3. The sciences and arts are born of and nourish idleness. Their least mischief is uselessness.[116]

4. The letters and arts engender luxury, and luxury is one of the powerful instruments of corruption in morals: it destroys courage, lowers the character, and, by another consequence, depraves and corrupts the taste even.

5. Another consequence: the culture of the mind engenders sophisms, false systems, and dangerous doubts about religion and morality.

These various arguments, taking them up one after the other, may be answered as follows:

1. It is nowise proved that in the age of ignorance vices were less numerous and less deeply rooted than in the more enlightened age. Decency is a good in itself, and is not always hypocrisy. Delicacy of mind robs at least vice of its grossest features; it diminishes and allays violence, which is a great source of crimes.

2. It is not true that military virtues (which, besides, are not the only admirable virtues) are destroyed by the culture of the mind: modern examples prove this sufficiently.

3. To say that the letters and sciences are born of and nourish idleness is an abuse of words. Wherein is the man who works mentally more idle than he who works with his hands?

4. The sciences and letters do not develop a taste for luxury: luxury would develop without them, and would be all the more frivolous and corrupting: they are concomitant, but not mutually related facts. Luxury, besides, is not absolutely bad in itself: the taste for elegance is a legitimate one. Is not nature herself adorned?

5. Science develops wrong opinions, false systems: so be it; but it also corrects them, and we should look at both sides of a thing and see its good parts as well as its bad. Otherwise it would be easy to prove that everything is wrong.

Rousseau’s paradox, however, is not altogether false, and there are, unquestionably, many evils mixed up with the culture of the mind, but these evils do not come from the mind’s being cultivated, but from its being badly cultivated; they do not come from people’s seeking the true and the beautiful, but, on the contrary, from their not seeking them enough. The vanity derived from false science should not be imputed to true science, but to ignorance. The moral enfeeblement, which is the result of an over-refined culture of the mind, comes from our not sufficiently cultivating the mind in every direction; for example, from our neglecting the moral sciences for the industrial sciences, or the nobler arts for the voluptuous arts. The remedy for the evils pointed out by Rousseau is, therefore, not ignorance, but, on the contrary, a greater abundance of light, and higher lights.

It is then for each of us a duty to instruct himself, but it is evident that this duty must be regarded as a broad duty—that is to say, that its application cannot be determined by precise formulas. No man is obliged by the moral law to be what is called a scholar; no one is obliged to learn astronomy or transcendental mathematics, still less metaphysics. But it can be said that it is a duty for each of us: 1. To learn as well as possible the principles of the art he will have to cultivate: for instance, the magistrate the principles of jurisprudence; the physician the principles of medicine; the artisan the principles of mechanics. In this respect young students, we must confess, have far too easy a conscience. They do not realize the responsibility they incur by their negligence and laziness. 2. It is a duty for all men, according to the means they can dispose of, to instruct themselves concerning their duties. 3. It is also a duty for each to go, as far as he can, beyond the strictly necessary in matters of education, and in proportion to the means he has at his disposal. It is then a duty to neglect no occasion of improving one’s self.

149. Good sense.—Between science and prudence, between theoretical intelligence and practical intelligence, Aristotle places the critical faculty—in other terms, judgment, good sense, discernment. This faculty is distinguished from science in that it is only applied to things where doubt and deliberation come in; it treats then of the same objects as prudence; but it is distinguished from the latter in that prudence is practical and prescribes what should be done or not be done; good sense, on the contrary, is purely critical: it is limited to mere judging. It is, then, in some respects disinterested and does not induce to action; it is the art of appreciating things, men, and events. Good judgment may be found among men lacking practical prudence: one sees often very well the faults of others without seeing one’s own; or, again, one may be aware of one’s own faults and not be able to correct them. However, it is not to be denied that good sense or good judgment is a useful auxiliary to prudence; it is already in itself an estimable quality, and is far from being as well distributed among men as Descartes claims.[117] On the contrary, according to Nicole:

Here, the rules of morality are confounded with those of logic. It is the latter that teaches us how to avoid error, if not in science (which is the object of speculative logic), at least in life. The development of these rules will be found in the Recherche de la vérité of Malebranche. The Logique de Port Royal will furnish us a résumé of them which will suffice here:

150. Illusions coming from ourselves.—1. A first cause of illusion in the judgments we pass upon things, is to take our interest for a motive of belief: “I am of such or such a country, ergo, I must believe that such or such a saint has preached the Gospel there; I belong to such or such a class, ergo, I believe that such or such a privilege is a just one.”

2. Our affections are another cause of illusion: “I love him, ergo, he is the cleverest man in the world; I hate him, ergo, he is nobody.” This is what may be called the sophistry of the heart.

3. Illusions of self-love. There are some who decide about everything by the general and very convenient principle, that they must be in the right. They listen but little to the reasons of others; they wish to carry everything before them by main authority, and treat all those who are not of their opinion as indifferent thinkers. Some even, without suspecting it, go so far as to say to themselves: “If it were so, I should not be the clever man I am: or, I am a clever man; ergo, it is not so.”

4. Reciprocal reproaches which people may make to each other with the same right: for example, you are a caviler, you are selfish, blind, dishonest, etc. Whence this equitable and judicious rule of Saint Augustine: “Let us avoid in discussions mutual reproaching; reproaches which, though they may not be true at that moment, may justly be made by both parties.”

5. A spirit of contradiction and dispute, so admirably depicted by Montaigne:

6. The contrary defect, namely, a sycophantic amiability, which approves of everything and admires everything: example, the Philinte of Molière.

Besides these different illusions which are due to ourselves and our own weaknesses, there are others engendered from without, or at least from the divers aspects under which things present themselves to us:

151. Illusions arising from objects.—1. The mixture of the true and the false, of good and evil which we see in things, is cause that we often confound them. Thus do the good qualities of the persons we esteem cause us to approve their defects, and vice versa. Now, it is precisely in this judicious separation of good from evil that a correct mind shows itself.

2. Illusions arising from eloquence and flowery rhetoric.

3. Ill-natured interpretations of people’s peculiar views founded on mere appearances or hearsay; as, for example: such a one goes with doubtful characters, ergo, he is a bad character himself; such another associates with free-thinkers, ergo, he is a free-thinker likewise; a third criticises the government, ergo, he is a rebel; he approves its acts, ergo, he is a courtier, etc., etc.

4. False deductions drawn from a few accidental occurrences; as for instance: medicine does not cure all diseases, hence it cures none; there are frivolous women, hence all women are frivolous; there are hypocrites, hence piety is nothing but hypocrisy.

5. Error of judging of bad or good advice from subsequent events. As for example: Such or such an event followed upon such and such advice, hence it was good—it was bad.

6. Sophistry of authority. It consists in accepting men’s opinions on the strength of certain qualities they may possess, although these qualities may have nothing to do with the matter in hand. For instance, by reason of their age, or piety, or, what is worse, of wealth and influence. Certainly we do not exactly say in so many words: such a one has a hundred pounds income, and must therefore be right; but there is nevertheless something similar going on in our minds, which runs away with our judgment without our being conscious of it.

In pointing out these various dangers upon which good judgment and upright reasoning are often wrecked, we indicate sufficiently the rules which ought to serve in the education of the mind: for it is enough to be warned against such errors, and be endowed with a certain amount of correct judgment, to recognize and avoid them.

152. Prudence.—From the faculty of judging and having an opinion about things, let us pass on to the third quality of the mind, namely: prudence, which consists, as Aristotle informs us, in deliberating well before doing anything, and which is the art of well discerning our interest in the things concerning us, and the interest of others in the things concerning them.

There are then two sorts of prudence: personal prudence, which is nothing more than self-interest well understood, and civil or disinterested prudence, which applies to the interests of others; thus, a prudent general, a prudent notary, a prudent minister, are not only prudent in their own interests, but for that of others. Prudence from this point of view is then but a duty toward others. As to personal prudence, it may be asked how far it is a question of morals, and whether it is not excluded from them by the very principle of morals, which is duty. But we have already solved that difficulty. Because prudence is not all virtue, it does not follow that it is not a virtue. Certainly, we are too naturally inclined to seek our own interest, to make it necessary to set it down as a duty. But in case of struggle between self-interest and passion,[118] self-interest takes sometimes the character of duty. This is clear enough. Interest, if properly understood, represents general interest; and passion, private interest. To yield to passion, is to satisfy at a given moment, and for a very short time, one of our desires only. Prudence, on the contrary, pleads the cause of the general interest of the entire man, and for all his life. Man may be represented (as Plato has represented him) figuratively as a city, a republic, a world; it has been said that he is a microcosm (little world). This little world represents in miniature the harmony of the great world. The individual to whom the government of this little world is intrusted, and who stands in regard to himself as Providence stands in regard to the universe, should not favor a part of it at the expense of the rest. Prudence is then the virtue by means of which man governs the affairs of the little State of which he is the king. Prudence, moreover, is nothing more than foresight—that is to say, the faculty of foreseeing what is coming, of drawing from the past, consequences for the future, and acting conformably to the lessons of experience. Now, it is especially by this that man is distinguished from the animal: it is by this that he is capable of progress. He owes it then to himself to act according to the principles of reason, and not according to brute instincts.

Another difficulty of greater import, is that prudence does not represent a special virtue, but is nothing more than a common name given to several particular virtues. Thus, prudence being defined “the discernment between the useful and the hurtful,” it may be said that discernment, in point of sensual pleasures, will be called moderation or temperance; in point of riches, economy; that true courage holding the mean between temerity and cowardice, is necessarily accompanied by prudence; we have seen that science itself must learn how to keep within bounds, and this also is a sort of prudence. We shall find therefore that prudence has not, like other virtues, a property of its own. It is in reality nothing more than a mode common to all personal virtues, each presenting two standpoints to be considered from: 1, from the standpoint of personal dignity, which is the highest principle; 2, from the standpoint of a proper self-interest, which, subordinate to the first, is a secondary and relative standpoint.

However, applied in individual cases, we will give here a few of the rules concerning prudence in general:

1. It is not enough to attend to what good or evil the present moment may present; we should also examine what the natural consequences of this good or evil will be, so that, comparing the present with the future and balancing the one with the other, we may see the result beforehand.

2. It is unreasonable to seek a good which will inevitably be followed by a greater evil.

3. Nothing is more reasonable than to suffer an evil which is certain to be followed by a greater good.

4. One should prefer a greater good to a lesser, and conversely so in the case of evils.

5. It is not necessary to be fully certain in regard to great goods or evils, and probability is sufficient to induce a reasonable person to deprive himself of some lesser goods, or to suffer some slight evils, in view of acquiring much greater goods, or avoiding worse evils.[119]

154. Duties relative to telling the truth.—Veracity and falsehood.—It is in the nature of man to express his thoughts by signs of various kinds, and oftenest by words. What is the law which is to regulate the relations between words and thoughts? Are we to regard words as arbitrary means serving indifferently to express any kind of thought, or as having no other end than to express our own particular thought, the same, namely, which comes to us at the moment of speaking? Common sense solves this question by esteeming in the highest degree those who use speech only to express their thought, and despising those who use it to deceive. This sort of virtue is called veracity, and its opposite is falsehood.

Falsehood is generally regarded among men as only a violation of the duty toward others. It is not from this standpoint we are going to consider it here. Unquestionably, one should injure no one in any way, no more by a falsehood than otherwise. But for a falsehood to be harmless, does it follow that it is not bad? The scholastics distinguished two kinds of falsehoods: the malicious falsehood, with intent to deceive, and the verbal falsehood, which consists in mere words, and does not spring from any wish to do harm (as, for example, the falsehood of the physician who deceives his patient). But such distinctions should not be admitted. Falsehood need not be malicious to be bad: it is bad of itself, whatever be its consequences. There remains then to know what is to be done in cases of conflict between our duties, and if moral law does not in certain cases relent? Even though it did, it would not suffice to authorize the distinction between two kinds of falsehoods. What precisely constitutes a falsehood is to be verbal—that is to say, to employ speech to express the contrary of truth. Whether malice enters into it or not, this is an accident which has nothing to do with the essence of falsehood; it may aggravate or attenuate it, certainly, but it does not constitute it.

To well understand the moral evil which resides in falsehood one must take it at its source—that is to say, distinguish with Kant between inner and outward falsehood: the first whereby one lies to himself, namely, in lacking in sincerity in regard to himself; the second whereby one lies to others.

The human mind is naturally constituted for knowing the truth: truth is its object and its end. A mind that has not truth for its object is no mind. Whosoever uses his mind to satisfy his inclinations undoubtedly debases his mind, but he does not pervert it; but he who uses his mind to make himself or others believe the contrary to the truth, perverts and ruins his mind. He then perverts and destroys one of the most excellent gifts of his nature, and fails thereby in one of the strictest and most clearly defined duties.

It may be asked whether it is possible for man to really lie to himself, and if it is not rather a contradiction in terms. One can, in fact, understand how a man may be mistaken, but then he does not know that he is mistaken; it is an error, but no lie; if, on the contrary, he knows that he is mistaken, then for that very reason is he no longer mistaken; so that it would seem that there can be no lying to one’s self.

And yet popular psychology, the subtlest of all, because it is formed in the presence of real facts, and under the true teachings of experience (whilst scientific psychology is always more or less artificial), this natural psychology, which sums up the experience of the whole of humanity, has always affirmed that man could voluntarily deceive himself, consequently lie to himself. The most ordinary case of inward falsehood is when man employs sophisms—that is to say, seeks reasons wherewith to smother the cry of his conscience; or when he tries to persuade himself that he has no other motive in view than moral good, whilst, in fact, he only acts from fear of punishment, or from any other interested motive.