Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/212

198 phrases of praise or blame, generally to be pronounced excessive; the irresponsible rhetoric of fancy and caprice. Nor do we need, in illustrating this point, to confine ourselves to everyday intercourse. Literature furnishes numerous examples of the vice of overcoloring, even where we ought least to expect to find them—in the writings of historians. Witness Carlyle and Macaulay. The work of the former is frequently rendered unveracious not only by personal passion, but also through the abuse of his enormous vocabulary of invective; that of the latter, as well by willingness to sacrifice the finer shades of analysis to the production of brilliant antithetical effects, as by the occasional irruption of bias and prejudice. Of neither of these men could it be rightly said, in Mrs. Browning's splendid phrase, that he possessed in full degree "the conscience of the intellect"

Pushing the matter still further, we should say that the conception of veracity involves, in the second place, not simply the habit of keeping close to what we believe to be fact, but due inquiry into the basis of such belief. It is one thing to stick consistently to what we take to be truth; another, but equally important thing, to make certain that we are fully justified in accepting and proclaiming it as such. There are many people who, in the daily intercourse of the world, will never be found guilty of willful prevarication or misstatement, but who none the less seldom take the time or trouble necessary to sift the stories they hear and repeat, and test the exact relation between what is reported and what has actually occurred. As "evil is wrought by want of thought as well as want of heart" so also are we often confused and misled, sometimes regarding issues of serious moment, by the mental laxity, inertness, or inattention of ourselves or others, no less than by positive falsehood or malicious dissimulation. How little this side of the question appeals to most of us is clearly shown by the circumstance that the defense, "I thought is was so and so," or, "Well, I didn't know any better at the time" or "Such and such a person told me so" is currently urged and accepted as sufficient answer, when any statement, subsequently proved to be incorrect, is traced back to its immediate source. But no such excuse is ethically valid. The proper rejoinder in all such cases is: "You ought to have known; you ought not to have made allegations or offered opinions until you had been at proper pains to convince yourself of the soundness of what you said" Matthew Arnold once remarked that the English are very good in following their consciences; where they are not good is in finding out first of all whether their consciences are leading them right or wrong. But, in view of the fully developed principle of veracity, we must hold a man responsible, up to the uttermost limit of his opportunity, for knowing the truth as well as for speaking it; for investigating the