Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 17.djvu/296

290 what height they may charge them afterward. Toward the end of this chapter, he warns the heads of parties against believing their own lies, which has proved of pernicious consequence of late; both a wise party, and a wise nation, having regulated their affairs upon lies of their own invention. The causes of this he supposes to be, too great a zeal and intenseness in the practice of this art, and a vehement heat in mutual conversation, whereby they persuade one another, that what they wish, and report to be true, is really so: that all parties have been subject to this misfortune. The jacobites have been constantly infested with it; but the whigs of late seemed even to exceed them in this ill habit and weakness. To this chapter the author subjoins a calendar of lies, proper for the several months of the year.

The ninth chapter treats of the celerity and duration of lies. As to the celerity of their motion, the author says it is almost incredible: he gives several instances of lies, that have gone faster than a man can ride post: your terrifying lies travel at a prodigious rate, above ten miles an hour: your whispers move in a narrow vortex, but very swiftly. The author says, it is impossible to explain several phenomena in relation to the celerity of lies, without the supposition of synchronism and combination. As to the duration of lies, he says there are of all sorts, from hours and days, to ages; that there are some, which, like insects, die and revive again in a different form; that good artists, like people who build upon a short lease, will calculate the duration of a lie surely to answer their purpose; to last just as long, and no longer, than the turn is served.

The tenth chapter treats of the characteristicks of lies;