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THE RELATIVE DUTIES OF MANKIND. [Part III.

country, in a great measure, uncertain, confused, and proble-matical.

3. Again, truth is violated by the practice of repeating stories,narratives, and statements improbable in themselves, without muchor any inquiry into their credibility, and without much regardingwhether they are true or false. To originate such narrativesand statements, without any ground on which to rest them, is,except that the intention of deceiving may be wanting, absoluteand unqualified falsehood. And no man, who attaches muchvalue or importance to truth, will be willing to assert any thingwithout knowing it to be true, or without a belief and assuranceof its truth, resting on grounds reasonably entitled to confidence.Actual knowledge, then, or reasonable grounds of assurance, canalone justify us in asserting any thing for truth. And he doesnot show much respect for truth, who positively asserts anything, of which he is not assured, and of which he might be as-sured by inquiry.

Nor will a man, scrupulously regardful of truth, indulge himselfin the habit of amplifying, exaggerating, and supplying circum-stances, with a view to embellish the narrations or anecdoteswhich he may have occasion to relate, and thus to season his con-versation, render it more attractive, and spice it to the taste of acircle of gay companions. Such a habit is dangerous; it maygradually undermine and impair, or perhaps, even destroy, aman’s regard for truth, before he is sensible of the effect. Truthis too sacred a subject to be trifled with ; and such a habit, if it isnot positively and unequivocally criminal, is assuredly overstep-ping the line of safety. Our safety, in such a case, consists inavoiding even too near an approach to the division line betweenright and wrong. Habits grow insensibly upon the individualswho practise them, until their remote results are widely differentfrom any thing, which, in the outset, could have been anticipated.

There are some instances on record, equally fitted to surpriseand to instruct us in regard to the importance of an habituallystrict observance of truth. The habit of amplifying on everyoccasion, of exaggerating and supplying circumstances wheneverthere is a temptation to do so, and, still more, of making positiveaffirmations upon inadequate grounds of assurance, has sometimes