XIV. 



THE BEST rOLICY. 



Is honesty tlie best policy? This is an inquiry 

 wliich an old proverb has long ago answered for 

 us off-hand in the aflirniative ; and the attempt to 

 re-open the question now after it has been so long 

 settled to everybody's satisfaction may seem to 

 many people at first sight to smack of meddling 

 with edge-tools — to be little less than wicked and 

 immoral, or, at any rate, highly inexpedient. But, 

 when we look a little more deeply into the matter, 

 it is by no means certain that a comfortable ac- 

 quiescence in the conception of honesty as the best 

 policy is, in any measure, a necessary part of the 

 higliest and truest morality. Even if we are per- 

 fectly convinced in any particular case that a dis- 

 honest action would be for our immediate or per- 

 manent advantage, for example, that belief ought 

 not in the least to weigh with us in tlie practical 

 governance of our future conduct as moral beings. 

 And, on the other hand, if we merely believe 

 loosely in honesty because we think, in the com- 

 mon phrase, that "it pays in the long run,'* we 



are not, in the truest and highest sense, honest at 



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