* But all these rights or titles
are already included in the principle of innate freedom, and are not
really distinguished from it, even as dividing members under a
higher species of right.
*It is customary to designate every untruth that is spoken
intentionally as such, although it may be in a frivolous manner a lie,
or falsehood (mendacium), because it may do harm, at least in so far
as any one who repeats it in good faith may be made a laughing-stock
of to others on account of his easy credulity. But in the juridical
sense, only that untruth is called a lie which immediately infringes
the right of another, such as a false allegation of a contract
having been concluded, when the allegation is put forward in order
to deprive some one of what is his (falsiloquim dolosum). This
distinction of conceptions so closely allied is not without
foundation; because on the occasion of a simple statement of one's
thoughts, it is always free for another to take them as he may; and
yet the resulting repute, that such a one is a man whose word cannot
be trusted, comes so close to the opprobrium of directly calling him a
liar, that the boundary-line separating what, in such a case,
belongs to jurisprudence, and what is special to ethics, can hardly be
otherwise drawn.
The reason why such a division into separate rights has been
introduced into the system of natural right, viewed as including all
that is innate, was not without a purpose.
Pages:
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29