The World as Will and Idea, Vol. I — Arthur Schopenhauer, trans. Haldane & Kemp

illusive motives, on account of which he follows my will, while he believes he is following his own. Since the medium in which the motives lie is knowledge, I can only accomplish this by falsifying his knowledge, and this is the lie. The lie always aims at influencing another’s will, not merely his knowledge, for itself and as such, but only as a means, so far as it determines his will.

For my lying itself, inasmuch as it proceeds from my will, requires a motive; and only the will of another can be such a motive, not his knowledge in and for itself ; for as such it can never have an influence upon my will, therefore it can never move it, can never be a motive of its aim.

But only the willing and doing of another can be this, and his knowledge indirectly through it This holds good not only of all lies that have manifestly sprung from self-interest, but also of those which proceed from pure wickedness, which seeks enjoyment in the painful consequences of the error into wliich it has led another.

Indeed, mere empty boasting aims at influencing the will and action of others more or less, by increasing their respect or improving their opinion of the boaster. The mere refusal of a truth, ?.c., of an assertion generally, is in itself no wrong, but every impqsing of a lie is certaihTylt~wrong. ffe who refuses to show the strayed traveller the right road does huh no wrong, but he _whn directs hioTto'TTfnse rbad"^^ does.

It follows from what^has been~^I3^ that every lie, like every act of violence, is as such wrong, because as such it has for its aim the extension of the authority of my will to other individuals, and so the assertion of my will through the denial of theirs, just as much as violence has. But the most complete lie is the broken contract, because here all the conditions mentioned are completely and distinctly present together.

For when I enter into a contract, the promised performance of the other individual is directly and confessedly the motive for my reciprocal performance. The promises were de436 THE WORLD AS WILL. bk. iv 3liberately and formally exchanged. The fulfilment of the declarations made is, it is assumed, in the power of eacL If the other breaks the covenant, he has deceived me, and by introducing merely illusory motives into my knowledge, he has bent my will according to his intention ; he has extended the control of his wUl to another individual, and thus has committed a distinct wrong. On this is founded the moral lawfulness and validity of the contract.

Wrong through violence is not so shameful to the doer of it as wrong through craft ; for the former arises from physical power, which under all circumstances impresses mankind; while the latter, by the use of siibterfuge, betrays weakness, and lowers man at once as a physical and moral being. This is further the câse because lying and deception can only succeed if he who employs them expresses at the same time horror and contempt of them in order to win confidence, and his victory rests on the fact that meia Credit lum with honesty which he does not pbsseisi THe^deep horror which is always excited by cuimmg, faithlessness, and treachery rests on the fact that good faith and honesty are the bond which externally binds into a unity the will which has been broken up into the multiplicity of individuals, and thereby limits the consequences of the egoism which resxilts from that dispersion. Faithlessness and treachery break this outward bond asunder, and thus give boimdless scope to the consequences of egoism.