Liars Need a Good Memory

"Of Liars" is one of my favorite of Montaigne's essays. He begins, somewhat indirectly, by remarking that he has a monstrously poor memory. In fact, he brags that he's gained something of a reputation for his weakness in this particular faculty. And because of that deficiency he has tended to avoid involvement with public negotiations, where the lack of a good memory is unacceptable. Just as we begin to think Michel has lost his way, he makes his point: "It is not unreasonably said that anyone who does not feel sufficiently strong in memory should not meddle with lying." The trouble with lying is that you've got to remember what you've said, and to whom. Again Montaigne:

I have often seen the proof of this, and amusingly, at the expense of those who make a profession of fashioning their words only to suit the affairs they are negotiating and to please the great to whom they are speaking. For these circumstances, to which they are willing to enslave their honor and their conscience, being subject to many changes, their words must vary accordingly. Whence it happens that they describe the same thing as now gray, now yellow; to one man one way, to another another. And if by chance these men compare notes on such contrary reports, what becomes of this fine art? Let alone the fact that so often they imprudently entangle themselves; for what memory could suffice them to remember all the many different shapes into which they have cast the same subject?

Then he observes dryly: "I have seen many in my time envy someone's reputation for this fine sort of prudence, who do not see that if the reputation is there, the effect cannot be."

In a later essay, "Of Giving the Lie," Montaigne remarks:

But whom shall we believe when he talks about himself, in so corrupt an age, seeing that there are few or none whom we can believe when they speak of others, where there is less incentive for lying? The first stage in the corruption of morals is the banishment of truth; for as Pindar said, to be truthful is the beginning of a great virtue, and is the first article that Plato requires in the governor of his Republic.

Then he adds: "Our truth of nowadays is not what is, but what others can be convinced of." Plus ça change, plus c'est le meme chose.