Innocence of Intent

Some two centuries ago, Jean Baptiste Massillon wrote on The Curse of a Malignant Tongue and asked some questions concerning innocence of intent: “What matters it to the brother whom you stab whether it be done through indiscretion or malice? Does an arrow, unwittingly drawn, make a less dangerous or slighter wound than if sent on purpose? . . . It is here he ought to put a guard of circumspection on his tongue, weigh every word, put them together in his heart, says the sage Ecclesiasticus, and let them ripen in his mouth . . .”

Those who have done damage often say they didn’t mean to do it⎯loose talkers, for example, whose words do damage, or loose doers whose deeds do damage. And besides the talkers there are also the listeners, concerning whom August Hare asked, and also answered his own question: “When will talkers refrain from evil-speaking? When listeners refrain from evil-hearing.”

“There would not be so many open mouths,” said another observer, “if there were not so many open ears.”

There are times when any or all of us could be critical of others, or misjudge them, or say or do what we shouldn’t. Then later we say we are sorry, sincerely so, and wish⎯oh, how we sometimes wish!⎯we could take back something said or something done.

To turn again to Massillon: “We would not wish to tarnish a man of character, . . . that would be too infamous and mean: . . .[yet] I know that it is, above all, by the innocency of the intention that they pretend to justify themselves; . . . but . . . where is the innocency of an amusement [when] . . . in effect, you excuse the malignity of your . . . tongue by the innocency of your intentions?”

Of course we are sometimes sorry, and in some measure may not have intended to say what we said or to do what we did⎯but must we not remember that the hurt, the unmeant damage, cannot be completely recalled?

“Does an unintended arrow make a less dangerous wound than if sent on purpose? [We] ought to put a guard of circumspection on [the] tongue, [and] weigh every word.”