improbity

Updated: May 12, 2025

Now it is not merely the moral improbity of these cases which revolts us the improbity of making in solemn form a number of false statements for the sake of earning a livelihood; of saying in order to get money or social position that you accept a number of propositions which in fact you utterly reject; of declaring expressly that you trust you are inwardly moved to take upon you this office and ministration by the Holy Ghost, when the real motive is a desire not to miss the chance of making something out of the Earl of Bute.

John Morley - On Compromise

If the immorality is less gross in the case of religion, there is “the stain of intellectual improbity.” And this is a crime against society, for “they who tamper with veracity from whatever motive are tampering with the vital force of human progress.” The intellectual insincerity which is here blamed is just as prevalent to- day.

J. B. (John Bagnell) Bury - A History of Freedom of Thought

Apart, however, from the immorality of such reasoned hypocrisy, which no man with a particle of honesty will attempt to blink, there is the intellectual improbity which it brings in its train, the infidelity to truth, the disloyalty to one's own intelligence.

John Morley - On Compromise