life is ‘the point of honor,’ which is perpetually driving them into
acts of violence apparently quite at variance with Christian piety; so
that, in fact, they would be almost all of them excluded from our
confessionals, had not our fathers relaxed a little from the strictness
of religion, to accommodate themselves to the weakness of humanity.
Anxious to keep on good terms both with the Gospel, by doing their duty
to God, and with the men of the world, by showing charity to their
neighbor, they needed all the wisdom they possessed to devise expedients
for so nicely adjusting matters as to permit these gentlemen to adopt
the methods usually resorted to for vindicating their honor, without
wounding their consciences, and thus reconcile two things apparently so
opposite to each other as piety and the point of honor. But, sir, in
proportion to the utility of the design was the difficulty of the
execution. You cannot fail, I should think, to realize the magnitude and
arduousness of such an enterprize?”
“It astonishes me, certainly,” said I, rather coldly.
“It astonishes you, forsooth!” cried the monk. “I can well believe that;
many besides you might be astonished at it. Why, don’t you know that, on
the one hand, the Gospel commands us ‘not to render evil for evil, but
to leave vengeance to God;’ and that, on the other hand, the laws of the
world forbid our enduring an affront without demanding satisfaction from
the offender, and that often at the expense of his life? You have never,
I am sure, met with anything, to all appearance, more diametrically
opposed than these two codes of morals; and yet, when told that our
fathers have reconciled them, you have nothing more to say than simply
that this astonishes you!”
“I did not sufficiently explain myself, father. I should certainly have
considered the thing perfectly impracticable, if I had not known, from
what I have seen of your fathers, that they are capable of doing with
ease what is impossible to other men. This led me to anticipate that
they must have discovered some method for meeting the difficulty—a
method which I admire even before knowing it, and which I pray you to
explain to me.”
“Since that is your view of the matter,” replied the monk, “I cannot
refuse you. Know, then, that this marvellous principle is our grand
method of _directing the intention_—the importance of which, in our
moral system, is such, that I might almost venture to compare it with
the doctrine of probability. You have had some glimpses of it in
passing, from certain maxims which I mentioned to you. For example, when
I was showing you how servants might execute certain troublesome jobs
with a safe conscience, did you not remark that it was simply by
diverting their intention from the evil to which they were accessary, to
the profit which they might reap from the transaction? Now that is what
we call _directing the intention_. You saw, too, that were it not for a
similar divergence of the mind, those who give money for benefices might
be downright simoniacs. But I will now show you this grand method in all
its glory, as it applies to the subject of homicide—a crime which it
justifies in a thousand instances; in order that, from this startling
result, you may form an idea of all that it is calculated to effect.”
“I foresee already,” said I, “that, according to this mode, everything
will be permitted; it will stick at nothing.”
“You always fly from the one extreme to the other,” replied the monk:
“prithee avoid that habit. For just to show you that we are far from
permitting everything, let me tell you that we never suffer such a thing
as a formal intention to sin, with the sole design of sinning; and if
any person whatever should persist in having no other end but evil in
the evil that he does, we break with him at once: such conduct is
diabolical. This holds true, without exception of age, sex, or rank. But
when the person is not of such a wretched disposition as this, we try to
put in practice our method of _directing the intention_, which simply
consists in his proposing to himself, as the end of his actions, some
allowable object. Not that we do not endeavor, as far as we can, to
dissuade men from doing things forbidden; but when we cannot prevent the
action, we at least purify the motive, and thus correct the viciousness
of the mean by the goodness of the end. Such is the way in which our
fathers have contrived to permit those acts of violence to which men
usually resort in vindication of their honor. They have no more to do
than to turn off their intention from the desire of vengeance, which is
criminal, and direct it to a desire to defend their honor, which,
according to us, is quite warrantable. And in this way our doctors
discharge all their duty towards God and towards man. By permitting the
action, they gratify the world; and by purifying the intention, they
give satisfaction to the Gospel. This is a secret, sir, which was
entirely unknown to the ancients; the world is indebted for the
discovery entirely to our doctors. You understand it now, I hope?”
“Perfectly well,” was my reply. “To men you grant the outward material
effect of the action; and to God you give the inward and spiritual
movement of the intention; and by this equitable partition, you form an
alliance between the laws of God and the laws of men. But, my dear sir,
to be frank with you, I can hardly trust your premises, and I suspect
that your authors will tell another tale.”
“You do me injustice,” rejoined the monk; “I advance nothing but what I
am ready to prove, and that by such a rich array of passages, that
altogether their number, their authority, and their reasonings, will
fill you with admiration. To show you, for example, the alliance which
our fathers have formed between the maxims of the Gospel and those of
the world, by thus regulating the intention, let me refer you to
Reginald:[163] ‘Private persons are forbidden to avenge themselves; for
St. Paul says to the Romans (ch. 12th), ‘Recompense to no man evil for
evil;’ and Ecclesiasticus says (ch. 28th), ‘He that taketh vengeance
shall draw on himself the vengeance of God, and his sins will not be
forgotten.’ Besides all that is said in the Gospel about forgiving
offences, as in the 6th and 18th chapters of St. Matthew.’”
“Well, father, if after that he says anything contrary to the Scripture,
it will not be from lack of scriptural knowledge, at any rate. Pray, how
does he conclude?”
“You shall hear,” he said. “From all this it appears that a military man
may demand satisfaction on the spot from the person who has injured
him—not, indeed, with the intention of rendering evil for evil, but with
that of preserving his honor—‘_non ut malum pro malo reddat, sed ut
conservet honorem_.’ See you how carefully they guard against the
intention of rendering evil for evil, because the Scripture condemns it?
This is what they will tolerate on no account. Thus Lessius[164]
observes, that ‘if a man has received a blow on the face, he must on no
account have an intention to avenge himself; but he may lawfully have an
intention to avert infamy, and may, with that view, repel the insult
immediately, even at the point of the sword—_etiam cum gladio_!’ So far
are we from permitting any one to cherish the design of taking vengeance
on his enemies, that our fathers will not allow any even to _wish their
death_—by a movement of hatred. ‘If your enemy is disposed to injure
you,’ says Escobar, ‘you have no right to wish his death, by a movement
of hatred; though you may, with a view to save yourself from harm.’ So
legitimate, indeed, is this wish, with such an intention, that our great
Hurtado de Mendoza says, that ‘we may _pray God_ to visit with speedy
death those who are bent on persecuting us, if there is no other way of
escaping from it.’”[165]
“May it please your reverence,” said I, “the Church has forgotten to
insert a petition to that effect among her prayers.”
“They have not put in everything into the prayers that one may lawfully
ask of God,” answered the monk. “Besides, in the present case the thing
was impossible, for this same opinion is of more recent standing than
the Breviary. You are not a good chronologist, friend. But, not to
wander from the point, let me request your attention to the following
passage, cited by Diana from Gaspar Hurtado,[166] one of Escobar’s
four-and-twenty fathers: ‘An incumbent may, without any mortal sin,
desire the decease of a life-renter on his benefice, and a son that of
his father, and rejoice when it happens; provided always it is for the
sake of the profit that is to accrue from the event, and not from
personal aversion.’”
“Good!” cried I. “That is certainly a very happy hit; and I can easily
see that the doctrine admits of a wide application. But yet there are
certain cases, the solution of which, though of great importance for
gentlemen, might present still greater difficulties.”
“Propose them, if you please, that we may see,” said the monk.
“Show me, with all your directing of the intention,” returned I, “that
it is allowable to fight a duel.”
“Our great Hurtado de Mendoza,” said the father, “will satisfy you on
that point in a twinkling. ‘If a gentleman,’ says he, in a passage cited
by Diana, ‘who is challenged to fight a duel, is well known to have no
religion, and if the vices to which he is openly and unscrupulously
addicted are such as would lead people to conclude, in the event of his
refusing to fight, that he is actuated, not by the fear of God, but by
cowardice, and induce them to say of him that he was a _hen_, and not a
man—_gallina, et non vir_; in that case he may, to save his honor,
appear at the appointed spot—not, indeed, with the express intention of
fighting a duel, but merely with that of defending himself, should the
person who challenged him come there unjustly to attack him. His action
in this case, viewed by itself, will be perfectly indifferent; for what
moral evil is there in one stepping into a field, taking a stroll in
expectation of meeting a person, and defending one’s self in the event
of being attacked? And thus the gentleman is guilty of no sin whatever;
for in fact it cannot be called accepting a challenge at all, his
intention being directed to other circumstances, and the acceptance of a
challenge consisting in an express intention to fight, which we are
supposing the gentleman never had.’”
“You have not kept your word with me, sir,” said I. “This is not,
properly speaking, to permit duelling; on the contrary, the casuist is
so persuaded that this practice is forbidden, that, in licensing the
action in question, he carefully avoids calling it a duel.”
“Ah!” cried the monk, “you begin to get knowing on my hand, I am glad to
see. I might reply, that the author I have quoted grants all that
duellists are disposed to ask. But since you must have a categorical
answer, I shall allow our Father Layman to give it for me. He permits
duelling in so many words, provided that, in accepting the challenge,
the person directs his intention solely to the preservation of his honor
or his property: ‘If a soldier or a courtier is in such a predicament
that he must lose either his honor or his fortune unless he accepts a
challenge, I see nothing to hinder him from doing so in self-defence.’
The same thing is said by Peter Hurtado, as quoted by our famous
Escobar; his words are: ‘One may fight a duel even to defend one’s
property, should that be necessary; because every man has a right to
defend his property, though at the expense of his enemy’s life!’”
I was struck, on hearing these passages, with the reflection that while
the piety of the king appears in his exerting all his power to prohibit
and abolish the practice of duelling in the State,[167] the piety of the
Jesuits is shown in their employing all their ingenuity to tolerate and
sanction it in the Church. But the good father was in such an excellent
key for talking, that it would have been cruel to have interrupted him;
so he went on with his discourse.
“In short,” said he, “Sanchez (mark, now, what great names I am quoting
to you!) Sanchez, sir, goes a step further; for he shows how, simply by
managing the intention rightly, a person may not only receive a
challenge, but give one. And our Escobar follows him.”
“Prove that, father,” said I, “and I shall give up the point: but I will
not believe that he has written it, unless I see it in print.”
“Read it yourself, then,” he replied: and, to be sure, I read the
following extract from the Moral Theology of Sanchez: “It is perfectly
reasonable to hold that a man may fight a duel to save his life, his
honor, or any considerable portion of his property, when it is apparent
that there is a design to deprive him of these unjustly, by law-suits
and chicanery, and when there is no other way of preserving them.
Navarre justly observes, that in such cases, it is lawful either to
accept or to send a challenge—_licet acceptare et offerre duellum_. The
same author adds, that there is nothing to prevent one from despatching
one’s adversary in a private way. Indeed, in the circumstances referred
to, it is advisable to avoid employing the method of the duel, if it is
possible to settle the affair by privately killing our enemy; for, by
this means, we escape at once from exposing our life in the combat, and
from participating in the sin which our opponent would have committed by
fighting the duel!”[168]
“A most pious assassination!” said I. “Still, however, pious though it
be, it is assassination, if a man is permitted to kill his enemy in a
treacherous manner.”
“Did I say that he might kill him treacherously?” cried the monk. “God
forbid! I said he might kill him _privately_, and you conclude that he
may kill him _treacherously_, as if that were the same thing! Attend,
sir, to Escobar’s definition before allowing yourself to speak again on
this subject: ‘We call it killing in treachery, when the person who is
slain had no reason to suspect such a fate. He, therefore, that slays
his _enemy_ cannot be said to kill him in treachery, even although the
blow should be given insidiously and behind his back—_licet per insidias
aut a tergo percutiat_.’ And again: ‘He that kills his enemy, with whom
he was reconciled under a promise of never again attempting his life,
cannot be _absolutely_ said to kill in treachery, unless there was
between them all the stricter friendship—_arctior amicitia_.’[169] You
see now, you do not even understand what the terms signify, and yet you
pretend to talk like a doctor.”
“I grant you this is something quite new to me,” I replied; “and I
should gather from that definition that few, if any, were ever killed in
treachery; for people seldom take it into their heads to assassinate any
but their enemies. Be this as it may, however, it seems that, according
to Sanchez, a man may freely slay (I do not say _treacherously_, but
only insidiously, and behind his back) a calumniator, for example, who
prosecutes us at law?”
“Certainly he may,” returned the monk, “always, however, in the way of
giving a right direction to the intention: you constantly forget the
main point. Molina supports the same doctrine; and what is more, our
learned brother Reginald maintains that we may despatch the false
witnesses whom he summons against us. And, to crown the whole, according
to our great and famous fathers Tanner and Emanuel Sa, it is lawful to
kill both the false witnesses and _the judge himself_, if he has had any
collusion with them. Here are Tanner’s very words: ‘Sotus and Lessius
think that it is not lawful to kill the false witnesses and the
magistrate who conspire together to put an innocent person to death; but
Emanuel Sa and other authors with good reason impugn that sentiment, at
least so far as the conscience is concerned.’ And he goes on to show
that it is quite lawful to kill both the witnesses and the judge.”
“Well, father,” said I, “I think I now understand pretty well your
principle regarding the direction of the intention; but I should like to
know something of its consequences, and all the cases in which this
method of yours arms a man with the power of life and death. Let us go
over them again, for fear of mistake, for equivocation here might be
attended with dangerous results. Killing is a matter which requires to
be well-timed, and to be backed with a good probable opinion. You have
assured me, then, that by giving a proper turn to the intention, it is
lawful, according to your fathers, for the preservation of one’s honor,
or even property, to accept a challenge to a duel, to give one
sometimes, to kill in a private way a false accuser, and his witnesses
along with him, and even the judge who has been bribed to favor them;
and you have also told me that he who has got a blow, may, without
avenging himself, retaliate with the sword. But you have not told me,
father, to what length he may go.”
“He can hardly mistake there,” replied the father, “for he may go all
the length of killing his man. This is satisfactorily proved by the
learned Henriquez, and others of our fathers quoted by Escobar, as
follows: ‘It is perfectly right to kill a person who has given us a box
on the ear, although he should run away, provided it is not done through
hatred or revenge, and there is no danger of giving occasion thereby to
murders of a gross kind and hurtful to society. And the reason is, that
it is as lawful to pursue the thief that has stolen our honor, as him
that has run away with our property. For, although your honor cannot be
said to be in the hands of your enemy in the same sense as your goods
and chattels are in the hands of the thief, still it may be recovered in
the same way—by showing proofs of greatness and authority, and thus
acquiring the esteem of men. And, in point of fact, is it not certain
that the man who has received a buffet on the ear is held to be under
disgrace, until he has wiped off the insult with the blood of his
enemy?’”
I was so shocked on hearing this, that it was with great difficulty I
could contain myself; but, in my anxiety to hear the rest, I allowed him
to proceed.
“Nay,” he continued, “it is allowable to prevent a buffet, by killing
him that meant to give it, if there be no other way to escape the
insult. This opinion is quite common with our fathers. For example,
Azor, one of the four-and-twenty elders, proposing the question, ‘Is it
lawful for a man of honor to kill another who threatens to give him a
slap on the face, or strike him with a stick?’ replies, ‘Some say he may
not; alleging that the life of our neighbor is more precious than our
honor, and that it would be an act of cruelty to kill a man merely to
avoid a blow. Others, however, think that it is allowable; and I
certainly consider it probable, when there is no other way of warding
off the insult; for, otherwise, the honor of the innocent would be
constantly exposed to the malice of the insolent.’ The same opinion is
given by our great Filiutius; by Father Hereau, in his Treatise on
Homicide; by Hurtado de Mendoza, in his Disputations; by Becan, in his
Summary; by our Fathers Flahaut and Lecourt, in those writings which the
university, in their third petition, quoted at length, in order to bring
them into disgrace (though in this they failed); and by Escobar. In
short, this opinion is so general, that Lessius lays it down as a point
which no casuist has contested; he quotes a great many that uphold, and
none that deny it; and particularly Peter Navarre, who, speaking of
affronts in general (and there is none more provoking than a box on the
ear), declares that ‘by the universal consent of the casuists, it is
lawful to kill the calumniator, if there be no other way of averting the
affront—_ex sententia omnium, licet contumeliosum occidere, si aliter ea
injuria arceri nequit_.’ Do you wish any more authorities?” asked the
monk.
I declared I was much obliged to him; I had heard rather more than
enough of them already. But just to see how far this damnable doctrine
would go, I said, “But, father, may not one be allowed to kill for
something still less? Might not a person so direct his intention as
lawfully to kill another for telling a lie, for example?”
“He may,” returned the monk; “and according to Father Baldelle, quoted
by Escobar, ‘you may lawfully take the life of another for saying, You
have told a lie; if there is no other way of shutting his mouth.’ The
same thing may be done in the case of slanders. Our Fathers Lessius and
Hereau agree in the following sentiments: ‘If you attempt to ruin my
character by telling stories against me in the presence of men of honor,
and I have no other way of preventing this than by putting you to death,
may I be permitted to do so? According to the modern authors, I may, and
that even though I have been really guilty of the crime which you
divulge, provided it is a secret one, which you could not establish by
legal evidence. And I prove it thus: If you mean to rob me of my honor
by giving me a box on the ear, I may prevent it by force of arms; and
the same mode of defence is lawful when you would do me the same injury
with the tongue. Besides, we may lawfully obviate affronts, and
therefore slanders. In fine, honor is dearer than life; and as it is
lawful to kill in defence of life, it must be so to kill in defence of
honor.’ There, you see, are arguments in due form; this is
demonstration, sir—not mere discussion. And, to conclude, this great man
Lessius shows, in the same place, that it is lawful to kill even for a
simple gesture, or a sign of contempt. ‘A man’s honor,’ he remarks, ‘may
be attacked or filched away in various ways—in all which vindication
appears very reasonable; as, for instance, when one offers to strike us
with a stick, or give us a slap on the face, or affront us either by
words or signs—_sive per signa_.’”
“Well, father,” said I, “it must be owned that you have made every
possible provision to secure the safety of reputation; but it strikes me
that human life is greatly in danger, if any one may be conscientiously
put to death simply for a defamatory speech or a saucy gesture.”
“That is true,” he replied; “but as our fathers are very circumspect,
they have thought it proper to forbid putting this doctrine into
practice on such trifling occasions. They say, at least, ‘that it ought
_hardly_ to be reduced to practice—_practicè vix probari potest_.’ And
they have a good reason for that, as you shall see.”
“Oh! I know what it will be,” interrupted I; “because the law of God
forbids us to kill, of course.”
“They do not exactly take that ground,” said the father; “as a matter of
conscience, and viewing the thing abstractly, they hold it allowable.”
“And why, then, do they forbid it?”
“I shall tell you that, sir. It is because, were we to kill all the
defamers among us, we should very shortly depopulate the country.
‘Although,’ says Reginald, ‘the opinion that we may kill a man for
calumny is not without its probability in theory, the contrary one ought
to be followed in practice; for, in our mode of defending ourselves, we
should always avoid doing injury to the commonwealth; and it is evident
that by killing people in this way there would be too many murders.’ ‘We
should be on our guard,’ says Lessius, ‘lest the practice of this maxim
prove hurtful to the State; for in this case it ought not to be
permitted—_tunc enim non est permittendus_.’”
“What, father! is it forbidden only as a point of policy, and not of
religion? Few people, I am afraid, will pay any regard to such a
prohibition, particularly when in a passion. Very probably they might
think they were doing no harm to the State, by ridding it of an unworthy
member.”
“And accordingly,” replied the monk, “our Filiutius has fortified that
argument with another, which is of no slender importance, namely, ‘that
for killing people after this manner, one might be punished in a court
of justice.’”
“There now, father; I told you before, that you will never be able to do
anything worth the while, unless you get the magistrates to go along
with you.”
“The magistrates,” said the father, “as they do not penetrate into the
conscience, judge merely of the outside of the action, while we look
principally to the intention; and hence it occasionally happens that our
maxims are a little different from theirs.”