But, it may be plausibly objected, if it were of such dangerous tendency
_indiscriminately_ to give utterance to bare, abstract, moral principles
only, how came it to pass, then, that Oldcorne, who was a good man,
morally, as well as a clever man, intellectually, suffered himself _thus_
to act when questioned by Humphrey Littleton respecting the moral
lawfulness, or otherwise, of the Gunpowder Plot?
Now, Oldcorne, as we have already seen in his Declaration quoted above,
has recorded a——that is one——reason why he left Littleton _in
abstracto_——that is furnished with truth in the abstract merely. And
beyond a doubt, as subsequent events so signally proved, the astute
Jesuit’s judgment of Littleton’s character had not erred one whit.
Littleton, as Oldcorne justly feared, was a “dangerous fellow,” one who
was likely to entrap the innocent, and one who was, therefore, not
entitled, either in Justice or in that more refined kind of justice called
Equity, to have his question dealt with by anything other than a flanking
movement; or, in other words, by anything other than such an intellectual
manœuvre as would _turn aside the question_ Littleton had elected to
propound to the great mental strategist——as would turn aside the question
Littleton had elected to propound, on the face of it, probably, and as the
event proved, certainly, from sinister motives and with crooked aims.
Hence, _partly_ because of his questioner’s inferred insincerity and
pernicious purposes _did Oldcorne sever speculative truth in thought from
concrete truth in action_; or, in other words, _Oldcorne gave to Littleton
an answer “sounding” in partial truth alone_.