第33章

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 honour or his property: 'If a soldier or a courtier is in such a predicament that he must lose either his honour 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!'" Iwas 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, 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 honour, 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!" "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.' 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.