第80章

It will be equally easy for me to refute your fourteenth Imposture, touching Molina's permission to "kill a thief who offers to rob us of a crown." This palpable fact is attested by Escobar, who tells us "that Molina has regularly determined the sum for which it is lawful to take away life, at one crown." And all you have to lay to my charge in the fourteenth Imposture is, that I have suppressed the last words of this passage, namely, "that in this matter every one ought to study the moderation of a just self-defence." Why do you not complain that Escobar has also omitted to mention these words? But how little tact you have about you! You imagine that nobody understands what you mean by self-defence.Don't we know that it is to employ "a murderous defence"? You would persuade us that Molina meant to say that if a person, in defending his crown, finds himself in danger of his life, he is then at liberty to kill his assailant, in self-preservation.If that were true, fathers, why should Molina say in the same place that "in this matter he was of a contrary judgement from Carrer and Bald," who give permission to kill in self-preservation? I repeat, therefore, that his plain meaning is that, provided the person can save his crown without killing the thief, he ought not to kill him; but that, if he cannot secure his object without shedding blood, even though he should run no risk of his own life, as in the case of the robber being unarmed, he is permitted to take up arms and kill the man, in order to save his crown; and in so doing, according to him, the person does not transgress "the moderation of a just defence." To show you that I am in the right, just allow him to explain himself: "One does not exceed the moderation of a just defence," says he, "when he takes up arms against a thief who has none, or employs weapons which give him the advantage over his assailant.I know there are some who are of a contrary judgement; but I do not approve of their opinion, even in the external tribunal."Thus, fathers, it is unquestionable that your authors have given permission to kill in defence of property and honour, though life should be perfectly free from danger.And it is upon the same principle that they authorize duelling, as I have shown by a great variety of passages from their writings, to which you have made no reply.You have animadverted in your writings only on a single passage taken from Father Layman, who sanctions the above practice, "when otherwise a person would be in danger of sacrificing his fortune or his honour"; and here you accuse me with having suppressed what he adds, "that such a case happens very rarely." You astonish me, fathers: these are really curious impostures you charge me withal.You talk as if the question were whether that is a rare case? when the real question is if, in such a case, duelling is lawful? These are two very different questions.Layman, in the quality of a casuist, ought to judge whether duelling is lawful in the case supposed; and he declares that it is.We can judge without his assistance whether the case be a rare one; and we can tell him that it is a very ordinary one.Or, if you prefer the testimony of your good friend Diana, he will tell you that "the case is exceedingly common." But, be it rare or not, and let it be granted that Layman follows in this the example of Navarre, a circumstance on which you lay so much stress, is it not shameful that he should consent to such an opinion as that, to preserve a false honour, it is lawful in conscience to accept of a challenge, in the face of the edicts of all Christian states, and of all the canons of the Church, while in support of these diabolical maxims you can produce neither laws, nor canons, nor authorities from Scripture, or from the fathers, nor the example of a single saint, nor, in short, anything but the following impious synogism:

"Honour is more than life; it is allowable to kill in defence of life;therefore it is allowable to kill in defence of honour!" What, fathers! because the depravity of men disposes them to prefer that factitious honour before the life which God hath given them to be devoted to his service, must they be permitted to murder one another for its preservation? To love that honour more than life is in itself a heinous evil; and yet this vicious passion, which, when proposed as the end of our conduct, is enough to tarnish the holiest of actions, is considered by you capable of sanctifying the most criminal of them!