Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/216

204 The and the, in the bright joyousness or the laborious activity of objective life, fully occupied by the pleasures of or the business of  and, with no minutely-detailed code or body of traditions to guide them, troubled themselves little about such problems. When, however, the and  developed moral systems, attention began to be given to this department; at length, such questions as how far  is justifiable, or whether  to the  is more important than duty to a, became favourite subjects of ; and, during the first two centuries of the , elaborate s on the subject were produced by the famous  , , and. brought in a new method of settling casuistical questions—a method directly opposed to that of most of the s, in the midst of whom it had its origin, and consisting in an appeal to the true spirit of great principles. Naturally this method would have left particular cases to the decision of each man's conscience; but the extreme recoil from reckless self-indulgence which gave birth to the  system produced a new kind of casuistical literature. It found its first great representative in, a contemporary of, with whom nearly all was mortal, one  at most being possible after. The same type of casuistry was taught by others of the, but with the greatest acuteness and power by , who laid special stress upon the subjective or spiritual side of , insisting upon the principle that the moral worth of action depends upon the disposition of the agent as much as upon the objective nature of the act. In the, the of gave rise to a system of casuistry, expressed in the Libri Pœnitentiales, which were intended to guide the  as to the imposition of  and the giving of advice. Among the most important of these are the Summæ of, , , , and , the work of the last (who was a vigorous opponent of ) being an ical compilation from those of his predecessors. Later examples are 's Dictionarium casuum conscientiæ (1784), and 's Compendium theologicæ moralis pro utilitate confessariorum (1824). Indeed, throughout the, the of the  being universally accepted as the supreme rules of conduct, the casuistical was the department of moral science which was best developed. In, in , and in 's famous , the Secunda Secundæ, we find the uncompromising strictness of the but slightly modified. , though earlier, took a more indulgent view, but his teaching was condemned by the, in the of  (1140). One of the most favourable conditions for the growth of a system of casuistry is that in which a people, having lost its reverence for the it once held supreme, and ceased to find obedience tolerable, does not yet dare to deny its authority. Such was the condition in which, during the 16th century, there took place the worst development of casuistry which the world has seen. Men no longer were willing that their should be repressed by the dead rules of a corrupt, and the , animated by the single object of adding to the power of , were always ready to make concessions and to soften disagreeable requirements. The most remarkable which they promulgated—a  which it is hard to believe that any one ever ventured to assert—is that of &ldquo;,&rdquo; according to which any opinion which has been expressed by a &ldquo;grave &rdquo; may be looked upon as possessing a fair amount of probability, and may, therefore, be safely followed, even though one's  may insist upon the opposite course. With principles so it was hard if one could not find an authority to his mind among, , , , , , , , , , , and an innumerable host of other &ldquo;grave&rdquo; and, as a rule, obliging s. Such was the popularity of some of their works that 's Medulla casuum conscientiæ (1645) ran through fifty-two s, and 's Theologia Moralis (1646) through forty. One of the most amusing of their ruses was that by which they avoided the condemnation of. That &ldquo; should &rdquo; was regarded universally in those days as unnatural; but  was necessary, and no one could be expected to  without being paid for his risk, and for the use of his. The remedy for the was easy. There is no if you only call the payment not  but &ldquo;fair ;&rdquo; or if you look upon it as a grateful return by the  for the favour done him; or, thirdly, if you prefer it, you can avoid the least appearance of  by making a &ldquo;Mohatra&rdquo; bargain, that is, you sell to the person who wants  a quantity of goods, which he at once sells to you again at a lower rate. For these devices, however, the are to be judged the less hardly, since almost all moralists found it necessary to evade the mistaken. It was mainly by their teaching on the fundamental question of the duty of that they made themselves a by-word and a reproach among men. To settle the limits of this is, indeed, one of the most difficult problems in practical ; but the  removed it entirely from the category of obligation. Thus and others, from the principle that it is the intention which determines the quality of the action, argue that lying can be avoided by mental reservation, by equivocation, or by introducing words, and that s are not binding when the promiser in making them had no intention to bind himself. Equally notorious were their views on, which was authorized in for a box on the , or to prevent the loss of a trifling sum; and with regard to some other questions, they entered into such prurient details that their bitterest enemies would not quote their words even for the purpose of condemning them. In short,, according to 's Devotion made Easy, is not at all the &ldquo;cross-tempered dame&rdquo; men represent her as being. The s and requirements of the also were modified to suit the taste of the people. For example, if a whole be found wearisome, greater expedition can be obtained by having different parts performed simultaneously; and in his Paradise opened to Philagio in One Hundred Devotions to the Mother of God, easily practised,  shows how easily the  of  may be won; a  once a day, or even the wearing of an, is enough; nor is it necessary, or, indeed, becoming, that the favoured per should give his —&ldquo;that poor little &rdquo;—to his benefactress as a token of his gratitude. It was impossible that absurdities such as these could fail to bring upon their authors the severest punishment. was declared against them by the great, ; and in 1656 and 1657 attacked them with an incisive , the edge of which none of their attempts could turn. became a jest; the were aroused to examine the ponderous s which contained its casuistry, and to condemn them in a general assembly. The attack was afterwards followed up by the polished of, and by a second exposure of the Morale des Jesuites by  (1667); and the influence of the Provincial Letters was at once spread far and wide by means of their immediate translation into , , , , and. It was in vain that the condemned them ( 1657) 