Page:Terræ-filius- or, the Secret History of the University of Oxford.djvu/368

APPENDIX. the bodies were unlawfully buried; and if so, the breach of the law ought to be repaired.

Perhaps you will endeavour to distinguish, in your great logical capacity, between there two cases, and observe, that a breach of the university statute tends to the subversion of discipline and liberal learning, which is malum in fe; and that scholars, thus irregularly admitted, ought therefore to be restored, to prevent the ill consequences of such an example: whereas, in the other case, say you,there can be no such pretence, it being really of no moment, either to the living or the dead, whether a man be buried in linnen or woollen any farther than as it is breach of an act of Parliament; that this is only malum per accidens; and that therefore, if they pay the penalty exacted by the law, the injury is fully repaired.

But I must beg leave to observe, that this distinction is fallacious, and a meet scholastick subtlety: For, as the statute, to prevent the scholar's removing from one house to another, was made for the advancement of good learning; so the act of Parliament against burying in linnen was made for the encouragement of thewoollen manufature, which is acknowledged, on all hands, to be the greatest support of the wealth of this kingdom; for which reason I think that one ought to be regarded as much as the other; for I conceive an attempt to injure the Publick, and defeat the prosperity of our native country, to be equally destructive, and therefore equally malum in fe, with an attempt to subvert the discipline of the university; and therefore, all examples, both of one and the other, should be equally avoided and removed.

But you go on, and say, That though the statute mention only the penalty of forty shillings and be silent as to the restitution of the scholar, yet it appears on record to have been usual to restore the scholar;