Justice, look you, is a debt which the judge owes, and therefore he
cannot sell it; but he cannot be said to owe injustice, and
therefore he may lawfully receive money for it. All our leading
authors, accordingly, agree in teaching 'that though a judge is
bound to restore the money he had received for doing an act of
justice, unless it was given him out of mere generosity, he is not
obliged to restore what he has received from a man in whose favour
he has pronounced an unjust decision.'"
This preposterous decision fairly dumbfounded me, and, while I was
musing on its pernicious tendencies, the monk had prepared another
question for me. "Answer me again," said he, "with a little more
circumspection. Tell me now, 'if a man who deals in divination is
obliged to make restitution of the money he has acquired in the
exercise of his art?'"
"Just as you please, your reverence," said I.
"Eh! what!- just as I please! Indeed, but you are a pretty
scholar! It would seem, according to your way of talking, that the
truth depended on our will and pleasure. I see that, in the present
case, you would never find it out yourself: so I must send you to
Sanchez for a solution of the problem- no less a man than Sanchez.
In the first place, he makes a distinction between 'the case of the
diviner who has recourse to astrology and other natural means, and
that of another who employs the diabolical art. In the one case, he
says, the diviner is bound to make restitution; in the other he is
not.
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