'"
"Well, father, that is certainly the most complete passage, and
the most finished maxim in the whole of your moral system! What
comfortable inferences may be drawn from it! Why, and is gluttony,
then, not even a venial sin?"
"Not in the shape I have just referred to," he replied; "but,
according to the same author, it would be a venial sin 'were a
person to gorge himself, unnecessarily, with eating and drinking, to
such a degree as to produce vomiting.' So much for that point. I would
now say a little about the facilities we have invented for avoiding
sin in worldly conversations and intrigues. One of the most
embarrassing of these cases is how to avoid telling lies, particularly
when one is anxious to induce a belief in what is false. In such
cases, our doctrine of equivocations has been found of admirable
service, according to which, as Sanchez has it, 'it is permitted to
use ambiguous terms, leading people to understand them in another
sense from that in which we understand them ourselves.'"
"I know that already, father," said I.
"We have published it so often," continued he, "that at length, it
seems, everybody knows of it. But do you know what is to be done
when no equivocal words can be got?"
"No, father."
"I thought as much, said the Jesuit; "this is something new,
sir: I mean the doctrine of mental reservations. 'A man may swear,' as
Sanchez says in the same place, 'that he never did such a thing
(though he actually did it), meaning within himself that he did not do
so on a certain day, or before he was born, or understanding any other
such circumstance, while the words which he employs have no such sense
as would discover his meaning.
Pages:
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163