Who can look
without laughing at the decision of Bauny, respecting the person who
employs another to set fire to his neighbour's barn; that of Cellot on
restitution; the rule of Sanchez in favour of sorcerers; the plan of
Hurtado for avoiding the sin of duelling by taking a walk through a
field and waiting for a man; the compliments of Bauny for escaping
usury; the way of avoiding simony by a detour of the intention, and
keeping clear of falsehood by speaking high and low; and such other
opinions of your most grave and reverend doctors? Is there anything
more necessary, fathers, for my vindication? And, as Tertullian
says, "can anything be more justly due to the vanity and weakness of
these opinions than laughter?" But, fathers, the corruption of
manners, to which your maxims lead, deserves another sort of
consideration; and it becomes us to ask, with the same ancient writer:
"Whether ought we to laugh at their folly, or deplore their
blindness?- Rideam vanitatem, an exprobrem caecitatem?" My humble
opinion is that one may either laugh at them or weep over them, as one
is in the humour. "Haec tolerabilius vel ridentur, vel flentur, " as
St. Augustine says. The Scripture tells us that "there is a time to
laugh, and a time to weep"; and my hope is, fathers, that I may not
find verified, in your case, these words in the Proverbs: "If a wise
man contendeth with a foolish man, whether he rage or laugh, there
is no rest.
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