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

The early Greeks and the early Romans, in the bright joyousness or the laborious activity of objective life, fully occupied by the pleasures of art or the business of war and politics, with no minutely-detailed code or body of traditions to guide them, troubled themselves little about such problems. When, however, the Greek philosophers and their Roman followers developed moral systems, attention began to be given to this department; at length, such questions as how far suicide is justifiable, or whether duty to the state is more important than duty to a friend, became favourite subjects of debate; and, during the first two centuries of the Christian era, elaborate treatises on the subject were produced by the famous Stoic philosophers Epictetus, Seneca, and M. Aurelius.

Christianity brought in a new method of settling casuistical questions—a method directly opposed to that of most of the Jewish scribes, 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 monastic ascetic system produced a new kind of casuistical literature. It found its first great representative in Tertullian, a contemporary of M. Aurelius, with whom nearly all sin was mortal, one repentance at most being possible after baptism. The same type of casuistry was taught by others of the fathers, but with the greatest acuteness and power by Augustine, who laid special stress upon the subjective or spiritual side of Christian ethics, 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 Roman Catholic Church, the practice of confession gave rise to a system of casuistry, expressed in the Libri Pœnitentiales, which were intended to guide the confessor as to the imposition of penance and the giving of advice. Among the most important of these are the Summæ of Raimund of Pennaforti, Angelus, Antonius Augustinus, Pacificus, and Prierias, the work of the last (who was a vigorous opponent of Luther) being an alphabetical compilation from those of his predecessors. Later examples are Amort's Dictionarium casuum conscientiæ (1784), and Sobiech's Compendium theologicæ moralis pro utilitate confessariorum (1824). Indeed, throughout the Middle Ages, the doctrines of the church being universally accepted as the supreme rules of conduct, the casuistical was the department of moral science which was best developed. In Petrus Lombardus, in Alexander of Hales, and in Aquinas's famous treatise, the Secunda Secundæ, we find the uncompromising strictness of the ancient fathers but slightly modified. Abelard, though earlier, took a more indulgent view, but his teaching was condemned by the church, in the synod of Sens (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 law 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 liberty should be repressed by the dead rules of a corrupt church, and the Jesuits, animated by the single object of adding to the power of their order, were always ready to make concessions and to soften disagreeable requirements. The most remarkable doctrine which they promulgated—a doctrine which it is hard to believe that any one ever ventured to assert—is that of “Probabilism,” according to which any opinion which has been expressed by a “grave doctor” may be looked upon as possessing a fair amount of probability, and may, therefore, be safely followed, even though one's conscience may insist upon the opposite course. With principles so liberal it was hard if one could not find an authority to his mind among Escobar, Suarez, Sanchez, Velasquez, Molina, Bauny, Busenbaum, Toletus, Filiutius, Less, Ponce, and an innumerable host of other “grave” and, as a rule, obliging doctors. Such was the popularity of some of their works that Busenbaum's Medulla casuum conscientiæ (1645) ran through fifty-two editions, and Escobar's Theologia Moralis (1646) through forty. One of the most amusing of their ruses was that by which they avoided the condemnation of usury. That “money should breed money” was regarded universally in those days as unnatural; but borrowing was necessary, and no one could be expected to lend without being paid for his risk, and for the use of his capital. The remedy for the Jesuit was easy. There is no sin if you only call the payment not interest but “fair profit;” or if you look upon it as a grateful return by the borrower for the favour done him; or, thirdly, if you prefer it, you can avoid the least appearance of evil by making a “Mohatra” bargain, that is, you sell to the person who wants money a quantity of goods, which he at once sells to you again at a lower rate. For these devices, however, the Jesuits are to be judged the less hardly, since almost all moralists found it necessary to evade the mistaken law. It was mainly by their teaching on the fundamental question of the duty of veracity that they made themselves a by-word and a reproach among men. To settle the limits of this duty is, indeed, one of the most difficult problems in practical ethics; but the Jesuits removed it entirely from the category of obligation. Thus Filiutius 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 sotto voce, and that promises are not binding when the promiser in making them had no intention to bind himself. Equally notorious were their views on murder, which was authorized in revenge for a box on the ear, 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, virtue, according to Father Le Moine's Devotion made Easy, is not at all the “cross-tempered dame” men represent her as being. The rites and requirements of the church also were modified to suit the taste of the people. For example, if a whole mass 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, Father Bauny shows how easily the heart of the Virgin may be won; a prayer once a day, or even the wearing of an amulet, is enough; nor is it necessary, or, indeed, becoming, that the favoured worshipper should give his heart—“that poor little slave”—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. War was declared against them by the great Jansenist, Antoine Arnauld; and in 1656 and 1657 Pascal attacked them with an incisive wit, the edge of which none of their attempts could turn. The order became a jest; the clergy were aroused to examine the ponderous folios which contained its casuistry, and to condemn them in a general assembly. The attack was afterwards followed up by the polished satire of Boileau, and by a second exposure of the Morale des Jesuites by Nicole Perrault (1667); and the influence of the Provincial Letters was at once spread far and wide by means of their immediate translation into Latin, Italian, German, Spanish, and English. It was in vain that the Pope condemned them (September 1657)