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STUDIES OF A BIOGRAPHER

body; and I shall have done nothing that does not come under the head of self-defence. Pascal says that, by similiar devices, it was shown that a member of a religious body might murder a man who intended to spread scandal about his society, and discusses the ingenious problem which had been raised as to whether a Jesuit might not on this ground murder a Jansenist. The murder had been forbidden, but only for the reason that the attacks of the Jansenists upon Jesuit morality were too feeble to do real injury to their adversaries—a ground which, as Pascal slyly observes, it might be difficult to maintain on behalf of the author of the Provincial Letters.

I have gone so far into this to point out the real underlying contrast. Essentially the struggle is between the view which assimilates the moral law to the positive law, and that which makes it define the heart or character; between the law which says 'do this' and the law which says 'be this.' The ultimate moral principles, understood as defining the qualities of the heart, may claim to be immutable and eternal. Love your neighbour as yourself! it has been said, sums up the whole of your duty to men, and is true in all times and places. Substitute for this an external law—an