Suspicion of heresy, as we have seen, was, in itself, a crime requiring punishment. In accusations of formal heresy which failed of proof, there remained, as a rule, at least suspicion, and there was besides a number of offences which, though not in themselves heretical, were brought under the jurisdiction of the Inquisition by a more or less forced assumption that they inferred suspicion of heresy--that no one who believed rightly as to sacraments and points of doctrine could be guilty of them. In the Old Inquisition, this suspicion was classified as light, vehement or violent and these distinctions were retained in the New. Violent suspicion, however, may be discarded from consideration here, for it sufficed for condemnation and, in practice, it admitted of no disproof or explanation for, although theoretically it might be explained away, this was but a bare possibility. As Peña says, it created presumption of law, as when a man remained for a year under excommunication.[324] The distinction between light and vehement suspicion was somewhat nebulous. Like everything else in the vague region of morals, it was incapable of accurate definition, and each case had to be decided on its own merits, according to the temper of the judges. Alberghini's attempted test of infrequent or habitual performance of acts inferring suspicion fails utterly in practice and moreover leaves unsettled the more important and common class of cases where testimony was insufficient for conviction and yet too strong for acquittal.[325] Moreover, suspicion might be modified by exterior circumstances, as when Miguel Calvo tells us that, with Moriscos, however slender may be the suspicion, it must be treated as vehement.[326] It was evidently impossible to prescribe any absolute rule, and it is to the credit of the Inquisition that it rarely pronounced suspicion to be vehement, while light suspicion occurs in almost all sentences short of reconciliation. Thus, in the Toledo record from 1648 to 1794, there are three hundred and fourteen abjurations _de levi_ and only fifty-one _de vehementi_--or about an average of one every three years.[327]