But in this they are simply logically consistent followers of those Christian Fathers, and their successors in every branch of the Church, who have held that a lie for righteous purposes was admissible when the results to be secured by it were of vital importance. All the refinements of casuistry have their value to those who admit that a lie may be right under certain conceivable circumstances; but to those who, like Augustine and Aquinas, insist that a lie is a sin _per se_, and therefore never admissible, casuistry itself has no interest as a means of showing when a sin is not sinful.[1] [Footnote 1: Hence the casuistry of the Schoolmen and of the Jesuits, and the question of Mental Reservations, and of "Probabilities," are not treated in detail here.] Some of the zealous defenders of the principles and methods of the Jesuits affirm that, in their advocacy of dissimulation and prevarication in the interests of a good cause, the Jesuits do not intend to justify lying, but are pointing out methods of proper concealment which are not within the realm of the lie. In this (waiving the question whether these defenders are right or not as to the fact) they seem even more desirous of being counted against lying than those teachers, in the Romish Church or among Protestants, who boldly affirm that a lie itself is sometimes justifiable. Thus it is _claimed_ by a Roman Catholic writer, in defense of the Jesuits, that Liguori, their favorite theologian, taught "that to speak falsely is immutably a sin against God. It may be permitted under no circumstances, not even to save life. Pope Innocent III. says, 'Not even to defend our life is it lawful to speak falsely;'" therefore, when Liguori approves any actions that seem opposed to truthfulness, "he allows the instances because they are not falsehood."[1] On the other hand, Jeremy Taylor squarely asserts: "It is lawful to tell a lie to children or to madmen, because they, having no powers of judging, have no right to the truth."[2] [Footnote 1: See Meyrick's _Moral Theology of the Church of Rome_, Appendix, p. 256 f.] [Footnote 2: Jeremy Taylor's _Ductor Dubitantium_, in his Works, X., 103.]