“If a man commit adultery or suicide, reflecting indeed, but still very imperfectly and superficially, upon the wickedness and great sinfulness of those crimes; however heinous may be the matter, _he still sins but slightly_. The reason is, that as a knowledge of the wickedness is necessary to constitute the sin, so is a full clear knowledge and reflection necessary to constitute a heinous sin. And thus I reason with Vasquez: _In order that a man may freely sin, it is necessary to deliberate whether he sins or not. But he fails to deliberate upon the moral wickedness of it, if he does not reflect, at least by doubting, upon it during the act. Therefore he does not sin, unless he reflects upon the wickedness of it_. It is also certain that a full knowledge of such wickedness is required to constitute a mortal sin. _For it would be unworthy the goodness of God to exclude a man from glory, and to reject him for ever, for a sin on which he had not fully deliberated; but if reflection upon the wickedness_ of it has only been partial, deliberation has not been complete; and therefore the sin is not a mortal sin.”[231] The practical consequences of this doctrine have been admirably represented by Pascal in his happiest vein of irony. “Oh, my dear sir,” says he to the Jesuit who had exposed to him the afore-mentioned doctrine, “what a blessing this will be to some persons of my acquaintance! I must positively introduce them to you. You have never, perhaps, in all your life, met with people who had fewer sins to account for! In the first place, they never think of God at all; their vices have got the better of their reason; they have never known either their weakness or the physician who can cure it; they have never thought of ‘desiring the health of their soul,’ and still less of ‘praying to God to bestow it;’ so that, according to M. le Moine, they are still in the state of baptismal innocence. They have ‘never had a thought of loving God, or of being contrite for their sins;’ so that, according to Father Annat, they have never committed sin through the want of charity and penitence. Their life is spent in a perpetual round of all sorts of pleasures, in the course of which they have not been interrupted by the slightest remorse. These excesses had led me to imagine that their perdition was inevitable; but you, father, inform me that these same excesses secure their salvation. Blessings on you, my good father, for this new way of justifying people! Others prescribe painful austerities for healing the soul; but you shew that souls which may be thought desperately diseased are in quite good health. What an excellent device for being happy both in this world and in the next! I had always supposed that the less a man thought of God, the more he sinned; but, from what I see now, if one could only succeed in bringing himself not to think upon God at all, everything would be pure with him in all time coming. Away