Consequently, the inquisitor is always actuated by the desire to secure confession. That does not by any means necessarily involve conviction. What is wanted is that everyone arraigned before the tribunal should publicly in the proceedings acknowledge his acceptance of the Catholic faith. If he is not guilty, not a heretic at all, the inquisitor has reason for personal rejoicing—there is one scandal less to the Church and the faith. Or if the accused is guilty, but acknowledges his guilt and is of his own accord, without compulsion, willing to recant, again so much the better. It was preferable that the lost sheep should voluntarily return, or allow itself quietly to be led back, into the fold than that it should have to be forcibly driven in. What the Church least desired was that the sheep should be lost altogether. Only if all means to secure reconciliation had failed, was it possible to acquiesce in such defeat. But the Church, in giving the most earnest solicitude to the errant individual, had to think also, and yet more earnestly, of the whole community, and of the sanctity and majesty of the truth which the obdurate heretic had spurned. Consequently, a salutary example must be made, the penalty being duly solemn and impressive. But the mild methods first. The second distinctive feature of the Inquisition was the methods of originating proceedings before it. Whereas, under Roman law, either the accusation by an individual or the denunciation by an official was necessary before proceedings could be initiated, an _inquisitio_ could be instituted as the result of a _diffamatio_, the general report of the inhabitants of any community, a parish, a _seigneurie_, a town. It was indeed laid down that the _diffamatio_ must be _apud bonos et graves_, people of standing and gravity of character. This stipulation was no doubt something of a safeguard: nevertheless it remains true that, as no individual had to take upon himself the onus of showing that he had good cause for preferring a charge, the simple fact of unpopularity with his neighbours might be quite sufficient for the institution of proceedings against a man who was for any reason, just or unjust, taboo among them. This method of justice belonged to Canon law; there was no trace of it in Roman law; but it has to be remembered that it was not instituted specifically against heretics, but rather against clerical wrong-doers in high places, who passed unchecked because the necessary number of accusers willing to take upon themselves the responsibility, and also possibly danger, of prosecution could not readily be found.[376]