eyes, my father; and if you have remained untouched by the other distortions of your Casuists, let this last by its excess compel you to abandon them.’” {150a} DEFENCE OF RIDICULE AS A WEAPON IN CONTROVERSY. “What, my fathers! must the imaginations of your doctors pass for faithful verities? Must we not expose the sayings of Escobar, {150b} and the fantastic and unchristian statements of others, without being accused of laughing at religion? Is it possible you have dared to repeat anything so unreasonable? and have you no fear that in blaming me for ridiculing your absurdities, you were merely furnishing me with a fresh subject of arousing attack, and of pointing out more clearly that I have not found in your books any subject of laughter which is not in itself intensely ridiculous; and that in making a jest of your moral maxims, I am as far from making a jest of holy things as the doctrine of your Casuists distant from the holy doctrine of the Gospel? In truth, sirs, there is a vast difference between laughing at religion and laughing at those who profane it by their extravagant opinions. It were an impiety to fail in respect for the great truths which the Divine Spirit has revealed; but it would be no less impiety of another kind to fail in contempt for falsehoods which the spirit of man has opposed to them. . . . Just as Christian truths are worthy of love and respect, the errors which oppose them are worthy of contempt and hatred: for as there are two things in the truths of our religion—a divine beauty which renders them lovable, and a holy majesty which renders them venerable; so there are two things in such errors—an impiety which makes them horrible, and an impertinence which renders them ridiculous.” {151a} Many examples from the Scriptures and the Fathers are then quoted in defence of the practice of directing ridicule against error; and he closes with a singularly appropriate passage from Tertullian: “Nothing is more due to vanity than laughter; it is the Truth properly that has a right to laugh, because she is cheerful—and to make sport of her enemies, because she is sure of victory.”