“All very well,” said he, “but you must be a theologian to see the gist of the matter. The difference between us is so subtle that we can hardly make it out ourselves. It is quite beyond _your_ understanding. Suffice it for you to know that the Jansenists will indeed say that the just have always the power of obeying the commandments—this is not the point in dispute; but they will not say that this power is _proximate_. _That_ is the point.” Mystified more than ever by this new and unknown expression, of which he could get no explanation, the inquirer now returned to his Jansenist friend to demand of him if he admitted it. “Do you admit the _proximate power_?” was all that he could say to him. He had charged his memory carefully with the expression, all the more that he did not understand it. The Jansenist smiled, and said coldly, “Tell me in what sense you use the expression, and I will tell you what I believe about it.” But this was just what he could not do. So he gave the haphazard answer, that he used it “in the sense of the Molinists.” “Which of the Molinists?” was the rejoinder. “All of them together, as being one body, and having one and the same mind,” was the second answer at random: upon which he is assured he is very ill informed; that the Molinists, instead of being at one, are hopelessly divided, but that being united in the design to ruin M. Arnauld, they have all agreed to use this term, understanding it in different senses, and so by an apparent agreement to form a compact body in order to crush him more confidently.