Again; where a sound intellectual and moral basis is not consciously held, man, by the rules that govern his rational nature, will not “walk sure-footedly.” Moreover, it is impossible for a self-respecting free people to allow that essential _unity_ does not prevail betwixt the fundamental principles of both private action and public action. _For just wars and politics are not the pawns of a game that has been devised and patented by the devil._ Just wars and politics are ethics working in the living present, in the wider field of human conduct. And, properly understood, they are, after their kind, and must be, if they are lawful to rational creatures, as noble and as much under the reign, rule, and governance of the _Ideal Man_ as are those solemn acts of life which have been (amongst other purposes) devised to remind man of the transcendental nature of his origin and destiny.] Just as on some wild, tempestuous night, the full orb of the silvery moon is obscured to the eye of the gazer by a dark, driving cloud. Now, it has been said that, partly, _because_ Oldcorne inferred insincerity of heart in Humphrey Littleton, and, partly, _because_ Oldcorne inferred in his questioner pernicious purposes in propounding the question he did propound respecting the moral lawfulness, or otherwise, of the Gunpowder Plot, _therefore_ Oldcorne gave Littleton an answer sounding in partial——that is, in this case, in abstract, in speculative——truth alone. Oldcorne’s own expressed words are as follow:—— “_In this warie sort I spake to him bycause I doubted he came to entrap me_, _and that he should take no advantage of my words whither he reported them to Catholics or to Protestants._” Unquestionably, this must have been _a_ reason——_one_ reason, that is——for Father Oldcorne’s flanking, evasive reply, sounding in partial——that is, in this case, in abstract, in speculative——truth alone. For otherwise a man of such approved goodness and established character would have never declared it to be a reason. The contrary supposal it is impossible to entertain. But because Oldcorne’s declared reason was undoubtedly _a_ reason, it does not follow——regard being had to persons, times, and circumstances——either from the demands of universal reason or moral fitness, that it was _his only and sole reason_, nor (still less) that it was his _paramount and predominant reason_ for his action in question, that is, for his mode of couching the aforesaid Declaration in partial truth alone. What leads to the conclusion with resistless force that Oldcorne’s alleged reason cannot have been his paramount, his predominant, reason is the simple, indisputable fact that such an aim so egregiously miscarried.