[Footnote A: THE END DOES NOT JUSTIFY THE MEANS: NEITHER CAN A MAN OR A WOMAN DO EVIL THAT GOOD MAY COME. But Oldcorne would contend that, in perfect Reason, Truth may be concealed, subject to certain limitations and, regard being had to person, time, and circumstance, the clue-affording possibilities; and this whether partial truth or whole truth, _in pursuance of a prior and superior moral obligation_. And so would say all modern diplomatists and commanders in the field, however conscientious and upright they might be, unless they wished to court defeat, or to give away their Country, and (if justice be meted out to them) to be cashiered. Now, _unity at all times and in all places must prevail. For all men are subject to the one Moral Law of Right Reason, and nowhere will you find men without souls_, notwithstanding that certain members of the English middle classes sometimes seem to labour under a delusion to the contrary. Equivocation cannot be had recourse to in matters of Contract, nor for pecuniary gain, nor sordid profit. Remember _that_, O all ye worshippers of Mammon! For, “a more glorious doctrine for knaves and a more disastrous doctrine for honest men,” it would be difficult, if not impossible, to conceive of than equivocation, if it were not held strictly and severely in check and under control by the dictates of Intellectual Reason and Moral Justice. Now, this highly scientific liberty, “equivocation,” is never morally lawful to the witnesses in a Court of Justice, where the judge has jurisdiction to try the parties and the cause, whether those witnesses be the parties themselves to the cause, or strangers “subpœnaed” to give testimony therein. Such persons would be justly punishable for perjury who professed that, when bearing insufficient or inadequate witness in a Court of Justice by not telling “the whole” truth, they were merely “equivocating.” Nor can equivocation be had recourse to for working hurt or injury to a fellow-creature, whether bond or free, white, black, or copper-coloured, contrary to the primary obligations of Justice, which bid man render unto _all men_ their due. Nor with reference to Divine Truth can equivocation be used. (Hence the piteous absurdity of the Royal Declaration against Popery.) By the mild and merciful Law of England, a criminally-accused person may equivocate, on the same moral principles as justify strategy in warfare, until his guilt has been brought home to him by sufficient proofs. Such a person equivocates by pleading “_not guilty_.”