An excellent modern discussion of the Letters appeared in the Irish quarterly "Studies" of September, 1920. The writer, the noted author Hilaire Belloc, reminds his readers of certain important facts. First, casuistry is not chicanery nor is it restricted to ecclesiastics; it is employed by lawyers, physicians, scientific, and even business men, in considering conditions which are without a precedent and have not yet reached the ultimate tribunal which is to settle the matter. Secondly, as in the discussion of ecclesiastical "cases," the terms employed are technical, just as are those of law, medicine, science; and as the language is Latin, no one is competent to interpret the verdict arrived at, unless he is conversant both with theology and the Latin language. "I doubt," he says, "if there is any man living in England to-day--of all those glibly quoting the name of Pascal against the Church--who could tell you what the _Mohatra_ Contract was"--one of the subjects dragged into these "Lettres." Thirdly, the "Lettres" are not so much an assault on the Society of Jesus, as on the whole system of moral theology of the Catholic Church. There are eighteen letters in all, and it is not until the fifth that the Jesuits are assailed. The attack is kept up until the tenth and then dropped. From the thousands of decisions advanced by a vast number of professors 'regular and secular' Pascal brings forward only those of the Jesuits; and of the many thousands of "cases" discussed he selects only one hundred and thirty-two, which, if the repetitions be eliminated, must be reduced to eighty-nine. Of these eighty-nine cases three are clearly misquotations--for Pascal was badly briefed. Many others are put so as to suggest what the casuist never said, that is a special case is made a general rule of morals. Many more are frivolous, and others are purely domestic controversy upon points of Catholic practice which cannot concern the opponents of the Jesuits, and in which they cannot pretend an active interest on Pascal's or the Society's side. When the whole list has been gone through there remain fourteen cases of importance. In eight of these, relating to duelling and the risk of homicide, the opinions of some casuists were subsequently, at one time or another, condemned by the Church (seven of the decisions had declared the liceity of duelling under very exceptional circumstances, when no other means were available to protect one's honor or fortune). Pascal was right in condemning the opinions, but was quite wrong in presenting them as normal decisions, given under ordinary circumstances by Jesuits generally. Three of the remaining six decisions have never been censured; but Pascal by his tricky method of presenting them out of their context has caused the solutions to be confused with certain condemned propositions.