There is such a thing as an undue admiration for "the man who thinks as I do." It proceeds from a combination of pride and weakness. The man in question is the embodiment of "my" principles, and therefore to be worshipped, and, holding "my" principles, his decisions, which are presumably formed upon those principles, must be right, and "my" adoption of them will save me the trouble of forming any for myself. Such is the line of argument which men of Sir Everard Digby's type mentally follow. When, again, some difficulty presents itself, concerning which they have never thought at all, they argue to themselves after this fashion. "My friend agrees with me about A, B, and C, topics on which we are both well informed; therefore I may safely follow his advice about D, a subject of which I at present know nothing, but about which, when I have studied it, I may logically assume that I shall agree with him." Few men act on principle at first hand. To a vast majority, it is too invisible, intangible, difficult to define, and difficult to realise, to serve as either a guide or a support. Yet some of those who are least able, coolly, logically, and consistently to understand and adhere to a principle in the abstract, are the most enthusiastic in advocating, the most vigorous in defending, and the most extravagant in extending to the most extreme limits, its reflection, or supposed reflection, in the person and behaviour of a friend; and they are apt, in their devotion to the friend, to forget the principle. It was thus in the case of Sir Everard Digby and Robert Catesby. In his friendship with Catesby, Sir Everard was eager to be one of the most pronounced champions of the Catholic religion, yet when Catesby acted in direct opposition to the fundamental principles of that religion, Sir Everard clung to the visible friend to the neglect of the invisible principle, which, theoretically, he held to be more precious than life itself. When one idea takes too forcible possession of the mind, although the objections to it may collectively be overpowering, if taken one by one, it is easy to dispose of them, and then to blind the eyes, to stifle the conscience, and to imagine a glamour of righteousness, unselfishness, and heroism, in iniquity, self-pleasing, and even cruelty. Digby experienced this fatal facility. He did not at once consent to Catesby's request without the least pretence of considering its merits; but he combatted the objections to it one by one, and thus easily defeated them. He endeavoured to regard the matter from Catesby's point of view, and he found the process simple, if not agreeable.