“O yes,” said he, “we answer just as we please; or rather, I should say, just as it may please those who ask our advice. Here are our rules, taken from Fathers Layman, Vasquez, Sanchez, and the four-and-twenty worthies, in the words of Layman: ‘A doctor, on being consulted, may give an advice, not only probable according to his own opinion, but contrary to his opinion, provided this judgment happens to be more favorable or more agreeable to the person that consults him—_si forte hæc favorabilior seu exoptatior sit_. Nay, I go further, and say, that there would be nothing unreasonable in his giving those who consult him a judgment held to be probable by some learned person, even though he should be satisfied in his own mind that it is absolutely false.’” “Well, seriously, father,” I said, “your doctrine is a most uncommonly comfortable one! Only think of being allowed to answer Yes or No, just as you please! It is impossible to prize such a privilege too highly. I see now the advantage of the contrary opinions of your doctors. One of them always serves your turn, and the other never gives you any annoyance. If you do not find your account on the one side, you fall back on the other, and always land in perfect safety.” “That is quite true,” he replied; “and accordingly, we may always say with Diana, on his finding that Father Bauny was on his side, while Father Lugo was against him: _Sæpe premente deo, fert deus alter opem_.”[143] “I understand you,” resumed I; “but a practical difficulty has just occurred to me, which is this, that supposing a person to have consulted one of your doctors, and obtained from him a pretty liberal opinion, there is some danger of his getting into a scrape by meeting a confessor who takes a different view of the matter, and refuses him absolution unless he recant the sentiment of the casuist. Have you not provided for such a case as that, father?” “Can you doubt it?” he replied. “We have bound them, sir, to absolve their penitents who act according to probable opinions, under the pain of mortal sin, to secure their compliance. ‘When the penitent,’ says Father Bauny, ‘follows a probable opinion, the confessor is bound to absolve him, though his opinion should differ from that of his penitent.’” “But he does not say it would be a mortal sin not to absolve him,” said I. “How hasty you are!” rejoined the monk; “listen to what follows; he has expressly decided that, ‘to refuse absolution to a penitent who acts according to a probable opinion, is a sin which is in its nature mortal.’ And to settle that point, he cites the most illustrious of our fathers—Suarez, Vasquez, and Sanchez.”