“Eh! what!—just as I please! Indeed, but you are a pretty scholar! It would seem, according to your way of talking, that the truth depended on our will and pleasure. I see that, in the present case, you would never find it out yourself: so I must send you to Sanchez for a solution of the problem—no less a man than Sanchez. In the first place, he makes a distinction between ‘the case of the diviner who has recourse to astrology and other natural means, and that of another who employs the diabolical art. In the one case, he says, the diviner is bound to make restitution; in the other he is not.’ Now, guess which of them is the party bound?” “It is not difficult to find out that,” said I. “I see what you mean to say,” he replied. “You think that he ought to make restitution in the case of his having employed the agency of demons. But you know nothing about it; it is just the reverse. ‘If,’ says Sanchez, ‘the sorcerer has not taken care and pains to discover, by means of the devil, what he could not have known otherwise, he must make restitution—_si nullam operam apposuit ut arte diaboli id sciret_; but if he has been at that trouble, he is not obliged.’” “And why so, father?” “Don’t you see?” returned he. “It is because men may truly divine by the aid of the devil, whereas astrology is a mere sham.” “But, sir, should the devil happen not to tell the truth (and he is not much more to be trusted than astrology), the magician must, I should think, for the same reason, be obliged to make restitution?” “Not always,” replied the monk: “_Distinguo_, as Sanchez says, here. ‘If the magician be ignorant of the diabolic art—_si sit artis diabolicæ ignarus_—he is bound to restore: but if he is an expert sorcerer, and has done all in his power to arrive at the truth, the obligation ceases; for the industry of such a magician may be estimated at a certain sum of money.’” “There is some sense in that,” I said; “for this is an excellent plan to induce sorcerers to aim at proficiency in their art, in the hope of making an honest livelihood, as you would say, by faithfully serving the public.” “You are making a jest of it, I suspect,” said the father: “that is very wrong. If you were to talk in that way in places where you were not known, some people might take it amiss, and charge you with turning sacred subjects into ridicule.” “That, father, is a charge from which I could very easily vindicate myself; for certain I am that whoever will be at the trouble to examine the true meaning of my words will find my object to be precisely the reverse; and perhaps, sir, before our conversations are ended, I may find an opportunity of making this very amply apparent.” “Ho, ho,” cried the monk, “there is no laughing in your head now.” “I confess,” said I, “that the suspicion that I intended to laugh at things sacred, would be as painful for me to incur, as it would be unjust in any to entertain it.”