Tell us no more, then, of inconveniences which may, in many instances, be so easily got over, and in the absence of which, according to Lessius, murder is permissible even in practice. This is frankly avowed by your authors, as quoted by Escobar, in his “Practice of Homicide, according to your Society.” “Is it allowable,” asks this casuist, “to kill him who has given me a buffet? Lessius says it is permissible in speculation, though not to be followed in practice—_non consulendum in praxi_—on account of the risk of hatred, or of murders prejudicial to the State. Others, however, have judged that, BY AVOIDING THESE INCONVENIENCES, THIS IS PERMISSIBLE AND SAFE IN PRACTICE—_in praxi probabilem et tutam judicarunt Henriquez_,” &c. See how your opinions mount up, by little and little, to the climax of probabilism! The present one you have at last elevated to this position, by permitting murder without any distinction between speculation and practice, in the following terms: “It is lawful, when one has received a buffet, to return the blow immediately with the sword, not to avenge one’s self, but to preserve one’s honor.” Such is the decision of your fathers of Caen in 1644, embodied in their publications produced by the university before parliament, when they presented their third remonstrance against your doctrine of homicide, as shown in the book then emitted by them, at page 339. Mark, then, fathers, that your own authors have themselves demolished this absurd distinction between speculative and practical murder—a distinction which the university treated with ridicule, and the invention of which is a secret of your policy, which it may now be worth while to explain. The knowledge of it, besides being necessary to the right understanding of your 15th, 16th, 17th, and 18th charges, is well calculated, in general, to open up, by little and little, the principles of that mysterious policy.