CHAPTER LVIII.

Gunpowder Plot Books— Vol. II., No. 202.

“The voluntarie declaration of Edward Oldcorne alias Hall Jesuite 12 Mar. 1605 [i.e., 1605-6].A.“Mr. Humfrey Litleton[A]telling me that after Mr. Catesbie saw him self and others of his Companie burnt wthpowder, and the rest of the compnie readie to fly from him, that then he began to thinke he had offended god in this action, seeing soe bad effects follow of the same.[A]I do not know the exact point of time when Humphrey Littleton thus spoke to Father Oldcorne, except that it was certainly after the fatal 5th of November, 1605.B.“I answeared him that an act is not to be condemd or justified upon the good or bad euent that followthit but upon the ende or object, and the meanes that is used for effecting the same and brought him an example out of the booke of Judges wher the 11 tribs of Israel weare comannded by god to make warrs upon the trib of Benjamin; and yett the tribe of Benjamin did both in the first and secound battaile overthrow the other 11 tribs. The like said I wee read of Lewis King of france who went to fight against the Turks and to recouer the hoolye Land, but ther he loost the most of his armie, and him self dyed ther of the plague the like wee may say when the xtianes defendedRhoodes against the turks wher the Turkes preuayled and the xtianes weare overthrowne, and yet noe doubt the xtians cause was good and the turks bad and thus I applied it to this fact of Mr. Catesbie’s it is not to be approved or condemned by the euent, but by the propper object or end, and meanes wchwas to be vsed in it; and bycause I know nothinge of thes I will neither approve it or condeme it but leave it to god and ther owne consciences and in this warie sort I spake to him bycause I doubted he came to entrap me, and that he should take noe advantage of my words whither he reported them to Catholiks or Protestants.“(Signed) Edward Oldcorne.“Acknowledged before vs“J. Popham.[A]Edw. Coke.[B]W. Waad.[C]John Corbett.”(The A and B at the left side of the Declaration are Coke’s own marks.)

“The voluntarie declaration of Edward Oldcorne alias Hall Jesuite 12 Mar. 1605 [i.e., 1605-6].

“Mr. Humfrey Litleton[A]telling me that after Mr. Catesbie saw him self and others of his Companie burnt wthpowder, and the rest of the compnie readie to fly from him, that then he began to thinke he had offended god in this action, seeing soe bad effects follow of the same.

[A]I do not know the exact point of time when Humphrey Littleton thus spoke to Father Oldcorne, except that it was certainly after the fatal 5th of November, 1605.

“I answeared him that an act is not to be condemd or justified upon the good or bad euent that followthit but upon the ende or object, and the meanes that is used for effecting the same and brought him an example out of the booke of Judges wher the 11 tribs of Israel weare comannded by god to make warrs upon the trib of Benjamin; and yett the tribe of Benjamin did both in the first and secound battaile overthrow the other 11 tribs. The like said I wee read of Lewis King of france who went to fight against the Turks and to recouer the hoolye Land, but ther he loost the most of his armie, and him self dyed ther of the plague the like wee may say when the xtianes defendedRhoodes against the turks wher the Turkes preuayled and the xtianes weare overthrowne, and yet noe doubt the xtians cause was good and the turks bad and thus I applied it to this fact of Mr. Catesbie’s it is not to be approved or condemned by the euent, but by the propper object or end, and meanes wchwas to be vsed in it; and bycause I know nothinge of thes I will neither approve it or condeme it but leave it to god and ther owne consciences and in this warie sort I spake to him bycause I doubted he came to entrap me, and that he should take noe advantage of my words whither he reported them to Catholiks or Protestants.

“(Signed) Edward Oldcorne.

“Acknowledged before vs

“J. Popham.[A]Edw. Coke.[B]W. Waad.[C]John Corbett.”

(The A and B at the left side of the Declaration are Coke’s own marks.)

[A]The Lord Chief Justice of England.

[B]Afterwards the celebrated Lord Chief Justice of England, and Editor of “Littleton’s Tenures.” This Humphrey Littleton, mentioned in the Text, was a descendant of Sir John Littleton, Author of the immortal legal work.

[C]Lieutenant of the Tower of London.

We are now come to the crux of this Inquiry.

To every philosophical thinker who takes the trouble to ponder the matter it must be evident that the ethical principles enunciated in the first part of the Declaration, givenin extensoin the preceding chapter, are intellectually irrefutable and morally irreproachable; although their obviousness, certainly, will not be palpable to “the man in the street.”

The answer of this clear-sighted, strong-headed Yorkshireman, is indeed the answer that is the resultant of exact ethical knowledge, that is, of moral science.For what is science, either in the realms of the intellectual, the moral, the political, or the physical, but “exact knowledge.”

Moreover, these principles are the resultant of abstract moral science, or exact ethical knowledge pure and simple.

Now, “Morality is the science of duty.”[161]But, just as it is most mischievousindiscriminatelyto apply abstract principles of morality, however faultless in themselves, to the complex affairs of individuals and of States, so is it most dangerous to strew broadcast statements of the abstract principles of ethics for the untutored mind of themerelypractical man — first of all, to misunderstand; and, secondly, to wrest to his own undoing and that of his equally unfortunate fellow-men.

This is certainly so in the present stage of the world’s imperfect education. Though one lives in the hope that sooner or later that “ampler day” may dawn, when, from the least unto the greatest, men shall come to have a happy conscious realization of the truth of the poet’s dictum: “Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas;”[162]“Happy is he who hath been able to learn the causes of things.”

Still,truth — that which is — is truth.

And partial truth is not less true, according to its measure and in its degree, than the full orb of truth.[A]

[A]Strategy in war has for its intellectual and moral justification the fact that partial truth is not less true, in its measure and in its degree, than the full orb of truth.

Furthermore, “Wisdom is justified by all her children;” even although some of those children are tardy in realizing and in expressing their sense of such justification.

Now, although all this stands to reason — nay, because it is true, is even the perfection of reason — it was an enunciation of principles by Father Oldcorne, which it was more than probable would be misinterpreted by two sets of people, the intellectually stupid and the morally malicious.

Nay, it may be allowed that even persons of the highest intelligence and of the utmost good faith — such as, in the last century, the late David Jardine[163]— might easily enough think that Edward Oldcorne deserved condemnation and chiding for thus apparently showing such a marked disposition to look at this grave matter, the moral rightness or wrongness of the Gunpowder Plot, as though it were as purely abstract and scholastica question as that famous moot of the middle ages: “How many angels can dance on the point of a needle?”[A]

[A]Oldcorne had special private knowledge that the Plot would never be a Plotexecuted, because (1) he knew Christopher Wright had resolved to reveal it; because (2) he knew that his own personal act had ended the Plot by his penning the Letter.

Now, the contention is this: That regard being had to the extraordinary heinousness of the Gunpowder Plot, in point of underhand stealthiness and secrecy as well as of deliberateness, malice, magnitude, and cruelty, no man of moral uprightness and intellectual keenness could be — without doing a violence to his human nature that is all but incredible — so unspeakably reckless and utterly insane as to fling broadcast to the winds, for the wayfaring man and the fool to pick up and con for their own and their hapless fellow-creatures’ moral destruction, anoral statementas to this diabolical Plot, that expressed ways of looking at the Plot merely speculative and simply in the abstract,[A]save and excepton one condition only, namely, that such speaker had had both from without and from within,et ab extra et ab intra, a specialknowledge.

[A]It is to be noted that in this momentous Declaration of the 12th March, 1605-6, Oldcorne in the first part reserves or conceals “partial truth;” that is to say, inthiscase,truth in the concrete, or truth in action. While in the second part of the Declaration Oldcorne orally disclaims, denies, or dissembles integral truth, that is here a special and particular knowledge of the end the plotters had in view, and the means they purposed to adopt. The knowledge he had received was of a natureofficial, and at least conditionally, though not absolutely,privateknowledge.

Furthermore,a special knowledge, with absolute certitude, whichwarrantedthe speaker in mentally surveying that Plot not merely as itthenwas at themoment when he was giving utterance to his speculative statement concerning it, but, as he full well knew, at some point of time prior to that fateful day, November the 5th, 1605, it had been destined to be perpetually, namely,A PLOTante factum in æternum, a mere abstract mental plan for ever. Aye, a mere abstract mental plan to all eternity; because transmuted and transformed by some process wherein that speaker had himself taken a primal, an essential, a meritorious part.[A]

[A]The argument is that a man at once good and clever, like Edward Oldcorne, would not, according to the rules that govern human nature and daily experience, have clothed in words and then let loose to wander about the world seeking whom it might fall in with and victimize, a bare abstract proposition regarding the Plot,unlesshe had been first absolutely certain that the foundation-thing, the Plot itself, was too attenuated and ghost-like to work hurt or mischief to any human creature.Now, since Littleton propounded his questionafterthe 5th of November, Oldcorne had anordinaryground for allowing himself to speak of the defunct Plot purely in the abstract. But this was an obviously very dangerous thing to do, both for Littleton’s sake, the general public’s sake (Catholic or Protestant), and for the speaker’s own sake. Therefore the fact that Oldcorne did so speak postulates somethingmore than ordinary. Hence, as Oldcorne was a man of virtue both intellectually and morally, the reasonable inference is that Oldcornehad an extraordinary groundfor his answer which endued him with a special liberty of abstract speech in regard to the matter.That extraordinary ground, I maintain, was based deep down within the depths of his own interior knowledge.

Now, since Littleton propounded his questionafterthe 5th of November, Oldcorne had anordinaryground for allowing himself to speak of the defunct Plot purely in the abstract. But this was an obviously very dangerous thing to do, both for Littleton’s sake, the general public’s sake (Catholic or Protestant), and for the speaker’s own sake. Therefore the fact that Oldcorne did so speak postulates somethingmore than ordinary. Hence, as Oldcorne was a man of virtue both intellectually and morally, the reasonable inference is that Oldcornehad an extraordinary groundfor his answer which endued him with a special liberty of abstract speech in regard to the matter.That extraordinary ground, I maintain, was based deep down within the depths of his own interior knowledge.

But it may be objected that instead of assuming that Father Oldcorne was a man not only of mental keenness but also of moral uprightness, and proceeding forthwith to build an argument on such an assumption, the writer ought in truth and justice to have proved, by evidence or reason, the latter part of the proposition. And this the rather, seeing that so many of the co-religionists both in our own day as well as in the days of Father Oldcorne have regarded that society, whereof Oldcorne was a distinguished English member, with not merely unfeigned suspicion but with sincere dislike, and even with genuine loathing.[A]

[A]The most formidable adversaries of the Jesuits far and away have been Roman Catholics of a particular type of mind. Blaise Pascal, that colossal genius, has been probably their most successful enemy.

Now, the unbiased historical philosopher is content not only to let the dead bury their dead but also to let theologian deal with theologian. To the historical philosopher, a Jesuit is a man and nothing more: nothing more, that is, so far as his being entitled to receive at the former’s hands the benefit of all those natural rights which belong to all members of the human species. For all men (including Jesuits) are, in the mind of the philosopher, “born free and equal.”

Hence it follows that when, amid the chances andchanges of this mortal life, the historical philosopher is thrown across the path of a Jesuit, he looks at him, as a matter of duty, straight in the face, just as he looks at any other rational creature; and then seeks to ascertain, by dint of normal touchstones and tests, what manner of man the person is whom that philosopher, by the ordinances of fate, has then and there confronted.

Now, in the case of Edward Oldcorne, the Text of this Inquiry, and also the Notes thereunto, supply abundant proof that Oldcorne came of a good, wholesome, Yorkshire stock — hard-working, honest, and honourable; that his own mental nature was broad, rich and full, high-minded, just, and generous.[A]

[A]Father Henry Garnet, S.J., landed in England in 1586 along with the gifted Robert Southwell, whose prose and poetical works belong to English literature. Father Weston was then the Jesuit Superior. Father John Gerard landed, along with Father Edward Oldcorne, off the coast of Norfolk, in August, 1588, shortly after the decisive fight with the Spanish Armada, off Gravelines. As illustrating the conscientiousness and courage of this Yorkshire Elizabethan Jesuit, the following quotation from Foley, vol. iv., p. 210, may be of interest: “Father Oldcorne was employed sometime in London by Father Garnet, diligently labouring in the quest and salvation of souls. He was ever of a most ready wit, and endeavoured as far as possible to adapt himself to the manner of those with whom he lived. There were exceptions, however, in which, consumed with an ardent zeal of asserting and defending the Divine honour, he could not refrain from correcting those whom he heard uttering obscene and injurious language either towards God or their superiors. When in London, in the house of a Catholic gentleman, he struck with his fist and broke into pieces a pane of stained or painted glass representing an indecent picture of Venus and Mars, which he considered wholly unfit for the eyes of a virtuous family.”[The curious philosopher wonders whether this Elizabethan Catholic gentleman, having been deprived of his “Venus and Mars” in such a high-handed fashion, afterwards became anti-Jesuitical.]

[The curious philosopher wonders whether this Elizabethan Catholic gentleman, having been deprived of his “Venus and Mars” in such a high-handed fashion, afterwards became anti-Jesuitical.]

Therefore is it, alike by evidence and reason, borne in upon the mind of the philosopher that, on grounds ofprobability so high as to afford practical certitude, he may proceed to build his argument upon the assumption that Edward Oldcorne was a man not only of intellectual acumen but also of moral integrity, as has been already predicated of him.

Now, in the first part of his Declaration, Father Oldcorne uttered concerning the Gunpowder Plot a proposition which expressed partial truth alone. Because he expressed truth in the abstract only, not truth in the concrete also, concerning that nefarious scheme.

In other words, Father Oldcorne severed in thought the two kinds of truth, the two aspects of truth, the two parts of truth, which beingunifiedgave thewholetruth respecting the moral mode of judging the Gunpowder Treason Plot.

Oldcorne severed concrete truth from abstract truth,[A]practical truth from speculative truth, and so far as his hearer, Humphrey Littleton, was concerned, held that concrete truth, that practical truth, suspended at the sword-point over Littleton’s head.

[A]Or, it may be said, Oldcorne separated concrete truth from abstract truth, practical truth from speculative truth, holding the former in solution, and putting into the hands of Littleton the latter alone, in the form of a dangerous precipitate.

Now, I maintain that, regard being had to the terrific danger of Littleton’s occasioning mischief, either through stupidity, malice, or both, a man of the intellectual and moral calibre of Edward Oldcorne would have never suffered his tongue to give utterance to a proposition dividing, as with a sword, concrete truth from abstract truth, practical truth from speculative truth, and thenholding the former suspended above the head of his questioner,unless and untilthat great Priest and Jesuit had been first possessed of the living consciousness that he had had, and then was, at that very instant of time when speaking, having that Plot, which represented “the sum of all villainies,” in that it involved “sacrilegious murder,”[A]firmly and unconquerably crushed under his feet.[164]

[A]This phrase is used by Shakespeare in “Macbeth” (1606), I suggest, with indirect reference to the Gunpowder Plot, which Shakespeare must have followed with the most breathless, absorbing interest. For Norbrook was in Snitterfield, where his mother (Mary Arden) had property; while Coughton was the home of the Throckmortons, the Ardens’ relatives. Clopton House, where Ambrose Rookwood was living from Michaelmas, 1605, Lapworth, where John Wright resided from May, 1605, and where Christopher Wright and Marmaduke Ward visited him (all of which places were in that “garden of England,” Warwickshire), must have been as familiar to the poet almost as his own Stratford-on-Avon.I find the name “Robert Arden,” of Pedmore, Worcestershire, 11⁄2miles from Stourbridge, down as “a popish recusant” for the year 1592, in the “Hatfield MS.,” part iv.

I find the name “Robert Arden,” of Pedmore, Worcestershire, 11⁄2miles from Stourbridge, down as “a popish recusant” for the year 1592, in the “Hatfield MS.,” part iv.

And how could this be?

It could be only by dint of atwo-fold knowledge, a two-fold, warranting, justifying, vindicating knowledge, which this Priest and Jesuit held stored-up deep down within the depths of his conscious being, a knowledgepassiveor receptive which had come to him “from without,”ab extra; a knowledgeactiveor self-caused which he had bestowed upon himself “from within,”ab intra.

Now, the passive knowledge “from without” was the knowledge Oldcorne had had from the penitent plotter of that penitent’s resolve to reveal the Plot to his lawful Sovereign by the most perfect means for so doing that by the human mind could be devised.

The active knowledge “from within” was the knowledge that Oldcorne had possessed, and was at that moment possessing, of his own sublimely conceived and magnificently executed act and deed: although even this active knowledge “from within” was itselfindirectlytraceable to that penitent plotter’s repentant resolve and repentant will.[A]

[A]We know on the authority of Sir Edward Coke himself that one of the conspirators was supposed to have revealed the Plot, and indeed suchmusthave been inevitably the case. Now, the proved position of Thomas Ward in the work of communicating with Thomas Winter suggests that Ward was the diplomatic go-between. But it is obvious that Ward cannot have himself penned the Letter; for if he had been in the service of Elizabeth’s Government his handwriting would be known to the Government. Now, circumstantial evidence tends to prove that Father Oldcorne did. Therefore the relationship of priest and penitent and the machinery of the Tribunal of Penance is forthwith, naturally and easily, brought into play. Now, in these days of “emancipated and free religious thought,” it is difficult for us readily to realize thestupendousforce that the alleged supernatural facts of historical Christianity had uponthe mind of all those who lived consciouslyhemmed in, as it were, by an alleged supernatural tradition of Christianity,whetherCalvinisticorRoman Catholic, at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Those alleged facts were assumed and deliberately calculated upon as among the ruling and controllingrealitiesof daily life. Now, a Yorkshire Roman Catholic — especially one brought up in the Wright, Ward, Babthorpe, Ingleby, Mallory circle — might be easily frightened, nay, terrified, into confession and avowal of his crimes, andthereforeinto satisfaction, andthereforeinto reversal, by the mere fact that about the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, 11th October (old style), 1605, when “examining his conscience” he came to realize the tremendous and awful wickedness of his two crimes, sacrilege and murder. For the Archangel “Michael — who is like unto God” — would be tohima being as real and living and of transcendently greaterpower— an important consideration — than even the stern reality of the hangman of the gallows-tree and the ripping knife; while a close-natured, thoughtful Yorkshireman like Christopher Wright would vividly realize, with his shrewd instinct for values and tendencies, that,unrepentant, his ultimate fate — either here or hereafter — was not worth while the risking. For, on the one hand, he may have peradventure, consciously or unconsciously, argued there is the certainty of falling, sooner or later, into “the Hands of the Living God,” and of being by Him consigned to the charge of Michael, the Minister of His Justice; while, on the other, there is the going,notto the chill, viewless wind, but to a sympathetic rational creature with a brain, heart, eyes, hands, and feet, and the gettinghim, in the solid reality of flesh and blood, to put a speedy stop, here and now, to the whole unhappy business, and so save further trouble. (A man of middle age, well educated, belonging to an old Yorkshire Roman Catholic family that “had never lost the Faith,” told a relative, not long ago, that “after being on the spree” he should have certainly committed a great crime had he not been stayed by the knowledge that, if he did so, “he would go plump into Hell.” I mention this to show how, at least, sometimes the Catholic conscience works even in these “enlightened” days. Hence, the antecedent probability of the truth of my suggested solution ofhowthe revealing conspirator was motived to reveal the conspiracy. For an Inquiry into the Gunpowder Plot is a great philosophical study of humanmotivesas well as ofprobabilities; and the case of Christopher Wright (ex hypothesi) is, in relation to the example just cited, anà fortioricase.)

But, it may be plausibly objected, if it were of such dangerous tendencyindiscriminatelyto give utterance to bare, abstract, moral principles only, how came it to pass, then, that Oldcorne, who was a good man, morally, as well as a clever man, intellectually, suffered himselfthusto act when questioned by Humphrey Littleton respecting the moral lawfulness, or otherwise, of the Gunpowder Plot?

Now, Oldcorne, as we have already seen in his Declaration quoted above, has recorded a — that is one — reasonwhy he left Littletonin abstracto— that is furnished with truth in the abstract merely. And beyond a doubt, as subsequent events so signally proved, the astute Jesuit’s judgment of Littleton’s character had not erred one whit.

Littleton, as Oldcorne justly feared, was a “dangerous fellow,” one who was likely to entrap the innocent, and one who was, therefore, not entitled, either in Justice or in that more refined kind of justice called Equity, to have his question dealt with by anything other than a flanking movement; or, in other words, by anything other than such an intellectual manœuvre as wouldturn aside the questionLittleton had elected to propound to the great mental strategist — as would turn aside the question Littleton had elected to propound, on the face of it, probably, and as the event proved, certainly, from sinister motives and with crooked aims.

Hence,partlybecause of his questioner’s inferred insincerity and pernicious purposesdid Oldcorne sever speculative truth in thought from concrete truth in action; or, in other words,Oldcorne gave to Littleton an answer “sounding” in partial truth alone.

Now,partial truth, as has been affirmed already,is not, in its proportion, less true than the full orb of truth.[A]And many are the times and many are the circumstances in this strangely chequered human life of ours, with its endless movements and its perpetual vicissitudes, when apparently conflicting and antagonistic duties can be in justice, equity, and honour reconciled on one condition only, namely, that man shall leave to Omniscience alone, “from Whom no secrets are hid,” a knowledge of the full orb of certain degrees of some particular kind of truth, governing some particular subject-matter under consideration.[165][B]

[A]It is never morally lawful to tell a lie, that is, to speak contrary to one’s mind, or to deceive by word contrary to that law of justice which bids a man render to all rational creatures their due.To act a lieis as base and wicked as to tell a lie, and often more unmanly and contemptible besides: else might the deaf and dumb be unjustly deceived with impunity.

To act a lieis as base and wicked as to tell a lie, and often more unmanly and contemptible besides: else might the deaf and dumb be unjustly deceived with impunity.

[B]The noble science of casuistry is founded on the fact thatpartial truth is not less true, in its measure and in its degree, than the full orb of truth.A knowledge of casuistry, that is, of the principles of moral science scientifically applied to the living facts of the living present, will be of primal necessity to British statesmen in the twentieth century, which will be a century of few, but strong, principles, and of few, but strong, men to apply those principles.Efficiency, and efficiency through scientific exactitude, will be the characteristic aim of all the great Imperial Powers of the world in the near future. Here, in England, with all our intellectual, moral, and physical virtues (which indeed are neither few nor contemptible), we have been too apt to allow a number of persons to speak for us, able in their way, no doubt, but of limited mental vision, and hopelessly incapable of grappling with the problems that confront a world-wide Empire, embracing a fifth (some say a fourth) of the human race. A democratic Empire must choose leaders that arewise, just, self-controlled, courageous; and then that Empire must entrust freely and fearlessly their destinies with such leaders, who must not be afraid faithfully to go “full tilt” against ignorant prejudice or short-sighted prepossession.Now, wisdom (or prudence) is the cardinal virtue which presides over all the other three virtues. And wisdom (or prudence) tells us that strategy in war, that sometimes necessary evil; diplomacy betwixt the representatives of nations; and above and beyond all the imparting to the general body of the people only so much knowledge of the tendencies of current events as is for the common good, can have intellectual and moral justification on this one fundamental ethical principle only, namely, thatpartial truth is not less true, in its measure and in its degree, than the full orb of truth.Again; where a sound intellectual and moral basis is not consciously held, man, by the rules that govern his rational nature, will not “walk sure-footedly.” Moreover, it is impossible for a self-respecting free people to allow that essentialunitydoes not prevail betwixt the fundamental principles of both private action and public action.For just wars and politics are not the pawns of a game that has been devised and patented by the devil.Just wars and politics are ethics working in the living present, in the wider field of human conduct. And, properly understood, they are, after their kind, and must be, if they are lawful to rational creatures, as noble and as much under the reign, rule, and governance of theIdeal Manas are those solemn acts of life which have been (amongst other purposes) devised to remind man of the transcendental nature of his origin and destiny.

[B]The noble science of casuistry is founded on the fact thatpartial truth is not less true, in its measure and in its degree, than the full orb of truth.

A knowledge of casuistry, that is, of the principles of moral science scientifically applied to the living facts of the living present, will be of primal necessity to British statesmen in the twentieth century, which will be a century of few, but strong, principles, and of few, but strong, men to apply those principles.

Efficiency, and efficiency through scientific exactitude, will be the characteristic aim of all the great Imperial Powers of the world in the near future. Here, in England, with all our intellectual, moral, and physical virtues (which indeed are neither few nor contemptible), we have been too apt to allow a number of persons to speak for us, able in their way, no doubt, but of limited mental vision, and hopelessly incapable of grappling with the problems that confront a world-wide Empire, embracing a fifth (some say a fourth) of the human race. A democratic Empire must choose leaders that arewise, just, self-controlled, courageous; and then that Empire must entrust freely and fearlessly their destinies with such leaders, who must not be afraid faithfully to go “full tilt” against ignorant prejudice or short-sighted prepossession.

Now, wisdom (or prudence) is the cardinal virtue which presides over all the other three virtues. And wisdom (or prudence) tells us that strategy in war, that sometimes necessary evil; diplomacy betwixt the representatives of nations; and above and beyond all the imparting to the general body of the people only so much knowledge of the tendencies of current events as is for the common good, can have intellectual and moral justification on this one fundamental ethical principle only, namely, thatpartial truth is not less true, in its measure and in its degree, than the full orb of truth.

Again; where a sound intellectual and moral basis is not consciously held, man, by the rules that govern his rational nature, will not “walk sure-footedly.” Moreover, it is impossible for a self-respecting free people to allow that essentialunitydoes not prevail betwixt the fundamental principles of both private action and public action.For just wars and politics are not the pawns of a game that has been devised and patented by the devil.Just wars and politics are ethics working in the living present, in the wider field of human conduct. And, properly understood, they are, after their kind, and must be, if they are lawful to rational creatures, as noble and as much under the reign, rule, and governance of theIdeal Manas are those solemn acts of life which have been (amongst other purposes) devised to remind man of the transcendental nature of his origin and destiny.

Just as on some wild, tempestuous night, the full orb of the silvery moon is obscured to the eye of the gazer by a dark, driving cloud.

Now, it has been said that, partly,becauseOldcorne inferred insincerity of heart in Humphrey Littleton, and, partly,becauseOldcorne inferred in his questioner pernicious purposes in propounding the question he did propound respecting the moral lawfulness, or otherwise, of the Gunpowder Plot,thereforeOldcorne gave Littleton an answer sounding in partial — that is, in this case, in abstract, in speculative — truth alone.

Oldcorne’s own expressed words are as follow: —

“In this warie sort I spake to him bycause I doubted he came to entrap me,and that he should take no advantage of my words whither he reported them to Catholics or to Protestants.”

Unquestionably, this must have beenareason —onereason, that is — for Father Oldcorne’s flanking, evasive reply, sounding in partial — that is, in this case, in abstract, in speculative — truth alone.

For otherwise a man of such approved goodness and established character would have never declared it to be a reason. The contrary supposal it is impossible to entertain.

But because Oldcorne’s declared reason was undoubtedlyareason, it does not follow — regard being had to persons, times, and circumstances — either from the demands of universal reason or moral fitness, that it washis only and sole reason, nor (still less) that it was hisparamount and predominant reasonfor his action in question, that is, for his mode of couching the aforesaid Declaration in partial truth alone.

What leads to the conclusion with resistless force that Oldcorne’s alleged reason cannot have been his paramount, his predominant, reason is the simple, indisputable fact that such an aim so egregiously miscarried.

Therefore, in the case of so astute and clever a man, as all the evidence we have concerning Oldcorne to demonstration proves him to have been, it is rendered probable, to the degree of moral certainty, that the great casuist had some far stronger reason latent within him than the reason he chose to put forth for couching an answer to Humphrey Littleton, sounding in partial truth alone.

Besides the sufficient, indeed,yet inferior reason,grounded on the primal instinct of personal self-preservation, or, in other words, to put the matter bluntly, the mere brute instinct of not being entrapped, wisdom suggests that Oldcorne must — his moral character being what we know it was — have had a reason latent deep down within the depths of his conscious being, which was not only a sufficient butsuperior reason, not only a true but a sublime reason, for severing in this grave matter, and holding suspended, truthin thoughtfrom truthin action.

Yea, Father Oldcorne, I maintain, gave Humphrey Littleton the flanking, evasive answer that he did give him, notwithstanding the inevitable, possible, and even probable dangers attendant thereon, because he (Oldcorne) felt within himself, “to the finest fibre of his being,” afreedom, athree-fold freedom, which warranted, justified, and vindicated him in so answering.

Now this freedom was a three-fold freedom, because it was a thrice-purchased freedom.

And it was a thrice-purchased freedom because it had been purchased by the merits: —

(1) Of the personal, actual repentance of the revealing plotter himself. By the merits

(2) Of the imputed (or constructive) repentance of that penitent’s co-plotters. And by the merits

(3) Of the laudable action of Oldcorne himself.

Now, Oldcorne, being a man as good as he was clever, and as clever as he was good, manifests from the inherent nature of his answer to Humphrey Littleton a sense, a consciousness, an assurance of freedom from the restraints and obligations which would have undoubtedly stayed and bound him had he not been already freed from their power.

Now, it is a superior power that countervails, that renders impotent an inferior power.

Now, Oldcorne would be freed from the restraining power of moral obligations, as to the user of a particular character of speech, if he had had residing within him a power of superior, of sublimer, that is, of countervailing force.

Now, Oldcorne, in his answer to Littleton, manifestly gives evidence of power, of countervailing power.

Knowledge gives power: gives countervailing power.

Therefore it follows that the presence of power, of countervailing power, in Oldcorne proves likewise the strong probability of knowledge, of countervailing knowledge likewise.

And what kind of knowledge can such two-fold knowledge have been, save a meritorious knowledge of what aforetime had been, but which was then no longer, the Gunpowder Treason Plot?

For, from the very moment of Oldcorne’s becoming conscious that the Plot as a plot had vanished into thinair by (1) personal, actual repentance; by (2) imputed or constructive repentance; by (3) a personally heroic act: had vanished like the morning mists before the beams of the rising sun, Oldcorne would feel himself, so to speak, immediately to be endued with an extraordinary power: with a power that would straightway cause him to grow to a loftier stature than all his fellows: with a power that then would enable him, as it were, to scale the heights, and, at length, to mount up to the very top of what aforetime had been the baleful Plot, but which Plot Oldcorne full well knew would be henceforward and for ever emptied and defecated of and from all murderous, criminous, sacrilegious quality.[166]

Hence was Oldcorne warranted, justified, and vindicated in viewing and surveying “the fact of Mr. Catesbie’s” simply speculatively and purely in the abstract.

Hence was Oldcorne warranted, justified, and vindicated in leaving Humphrey Littletonin abstracto, after the latter had propounded to him his dangerous question: of leaving the doubter with an answer sounding in partial truth alone.

Now, this conclusion leads inevitably to the further conclusion that Edward Oldcorne must have had latent within him, deep down within the depths of his conscious being, a particular knowledge,as distinct from a general knowledge, a private knowledge as distinct from a public knowledge, not indeed of this Plot as a plot, but of the Plotafterit had been,whenit had been, andasit had beenfirst transmuted and transformed, by the causes and processes hereinbefore mentioned: transmuted and transformed into an instrument, sure and certain for the temporal salvation of his fellow-men.

Yea,becauseEdward Oldcorne’s noblest mental faculty, his conscience, gazing with eagle-eye, sun-filled, yet undazzled and undismayed, upon absolute truth was able unshrinkingly and calmly to bear witness to the other indivisible parts of his rational nature, thathismind in relation to that fell enterprise, which from first to last must have “made the angels weep,” was a mind not only of passive innocence, but of active rectitude,thereforemust he have felt himself to be not barely, but abundantlyfree. Free, because he knew there was no mortal in this world, and no being in the world to come, to condemnhimat the bar of eternal Justice; nay, none rightly even to be so much as his accuser: free to survey the baleful scheme purely speculatively: free, orally to express the results of that survey,either as to whole or part, in abstracto, in the abstract merely;and this notwithstanding the risk of misinterpretation from his questioner’s “want of thought,” or “want of heart.”

For everlastingly was it the truth, that none could gainsay nor resist, that in relation tothismatter, at any rate, it was the lofty privilege of Edward Oldcorne — indeed a man, if ever there were such, “elect and precious” — to have been made “a white soul:” to have been made a soul like unto “a star that dwelt apart.”

Res ipsa loquitur.Yea, the words of Edward Oldcorne speak for themselves. And from those words evident is it that it was the kingly prerogative of this disciplined, self-repressed, humblest of men,to know the truth as to the once atrocious plan: to know the truth and to be free.

For his language implies, and, his mind and his character being what they were, his language is intelligible on none other supposal than this: That at the very moment when his tongue gave utterance to this now famous flanking, evasive answer to his inquirer,he, even he, had possession of a power, a knowledge, a living consciousness, that he had been exalted to be the chosen agent of that Supreme Power of the Universe, to Whom by infinite right, Vengeance belongs:the chosen agent whereby the aforetime, but then no longer, stupendous Gunpowder Treason Plot had been, to all eternity, overthrown, frustrated, and brought to nought.[167]

Hence may we say, of a surety, has it been proved that Edward Oldcorne, Priest and Jesuit, used words which imply that, as a fact, he viewed the Plotante factum, before the fact, and in the abstract merely.

That, being a man as good as he was clever, and as clever as he was good, he must have had his warranting reasons, his justifying reasons, his vindicating reasons for so doing, when such a course of action was obviously likely to be attended with danger from misinterpretation from both the fool and the knave; from both the man lacking thought and from the man lacking heart.

That such warranting reasons, such justifying reasons, such vindicating reasons would be found in the fact that Oldcorne knew the Plot was no longer a plot, but a scheme emptied and defecated of all evil, all murderous, all criminous, all sacrilegious quality. Nay, that it was a scheme sublimated and transfigured by his (Oldcorne’s) own superabounding merit and virtue in relation to the once diabolical, but then repented of, prodigious plan.

Therefore is the inevitable conclusion pressed upon us with resistless force, that, according to the changeless laws which govern man’s intellectual and moral nature, Oldcorne must have had someofficial or semi-official particular and private knowledgeof the thirteen Gunpowder traitors’ heinous project, as distinct from and in addition to that merely personal, general knowledge, which he necessarily cannot have failed to possess in hiscapacity of an ordinary English citizen: some professional or quasi-professional special, private knowledge, as distinct from that general, public, common knowledge, which every sane man then a subject of the British Crown could not help not being possessed of, at that very instant of time when Humphrey Littleton propounded to the great casuist Humphrey Littleton’s aforetime unhappy question.[A]

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