The Gunpowder Plot and Lord Mounteagle's Letter Part 25

_To act a lie_ is 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.]

[Footnote B: The n.o.ble science of casuistry is founded on the fact that _partial 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 exact.i.tude, 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 are _wise_, 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, that _partial 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 essential _unity_ does not prevail betwixt the fundamental principles of both private action and public action. _For just wars and politics are not the p.a.w.ns 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 n.o.ble and as much under the reign, rule, and governance of the _Ideal Man_ as 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, _because_ Oldcorne inferred insincerity of heart in Humphrey Littleton, and, partly, _because_ Oldcorne inferred in his questioner pernicious purposes in propounding the question he did propound respecting the moral lawfulness, or otherwise, of the Gunpowder Plot, _therefore_ Oldcorne 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 been _a_ reason--_one_ reason, 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 undoubtedly _a_ reason, it does not follow--regard being had to persons, times, and circ.u.mstances--either from the demands of universal reason or moral fitness, that it was _his only and sole reason_, nor (still less) that it was his _paramount and predominant reason_ for 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 but _superior reason_, not only a true but a sublime reason, for severing in this grave matter, and holding suspended, truth _in thought_ from truth _in 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," a _freedom_, a _three-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.

CHAPTER LXV.

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 a.s.surance 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 thin air 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 Littleton _in abstracto_, after the latter had propounded to him his dangerous question: of leaving the doubter with an answer sounding in partial truth alone.

CHAPTER LXVI.

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 Plot _after_ it had been, _when_ it had been, and _as_ it had been _first trans.m.u.ted and transformed, by the causes and processes hereinbefore mentioned: trans.m.u.ted and transformed into an instrument, sure and certain for the temporal salvation of his fellow-men_.

Yea, _because_ Edward Oldcorne's n.o.blest 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, that _his_ mind in relation to that fell enterprise, which from first to last must have "made the angels weep," was a mind not only of pa.s.sive innocence, but of active rect.i.tude, _therefore_ must he have felt himself to be not barely, but abundantly _free_. Free, because he knew there was no mortal in this world, and no being in the world to come, to condemn _him_ at 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 to _this_ matter, 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]

CHAPTER LXVII.

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 Plot _ante 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.