ir business has been to investigate what moral conduct
is, not to lay down the law as to what it ought to be. Hence they
deliberately refuse to engage in casuistry of the old-fashioned sort.
Further, it is increasingly felt that ethical judgments do not depend on
reason alone, but involve every element in our character; and that the
real problem of practical morality is to establish a harmonious balance
between the intelligence and the feelings--to make a man's "I think this
is right" correspond with his "I feel that it is so." Whether systematic
training can do anything to make the attainment of this balance easier
is a question that has lately engaged the attention of many educational
reformers; and whatever future casuistry may still have before it would
seem to lie along the lines indicated by them.

There is an excellent study of the ancient casuists by M. Raymond
Thamin, _Un Probleme moral dans l'antiquite_ (Paris, 1884). For the
Roman Catholic casuists see Dollinger und Reusch, _Moralstreitigkeiten
im siebzehnten Jahrhundert_ (2 vols., Nordlingen, 1889), and various
articles ("Casuistik," "Ethik," "Moralsysteme," &c.) in Wetzer and
Welte's _Kirchenlexicon_ (Freiburg, 1880-1896). See also the editions
of Pascal's _Provincial Letters_, by John de Soyres (with English
notes, Cambridge, 1880), and A. Molinier (2 vols., Paris, 1891). The
Anglican casuists are discussed in Whewell, _Lectures on Moral
Philosophy_ (London, 1862). For general reflections on the subject see
the appendix to Jowett's edition of the Epistle to the Romans (London,
1855). Most modern text-books on ethics devote some attention to the
matter--notably F.H. Bradley in his _Ethical Studies_ (London, 1876).
See also Hastings Rashdall, _Theory of Good and Evil_ (2 vols.,
Oxford, 1907). (St. C.)

CASUS BELLI, the technical term for cases in which a state holds itself
justified in making war, if a certain course to which it objects is
persisted in. Interference with the full exercise of a nation's rights
or independence, an affront to its dignity, an unredressed injury, are
instances of _casus belli_. Most of the new compulsory treaties of
arbitration entered into by Great Britain and other states exclude from
their application cases affecting the "vital interests" or "national
honour" of the contracting states. These may therefore be considered as
a sort of definition of _casus belli_ in so far as the high contra