had some
glimpses of it in passing, from certain maxims which I mentioned to
you. For example, when I was showing you how servants might execute
certain troublesome jobs with a safe conscience, did you not remark
that it was simply by diverting their intention from the evil to
which they were accessory, to the profit which they might reap from
the transaction? Now, that is what we call _directing the
intention_. You saw, too, that, were it not for a similar
divergence of _the mind_, those who give money for benefices might
be downright simoniacs. But I will now show you this grand method
in all its glory, as it applies to the subject of homicide,--a
crime which it justifies in a thousand instances,--in order that,
from this startling result, you may form an idea of all that it is
calculated to effect."

"I foresee already," said I, "that, according to this mode, every
thing will be permitted: it will stick at nothing."

"You always fly from the one extreme to the other," replied the
monk; "prithee avoid that habit. For just to show you that we are
far from permitting every thing, let me tell you that we never
suffer such a thing as a formal intention to sin, with the sole
design of sinning; and, if any person whatever should persist in
having no other end but evil in the evil that he does, we break
with him at once; such conduct is diabolical. This holds true,
without exception of age, sex, or rank. But when the person is not
of such a wretched disposition as this, we try to put in practice
our method of _directing the intention_, which consists in his
proposing to himself, as the end of his actions, some allowable
object. Not that we do not endeavor, as far as we can, to dissuade
men from doing things forbidden; but, when we cannot prevent the
action, we at least purify the motive, and thus correct the
viciousness of the mean by the goodness of the end. Such is the way
in which our fathers have contrived to permit those acts of
violence to which men usually resort in vindication of their honor.
They have no more to do than to turn off their intention from the
desire of vengeance, which is criminal, and direct it to a desire
to defend their honor, which, according to us, is quite
warrantable. And in this way our doctors discharge all their du