hac parte vivendi, turpior volentium culpa est:" "But in manners to err willingly is the more intolerable."-The reason of these things is plain, which, who please, may read in Gifanius the interpreter of Aristotle, and Marsilius Ficinus, the expositor of Plato: for indeed, it is evident, that to moral actions the rectitude of the appetite is required, and so to arts and sciences and the virtues intellectual. It is enough to art that the work be well done, though with what mind it matters not as to that: and when the Italian painter, who was to depict a crucifix, hired a slave to be tied to a cross, that he might lively represent a body so hanging and so extended, did afterward stab him to the heart, that he might see and perceive every posture, and accent, and little convulsion of a dying man, he was very much the worse man for it, but no whit the worse painter; as appeared by the incomparable excellency of that piece; and the principles of art cannot be corrupted with the evil manners of the man; but, because evil desires pollute the manners, the will is to be taken care of, as the principle of all morality. To which we may add, that he, who, in arts, errs willingly, can mend it when he please; but so cannot he, that errs ignorantly. Ignorance is the only disparagement of his art, and malice is the only disparagement of our manners.

17. But this, though disputed to little purpose amongst the philosophers, may be of good use in cases of conscience. Cardinal Campegius b, having wickedly said to the senate at Norimberg, that it was worse for a priest to marry than to fornicate,' offered in justification of it a reason that could less be justified: 'For (saith he) the priest that fornicates, knows he does amiss, and therefore may in time repent; but the priest that marries, thinks he does well, and therefore will never change his mind, he will never repent.' It is true, he needs not, because he believes he does well; and he is not deceived. But suppose he were deceived, and abused by error, what man before him was ever so impious as to say that he, that knows he does evil, is in a better condition than he that errs with a good mind, and supposes he does very well? for the present, the state is infinitely different: and for the time to come, which is the more likely to obtain mercy, he that does a thing ignorantly, or he that does it maliciously, * In lib. 6. Eth. cap. 5.

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we shall not need to appeal any whither but to all the notices of virtue and vice which are in mankind.

18. Indeed, there are some sins of ignorance, that is, such which are subjected in the understanding, which are worse than some sins of malice, or such which are subjected wholly in the will and the faculties which obey it. Thus to be ignorant of the fundamental articles of faith, is a worse state of things than to have committed an act of gluttony, or to have entertained a wanton thought, or to have omitted divine service upon a festival. The Jews had an opinion that thoughts were free, and God did not require them of us with severity; but a thought against faith, that was highly criminal. "Cogitationem pravam Deus non habet vice facti, nisi concepta fuerit in Dei fidem atque religionem," said R. David Kimchi; meaning, that 'no sin was greater than heresy, or an error in faith.' But the reason of this is, not only because the effect of heresy is, like the plague, infectious and disseminative; but because by how much the articles of faith are more necessary to be believed, by so much is the ignorance of them more criminal, and more voluntary, and therefore less excusable. But even in matters of faith, where there is less of malice or wilful negligence ingredient into the ignorance of them, there the crime is less than any thing else, be the instance what it will. But this will be more explicit in the sequel.

RULE VI.

Ignorance does always excuse the Fact, or diminish the Malignity of it, or change the Kind and Nature of the Sin.

1. IGNORANCE, according to its several capacities, and the several methods of art and ways of speaking, hath several divisions. But all are reducible to this in order to conscience. Ignorance is either voluntary or involuntary. It is vincible or invincible, that is, it can be helped or it cannot. It is the cause of the action, or it only goes along with it. And of these several ignorances there are many degrees, but no more, kinds that are here fit to be considered.

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2. The first sort of ignorance, which is involuntary, invincible, and antecedent, that is, is the cause of an action,so that the thing would not be done but by that ignorance, does certainly make the action also itself involuntary, and consequently not criminal. In this sense is that of the lawd: "Errantis nulla voluntas, nullus consensus;" "They that know not nothing of it, consent not." - This is meant of ignorance that is involuntary in all regards, that is, such as is neither chosen directly nor indirectly, but is involuntary both in the effect and in the cause. Thus what fools and madmen and infants do, is not at all imputed to them, because they have no understanding to discern good from evil; and therefore their appetite is not depraved or malicious, which part soever they-take. Ἐπεὶ γὰρ ἀπὸ διαθέσεως ἡ ὕβρις συνίσταται, ἀκολούθως λέγομεν τὸν μαινόμενον, καὶ τὸν νήπιον, εἰ καὶ ὠθήσουσί τινα, ἢ διὰ λόγων ὑβρίσουσι, μὴ κατέχεσθαι, διότι οὐ δοκοῦσι διάθεσιν ἔχειν ὑβριζόντων μὴ αἰσθανόμενοι, saith the law, according to the interpretation of the Greeks: "Injury proceeds from the affection; and consequently we say, that a madman or an infant, if they strike or reproach any one, they are not criminal, they have done no injury because they perceived it not."-" Nec reputantur infantiæ anni qui sensu carent," saith Pliny; "The years of infancy come not under the notice of laws and judges, of right or wrong, for they have no reason," that is, they use none. So Galen: Tὸ μὲν δὲ μὴ χρῆσθαι λογισμῷ μήτε τὰ θηρία, μήτε τὰ βρέφη, καὶ περὶ τῶν πρὸς τὸν Χρύσιππον ὡμολόγηται, "All the scholars of Chrysippus constantly affirm, that beasts and babes have no use of reasons." And Jamblichus supposed, that the rational soul was not infused into children before the tenth year of their age. But that is more reasonable which almost all wise men (excepting the Stoics affirm, and is thus expressed by Gregory Nyssen, and his contemporary Nemesius in the very same words; Εἰ γὰρ καὶ κομιδῇ νέοις οὖσι τοῖς βρέφεσιν ἡ ἄλογος μόνη κίνησις πρόσεστιν, ἀλλὰ ψυχὴν λογικήν φαμεν ἔχειν αὐτὰ, ἐπειδήπερ αὐξανόμενα καὶ τὴν λογικὴν ἀναδείκνυσιν ἐνέργειαν, “Although in infants there is no action or motion of reason, yet we say that they have a reasonable soul; for they manifest the use of it, when they are growing up.

3. But this occasions a difficulty in this subject. For we see the rational soul exercising its operations in some, sooner, -in some, later; and as the body grows in strength and grandeur, so does the soul in the use of reason and powers of deliberation and choice.

Nam velut infirmo puerei teneroque vagantur
Corpore, sic animi sequitur sententia tenuis:
Inde, ubi robusteis adolevit viribus ætas,
Consilium quoque majus, et auctior est animi vish.

And Hippocrates adds that the soul does grow; ἀνθρώπου ψυχὴ ἀεὶ φύεται ἄχρι θανάτου, “A man's soul is born every day of a man's life," it always receives some increment. Now the question is,

4. How long shall infant ignorance or childishness excuse so far, as that the actions they do, shall be reckoned neither to virtue nor to vice?

To this it will not be possible to give a strict and definite answer, but a rule and a measure may be given. Posidonius said, Μικρὸν μὲν τὰ πρῶτα καὶ ἀσθενὲς ὑπάρχειν τοῦτο [λογιστικὸν], μέγα δὲ καὶ ἰσχυρὸν ἀποτελεῖσθαι περὶ τὴν τεσσαρεσκαιδεκαετῆ ἡλικίαν, “The rational faculty is at first very weak, but it is great and strong about the age of fourteen years;" and Plutarch1 says that the Stoics affirmed ἄρχεσθαι τελειότητος περὶ τὴν δευτέραν ἑβδομάδα, “about the second septenary, or the fourteenth year, they begin to be perfect:"-but Zeno k said that from that year complete, τελειοῦται "it is perfect," that is, as to all capacities of reward and punishment. But in this there was great variety. For some laws would punish boys after twelve years, not before: so the Salic1 law: "Si quis puer infra duodecim annos aliquam culpam commiserit, fredum ei non requiratur;" "A boy before he is twelve years old, committing a fault is not tied to make amends or composition." Servius upon that of Virgil m,

Alter ab undecimo tum me jam ceperat annus,

says "the thirteenth year is meant, because that was next to puberty; for (says he) the law judges of maturity not only

by years, but by the habit and strength of the body." But though this be less by one year than that of the Stoical account, and more by one year than that of the Salic law; yet we find in the law of the Greeks and Romans, that after seven years complete, boys were punishable: so the Basilica", Michael Attaliotes, and some others.

5. But this variety was not only arbitrary, but it was commonly established upon reason; for the differences were made by the different nature of the crimes, of which boys were not equally capable in every year: but although, in every crime, some were forwarder than others, yet all were capable of some sooner than of others. Spite and malice come sooner than lust: and therefore, if a boy, after seven years old, killed a man, he was liable to the 'lex Cornelia de sicariis; but not so if he were a pathic, and a correspondent in unnatural lusts, as appears in Matthæus Blastares and Leo: if he were under twelve years, he had impunity, "quum ætas ipsa argumento sit, nescire eum quid patiatur," said the emperor"; "his age is an argument of his ignorance, that he knows not what he suffers." For in these things it was reasonable that Galen said of Hippocrates, Νήπια λέγει τὰ μέχρι ἥβης, "Infancy is to be reckoned until youth," or a power of generation: and that was it which I observed before out of Servius; "Bene cum annis jungit habitum corporis: nam et in jure pubertas ex utroque colligitur." The strength of body must be supposed before you allow them strength of reason, that is, a power to deliberate and choose those sins, to which they cannot be tempted before they have natural capacities. But this, I say, relates only to the crime of uncleanness. Now because this was commonly the first of our youthful sins, malice in infancy being prodigious and unnatural, which caused that advice of St. Paul, "In malice be children;" therefore wise men and the laws did usually reckon that age to be the first beginning of their choice, as well as of their strength. But this rule is very far from being certain, and therefore St. Austin a blames those, that do not impute any sins to boys before the age of fourteen; "Merito crederemus (saith he), si nulla essent peccata, nisi quæ