system, and touching them with the most graphic colours of exposure, he cannot be said to be unfair; for the materials with which he dealt were all abundant in their writings. His quotations may be sometimes taken at random, and may set forth, without any of the alleviating shades surrounding them in their proper context, special page 142points as parts of a general sequence of thought. They were, no doubt, often furnished to him by Nicole or Arnauld, who hunted them through the immense volumes of casuistical divinity in which they were contained. But there is no reason to suppose that in any case he has been guilty of misquotation, or that he has attributed sentiments to the Jesuit doctors not to be found in them. This is very much his own statement:—
“I have been asked if I have myself read all the books which I have quoted. I answer, No. If I had done so, I must have passed a great part of my life in reading very bad books; but I have read Escobar twice through, and I have employed some of my friends in reading the others. But I have not made use of a single passage without having myself read it in the book from which it is cited, without having examined the subject of which it treats, and without having read what went before and followed, so that I might run no risk of quoting an objection as an answer, which would have been blameworthy and unfair.”