e is one doctrine laid down that surprises me: It is this,
'Quum vero hostis sit lenta citave morte omnia dira nobis minitans
quocunque bellantibus negotium est; parum sane interfuerit quo modo eum
obruere et interficere satagamus, si ferociam exuere cunctetur. Ergo
veneno quoque uti fas est', etc., whereas I cannot conceive that the use
of poison can, upon any account, come within the lawful means of
self-defense. Force may, without doubt, be justly repelled by force, but
not by treachery and fraud; for I do not call the stratagems of war, such
as ambuscades, masked batteries, false attacks, etc., frauds or
treachery: They are mutually to be expected and guarded against; but
poisoned arrows, poisoned waters, or poison administered to your enemy
(which can only be done by treachery), I have always heard, read, and
thought, to be unlawful and infamous means of defense, be your danger
ever so great: But 'si ferociam exuere cunctetur'; must I rather die than
poison this enemy? Yes, certainly, much rather die than do a base or
criminal action; nor can I be sure, beforehand, that this enemy may not,
in the last moment, 'ferociam exuere'. But the public lawyers, now, seem
to me rather to warp the law, in order to authorize, than to check, those
unlawful proceedings of princes and states; which, by being become
common, appear less criminal, though custom can never alter the nature of
good and ill.

Pray let no quibbles of lawyers, no refinements of casuists, break into
the plain notions of right and wrong, which every man's right reason and
plain common sense suggest to him. To do as you would be done by, is the
plain, sure, and undisputed rule of morality and justice. Stick to that;
and be convinced that whatever breaks into it, in any degree, however
speciously it may be turned, and however puzzling it may be to answer it,
is, notwithstanding, false in itself, unjust, and criminal. I do not know
a crime in the world, which is not by the casuists among the Jesuits
(especially the twenty-four collected, I think, by Escobar) allowed, in
some, or many cases, not to be criminal. The principles first laid down
by them are often specious, the reasonings plausible, but the conclusion
always a lie: for it is contrary, to that evident and undeniable rule of
justice which I have mentioned above, of not doing to anyone what you
would not have him do to you. But, however, these refined pieces of
casuistry and sophistry, being very conveni