[194]
Those who write treatises on Duties (De Officiis) as, for instance, Cicero,
St. Ambrose, Grotius, Opalenius, Sharrok, Rachelius, Pufendorf, as well as
the Casuists, teach that there are cases where one is not obliged to return
to its owner a thing deposited: for example, one will not give back a
dagger when one knows that he who has deposited it is about to stab
someone. Let us pretend that I have in my hands the fatal draught that
Meleager's mother will make use of to kill him; the magic javelin that
Cephalus will unwittingly employ to kill his Procris; the horses of Theseus
that will tear to pieces Hippolytus, his son: these things are demanded
back from me, and I am right in refusing them, knowing the use that will be
made of them. But how will it be if a competent judge orders me to restore
them, when I cannot prove to him what I know of the evil consequences that
restitution will have, Apollo perchance having given to me, as to
Cassandra, the gift of prophecy under the condition that I shall not be
believed? I should then be compelled to make restitution, having no
alternative other than my own destruction: thus I cannot escape from
contributing towards the evil. Another comparison: Jupiter promises Semele,
the Sun Phaeton, Cupid Psyche to grant whatever favour the other shall ask.
They swear by the Styx,

_Di cujus jurare timent et fallere Numen_.

One would gladly stop, but too late, the request half heard,

_Voluit Deus ora loquentis_
_Opprimere; exierat jam vox properata sub auras_.

One would gladly draw back after the request was made, making vain
remonstrances; but they press you, they say to you: 'Do you make oaths that
you will not keep?' The law of the Styx is inviolable, one must needs
submit to it; if one has erred in making the oath, one would err more in
not keeping it; the promise must be fulfilled, however harmful it may be to
him who exacts it. It would be ruinous to you if you did not fulfil it. It
seems as though the moral of these fables implies that a supreme necessity
may constrain one to comply with evil. God, in truth, knows no other judge
that can compel him to give what may turn to evil, he is not like Jupiter
who fears the Styx. But his own wisdom is the greatest judge that he can
find, there is no appeal from its judgements: they are the decrees of
destiny. The eternal verities, objects of his wisdom, are more [195]
inviolable than