Note A — Chapter LIX

The argument is that a man at once good and clever, like Edward Oldcorne, would not, according to the rules that govern human nature and daily experience, have clothed in words and then let loose to wander about the world seeking whom it might fall in with and victimize, a bare abstract proposition regarding the Plot, unless he had been first absolutely certain that the foundation-thing, the Plot itself, was too attenuated and ghost-like to work hurt or mischief to any human creature.

Now, since Littleton propounded his question after the 5th of November, Oldcorne had an ordinary ground for allowing himself to speak of the defunct Plot purely in the abstract. But this was an obviously very dangerous thing to do, both for Littleton’s sake, the general public’s sake (Catholic or Protestant), and for the speaker’s own sake. Therefore the fact that Oldcorne did so speak postulates something more than ordinary. Hence, as Oldcorne was a man of virtue both intellectually and morally, the reasonable inference is that Oldcorne had an extraordinary ground for his answer which endued him with a special liberty of abstract speech in regard to the matter. That extraordinary ground, I maintain, was based deep down within the depths of his own interior knowledge.