No marshalling of historical facts will change the feeling of the pronounced admirers and opponents of the Jesuits, and it would be idle to suppose that, because the present writer is neither Roman Catholic nor Protestant, he will be awarded the virtue of impartiality. There seems, however, some need for an historical study of the Jesuits which will aim at impartiality and candour. On one side we have large and important works like Crétineau-Joly's _Histoire religieuse, politique, et littéraire de la Compagnie de Jésus_, and a number of smaller works, written by Catholics of England or America, from the material, and in the spirit, of the French historian's work. Such works as these cannot for a moment be regarded as serious history. They are panegyrics or apologies: pleasant reading for the man or woman who wishes to admire, but mere untruth to the man or woman who wishes to know. Indeed, the work of M. Crétineau-Joly, written in conjunction with the Jesuits, which is at times recommended as the classical authority on the Society, has worse defects than the genial omission of unedifying episodes. He makes the most inflated general statements on the scantiest of material, is seriously and frequently inaccurate, makes a very generous use of the "mental reserve" which his friends advocate, and sometimes embodies notoriously forged documents without even intimating that they are questioned. Such works naturally provoke an antagonistic class of volumes, in which the unflattering truths only are presented and a false picture is produced to the prejudice of the Jesuits. An entirely neutral volume on the Jesuits does not exist, and probably never will exist. The historian who surveys the whole of the facts of their remarkable and romantic career cannot remain neutral. Nor is it merely a question of whether the writer is a Roman Catholic or no. The work of M. Crétineau-Joly was followed in France by one written by a zealous priest, the Abbé Guettée, which tore its predecessor to shreds, and represented the Society of Jesus as fitly condemned by Pope and kings.