these worldly manoeuvres in the mind of the first Jesuits, grew dim and languid, and the traditional policy was developed until even crime and vice and hypocrisy were held to be lawful if they contributed to the power of the Jesuits. An examination of the rules and the activity of the early Jesuits will make this clear. The Constitutions of the Society were not completed by Ignatius until several years after the establishment, and they were afterwards modified and augmented by Lainez, a less religious man than Ignatius, but it will be useful to consider at once their distinctive and most important features. In the main they follow the usual lines of monastic regulations, and many points which are ascribed to the soldier Ignatius and usually held to be distinctive of his Society are ancient doctrines of the monastic world; such are, the duties of blind obedience, of detachment from family and country, and of surrendering one's personality. The famous maxim, that a Jesuit must have no more will than a corpse, is familiar in every monastic body, and is even found in the rules of Mohammedan brotherhoods. Some writers have conjectured that Ignatius borrowed much from the Moorish fraternities, but it is difficult to see how he could have any knowledge of them, and the parallels are not important. In any case, the story of the Society will very quickly show us that this grim theory of blind obedience and self-suppression was not carried out in practice; even the earliest Jesuits were by no means will-less corpses and men who sacrificed their affections and individuality. Omitting points of small technical interest, I should say that the most significant features of the Jesuit Constitutions are: the establishment of a large body of priests (Spiritual Coadjutors) between the novices and the professed members, the extraordinary provisions by which a superior gets an intimate knowledge of his subjects, the stress on the duty of teaching, the distinction between a "house" and a "college," the deliberate recommendation to prefer youths of wealthy or distinguished families (_cæteris paribus_) to poor youths, the despotic power and lifelong appointment of the General, the fallacious and imposing vow of direct obedience to the Pope, and the absence of "choir." These primitive and fundamental features of the Society, taken in conjunction with the special privileges which the Society gradually wheedled from the Popes, go far toward explaining its great material success and its moral deterioration. Some of these points need no explanation, or have already been explained, and a few words will suffice to show the effect of the others.