All the circumstances which attended the origin and establishment of the society of Jesuits combine to explain, with unmistakable clearness, the motives which must have influenced the mind and incited the action of Loyola in every step he took. They plainly show that his leading and controlling purpose was to organize a body of men, each one of whom should be brought into implicit and unquestioning obedience to the authority of their general, and hold themselves in readiness so long as the society existed, to do, without the least inquiry into results, whatsoever he should command to be done, so that they should have no wills or opinions of their own upon any subject over which he should assert jurisdiction. By making this the central and most fundamental principle of the constitution, he placed his society in direct antagonism to all intellectual progress and enlightenment--to everything that tended to dignify and elevate mankind. No one, therefore, ought to wonder that it has produced more disturbance in the world than any other organization that has ever existed; or, if it were out of the way, could ever exist again. The constitution was locked up in the secret archives of the society for more than two hundred years, many of its details having been unknown, it is said, even by a considerable portion of the members, whose submissive obedience must have reduced them to the condition of trained animals. This concealment by a society professedly religious could not have been favorable to Christianity, and must have been the consequence of some sinister motive, as subsequent developments have shown. This is a fair inference from the reluctance with which the constitution was surrendered when the French Government demanded its exposure. The facts connected with the proceedings of the French Parliament, when they compelled the society to make it known, justify the belief that there must have been some special reason for its long concealment, and that the public odium, so long resting upon it in France, was attributable, among other things, to the secrecy of its proceedings. And when it is considered that the strong and vigorous measures adopted by the Parliament to extort the constitution by dragging it from its hiding-place, transpired at a time when Protestantism had no control whatsoever over the public affairs of France, it conclusively proves that the integrity of the society was suspected by the French people whilst they were faithful adherents of the Roman Church. Such a fact as this indicates--what every Jesuit stands ready to deny if necessary--that where the society was best known, it was most suspected and disliked.