There should be no mistake at this point, for the doctrine involved is vital to the Jesuits. Their society could no more exist without it than could a watch keep time after the removal of its mainspring. Although, unlike Nicolini, Bartoli does not give the precise words of the constitution, this important vow, as set forth by him in his life of Loyola, has substantially the same meaning. According to him, its import is plainly this, that the general, whether "wise or imprudent, holy or imperfect," stands in "the place of God;" that, whilst in the abstract it is sinful to commit sin, when the act is performed upon individual judgment, yet, if the general shall order it, and the conscience of the Jesuit rebel against it because he considers it sin, he shall "rely" upon the general, and not upon himself; that is, he shall so close his mind that no conscientious convictions shall penetrate it. And until he has reached this condition of stupid and servile obedience, he is "far from the perfection which his religious state requires." And, to reduce the matter to the plainest and simplest proposition, the Jesuit is bound "to believe that a thing ought to be, because the superior orders it;" so that, if he shall order sin to be committed, the Jesuit is required not to consider it as sin because God, through the general, commands it! This is precisely as if it were said that sin may be justifiably committed in God's name, whensoever it shall be required by "the particular good of each," or by the "general advantage" of the society. It requires, of course, no argument to show that this authority of the general is considered comprehensive enough to justify resistance or covert opposition to the constitution and laws of any State, or the violation of any treaty, contract, or oath, which shall stand in the way of the society in its struggle after universal dominion.