motive, and _directing_ his intention to the divine glory, thus justify the _means_ by the _end._ [Sidenote: _Distinction between the doctrine and the practice of the Jesuits._] Such is the monstrous logical product, born of the union between _legalism_ and the theory of _theological utilitarianism_; such is the essence of Jesuitic morality, which has justly aroused horror and disgust. And we call it _logical_ (or illogical) product, because we wish to make it clear that here as elsewhere we are occupied with theories only and are criticizing them alone. In practical action Jesuitic morality was often better than the theory would imply; even the Padre Caramuel, who put the question as to the right possessed by the Jesuits of slaying the Jansenists, must have been at bottom a good man; because, having almost arrived at an affirmative conclusion to his inquiry by dint of perverting the moral law, he was seized by pity and defrauded his own fraud, concluding negatively that the Jansenists _occidi non possunt quia nocere non potuerunt,_ because (said he) they are poor devils, unable to obscure the glorious brilliance of the Company, as the owl does not conceal the light of the sun.[2] And Saint Alphonso dei Liguori, who is usually looked upon as an example of that lurid morality in our day, when he set to work to stir up afresh the ugliness of casuistic in connection with the sixth and ninth commandments, experienced all the repugnance of the gallant gentleman that he was, at such a task, imposed upon him by the traditional mode of treating Ethic, as is to be seen by his declarations, exclamations, and exhortations: _Nunc aegre materiam illam tractandam aggredimur, cujus vel solum nomen hominum mentes infidi. Det mihi veniam, quaeso, castus lector!... Ora studiosos ... ut ... eo tempore saepius mentem ad Deum elevent et Virgini immaculatae se commendent, ne dum aliorum animos Deo student acquirere, ipsi suarum detrimentum patiantur._[3] If Jesuitism were also moral corruption, this was not due to its abstract theories, but to the education that it practised, which was depressing, servile, and directed to mortify the strength of the will and of the intelligence, to reduce a man to be like _senis baculus,_ a docile and passive instrument in the hands of others; and to the confusion in consciences as to the real motives of actions, which it not only preserved but increased, lulling souls to sleep with sophisms and allurements of devotion _aisées à pratiquer,_ by means of which the gates of Paradise could be unlocked, and with _chemins de velours_ on which one could mount to the sky with every indulgence. The rigorists and latitudinarians are philosophically equivalent; but it is a fact that in practice the rigorists were generally energetic and austere souls; which should not cause us to forget that the latitudinarians also, amid their distorted theories, sometimes had a lucid vision of