with Macaulay and Zola with regard to them. In considering the accusations that are so commonly made against them one must remember how far the acknowledged principles of Catholic casuistry can be extended. It is true that the maxim: ‘The end justifies the means,’ is reprobated by all sections of theologians (though it is rather closely paralleled by the acknowledged, ‘Bonum est diffusivum sui’), still it is only rejected by a quibble; an act which remains intrinsically bad cannot be done for a good purpose, they say, but every theologian admits that the ‘end’ of an action enters into its moral essence and modifies it, and the act must be a very wicked one which cannot be hallowed by being pressed into the service of the Church Catholic—or of the Society of Jesus.
Such quibbles as Kingsley attributes to them in ‘Westward Ho!’ are certainly defended by Catholic principles and are daily equalled by Catholic priests[1]; and I should not be at all surprised if a Jesuit were to argue himself into accepting the commission which George Sand attributes to the Jesuit tutor in ‘Consuelo.’ Many priests would admit that M. Zola’s account of their activity, in ‘Rome,’ is probable enough. I once heard F. Bernard Vaughan, S.J., preach a sermon on the title ‘What is a Jesuit?’ With his accustomed eloquence he summed up the traditional idea—the historian’s idea of a Jesuit, and
- ↑ See afterwards, p. 235.
