ciple a matter of option at the dictate of expediency. With stern rigorism our Father begins by declaring it hardly conceivable how the first condition could be conceded, 'for Paternus was bound before death to profess the true faith and recant the errors he had taught, otherwise as one not properly disposed he could not be admitted to the grace of baptism. Besides every true believer is bound to profess his faith, no matter what injury may confront him, whenever the glory of God and the salvation of his neighbours demand this, and in the given circumstances, the glory of God and the salvation of his neighbours did alike demand a public profession from Paternus as tending towards the extirpation of the errors he had been teaching." At this point our moralist breaks abruptly away from this prelude of rigorism, couching the remainder of his utterances in a very different tone. 'Should however,' are his words, despite every possible effort, Paternus prove incapable of being persuaded [to waive his conditions], as a last resource, he might be induced to attest before more witnesses than one that he professed and wished to die in the Catholic religion, or he might at all events affirm that he had entrusted some secret of great moment to the priest, to be declared after his death. In this manner he might satisfy his obligations. A fortiori this transaction would be feasible, should Paternus be not a clergyman, but a simple heretic. But,' adds the cautious Gury, it would be prudent in the priest not at once to manifest the entire obligation, but first to declare only the lighter portion, so that this having been accepted the penitent might be led on to the greater.' There remains, however, the condition as to postponement of a public declaration, in the event of recovery, until such time when the convert may consider himself secured against all risk to his worldly interests; and to this condition Gury distinctly asserts there can be no objection, provided a fairly serious motive can be adduced, for it is lawful to dissemble the true faith for a while in consideration of severe inconvenience that might accrue from public profession.' The only limitation on this indulgence, which Gury considers proper, is that a clergyman, after clandestine profession of the Catholic faith, should evade the direct performance of any sacerdotal offices connected with the service of his secretly disowned Church. With this single exception, we are unable to gather from Gury (and he cites in concurrence two great luminaries of Jesuit doctrine, Elbel and Tamburini), that there can be any material obstacle, if some motive of expediency recommended the proceeding, against a convert being admitted to embrace the Roman Catholic faith in strict secrecy, and being afterwards allowed for an an unlimited period to go about the world, carefully concealing from its sight the fact of his profession. It is true that the grant of indulgence seems limited to cases where specially serious consequences would be entailed on immediate public profession. But to any one familiar with Gury's terms this qualifying limitation reduces itself to nothing, as it is dependent on no other standard than the stubborn insistance of the neophyte himself to exact the concession, and the appreciation of the priest as to which is worth more to the Church-the proffered accession of a particular neophyte on his own terms, or the stern enforcement of a rigid principle. The We now come to the third great count in the indictment against the teaching of the Jesuits, that they have affirmed the maxim of means being justified in virtue of the end to which they are applied. No charge has more powerfully tended to raise popular prejudice against the Jesuit Fathers. champions of the Order have indignantly denied that this maxim has been broached. They challenge the quotations in support of this allegation, as marked with misprision or prompted by a spirit of misconstruction. It is essential in a review of Jesuit doctrine, however summary, to arrive at an understanding in reference to this point. We believe it to be demonstrable that the maxim has been broached clearly and definitely, by an unbroken chain of Jesuit divines of first-rank standing, from Busenbaum down to Gury and Liberatore. In substantiation of this statement we submit a series of quotations from writers whose authority cannot be disowned by the Order. The first is from Busenbaum (who may be called the Patriarch of the Maxim), whose Medulla' has gone through more than fifty editions, and, by its reprint not many years ago in Rome at the press of the Propaganda'* can claim the continued and solemn approval of the supreme authority of the Church. Cum finis est licitus, etiam media sunt licita,' are his words, and again, Cui licitus est finis, etiam licent media' (pp. 320 and 504, ed. Francoforti, 1653). Amongst Jesuit luminaries of first magnitude ranks Layman, of whom Gury says, maximos theologia moralis doctores sine dubio referendus.' In his Theologia Moralis' (Munich, 1625) we meet with the same proposition in almost the identical formula, Cui con The plea that no responsibility is implied by permitting such reprint is confuted by the course adopted in another case. Emmanuel Sá, having given expression in his Aphorismi Confessariorum' to some opinions which in Rome were deemed objectionable, these had to be expunged in subsequent editions. Why has this not been done, at all events, in the recent editions of Busenbaum, issued as they are from the Propaganda press, if any portion of his doctrine had been taken exception to in Rome? cessus cessus est finis, concessa etiam sunt media ad finem ordinata." In 1762 the Jesuit Wagemann, Professor of Morals at the University of Innspruck, published a Synopsis of Moral Theology, duly authenticated by official approbation, in which occurs this passage: 'Is the intention of a good end rendered vicious by the choice of bad means? Not if the end itself be intended irrespective of the means,' a proposition which he thus exemplifies: 'Caius is minded to bestow alms, without at the time taking thought as to the means; subsequently, from avarice he elects to give it out of the proceeds of theft, which to that end he consequently commits; and so Caius would be entitled to the merits of charity though he has aggravated the offence of violence by the motive of avarice. Wagemann is not a doctor who deals in obscure words, for he says: Finis determinat probitatem actûs,' a definition of singularly neat precision. 6 Our next extract is taken from the widely disseminated treatise on Moral Theology' by Father Voit. He puts the following case: Arcadius kills Caius in some city where the law inflicts capital punishment on a murderer. Arcadius is delivered up and condemned to death, but he escapes, forcibly breaking out of prison, though foreseeing that he may render his gaolers liable to grievous injury. The question is whether Arcadius, by escaping after sentence had been pronounced, has done wrong. My answer is in the negative. . . . Has Arcadius then done wrong by rupturing his chains and forcibly breaking out of prison? . . . He has done no wrong, cui enim licet finis, ei et media permissa sunt.' The estimation in which Voit is held would be sufficiently evidenced by the fact of the edition we quote from being the twelfth; but we have heard of three other editions of modern date-one printed at Rome in 1838, another at Ancona in 1841, and the last at Würzburg in 1860. Indeed, the soundness of his language has received a crowning illustration in the circumstance that his formula and his exemplification have been adopted almost textually by the two most signally honoured modern luminaries of Jesuit teaching-Fathers Liberatore and Gury. In an essay, originally inserted in what has been proclaimed by Pius IX. the special organ of true doctrine, the Civiltà Cattolica,' Father Liberatore, after an elaborate argument in support of the indefeasible title of the Church to press into her service the agency of physical means, thinks to strengthen his position by the maxim that from the obligation to attain an end arises the right to procure the *Theologiae Moralis a P. E. Voit, ed. duodecima, accurate emendata curâ et studio Domini M. Gauthier.' Parisiis, 1843, vol. i. p. 99. means Finally, means needful and useful for obtaining the same.' amongst Gury's hypothetical problems is one as to the justification for an individual guilty of a gross theft first to deny his guilt, and then, after condemnation, to escape from prison by violent means, such as perforating walls and breaking open doors. By common consent it is declared, that before condemnation a guilty party is certainly entitled to escape, while, though there is controversy as to whether this is lawful after sentence, Gury adduces the opinion of 'several' who hold it to be always lawful to break away from very stringent imprisonment, carcerem durissimum,' on the ground that it would be an act of heroism to undergo very severe punishment when it was possible to escape easily.' But be this as it may, of one thing Gury speaks with confidence ;— In all cases where it is not unlawful for a guilty individual to escape, he does no wrong in breaking open doors and perforating a wall, quia ubi licitus est finis, etiam licita sunt media per se indifferentia.'t No doubt there appears here to be introduced a qualification through the introduction of the last term; but if the reader will have a little patience, it will be seen that the limitation involved in this term shrinks into infinitesimal proportions. Unless we grievously misunderstand Father Gury, his test for the indifference of an act resides exclusively in the question, whether or not it must necessarily be wicked under all conceivable circumstances. For instance, an act of adultery could never be indifferent, though an act of stabbing can be so considered, inasmuch as the operation of plunging a knife into a living human body need not be, under all conditions, hurtful, but might possibly be beneficial, as in a case of surgery. This will become clearer when we come to what Father Gury says as to evil intentions not rendering wicked an indifferent act. Here we confine ourselves to the opinion and we assure those who challenge our view that we have arrived at it not lightlythat, according to Father Gury's definitions, the words 'per se indifferentia' cannot be held to limit in any effective degree the licence involved in the other terms of the proposition. submit, therefore, that the quotations given establish that the maxim of the end justifying means has been broached by a successive chain of eminent and approved Jesuit divines, and that the approbation of the said maxim has been continued to our day, as evidenced by the repeated recent issue, with authoritative sanction, of the works by former writers containing the *La Chiesa e lo Stato,' 2nda Edizione, p. 185. We doctrine doctrine in question, and the reiteration of the same by Father's Liberatore and Gury. Having satisfied ourselves as to the views held by those best entitled to represent the actual teaching of the Society in regard to these three main principles-Probabilism, Mental Reservation, and Justification of Means by the End-we proceed to some consideration of their attested application, as far as this can be gathered from positive rulings by the same high authorities. This inquiry falls aptly into two divisions, corresponding to the two groups into which cases arrange themselves naturally: one comprising the dealings between Man and Man which arise out of the relations of individual life, the other comprising points that touch the relations between Man as a Citizen and the Community as a State. We commence with the first category. Amongst not a few Christians it has become an accredited notion that Charity is a virtue of capital merit; but if we accept Father Gury's ruling, we can hardly avoid looking upon it as a trivial, if not a downright silly practice. In the section devoted to a definition of what is demanded by 'Love of one's neighbour'* we find the following canon :- First Rule -Every one is bound simply and absolutely to love himself more than his neighbour, for the reason that every one stands nearer to himself than does any one else. Hence, love of oneself is by Christ laid down as the standard for love of a neighbour-Love thy neighbour as thyself. This, besides, is clear from the natural and insuperable disposition to love oneself more than one's neighbour; whence the common maxim-Charity, well understood, begins at home.' In Montaigne or La Rochefoucauld such a sentence would have sounded not out of character, but in an approved Handbook of Morals,' it falls on us with a rather startling ring. Yet the terms are perfectly normal according to Jesuit theology. If we refer to Moullet we meet with these words: In the order of effective charity, it is our duty to love ourselves more than a neighbour.'† To clear away all ambiguity, Father Gury explains that acts of charity are incumbent only on those who are tolerably well off, and either the absolute lords or administrators of their properties; and that in cases of ordinary necessity,' *De Amore Proximi,' Gury, vol. i. p. 1319. Moullet, Comp. Theol. Mor.,' De Charitate erga Proximum, vol. i. p. 244. This is a maxim of old standing. Maldonatus (Summula,' Coloniæ, 1605) already says, Quod attinet ad affectum, nemo tenetur præcepto tanto affectu alios diligere, quanto se.' 6 Quinam debeant, aut possint eleemosynam facere? Illi soli generatim qui sat commode vivunt, et sunt veri domini vel bonorum suorum administratores." Gury, vol. i. p. 145. the |