reason; where it was a rule to reject what was not comprehended, to ridicule whatever checked and restrained youthful passions, to begin by examining every thing incoherently, and to end by believing nothing. Infinite were the arts by which these odious maxims were infused; and they were all sweetened by previous lessons of libertinism and dissoluteness, which soiled the imagination by the most obscene productions, and corrupted the heart by the most abominable maxims. They were multiplied under the titles of poems, histories, dissertations, romances; they imposed upon the simple by affected doubts of the most established truths; by impudent assertions, that religion is now abandoned to the weak, the ignorant, the vulgar. The interest of vice soon inveigled their disciples to re-echo the cry, that lessons, drawn from belief and fear of the Supreme Being, are no more than the accents of fanaticism, superstition, and bigotry[[91]].
Jesuits were the avowed heralds of these degrading lessons, they were not philosophers. "No," says D'Alembert, one of the fathers of the new system, "the Jesuits have been teaching
philosophy two hundred years, and they have never yet had a philosopher in their body."
In the meaning of these writers, the charge must be fully admitted. Never did Jesuits harbour within their walls the maxims or the doctrines of modern sophisters. They acknowledged no philosophy, that appeared to infringe revelation or morals; but not on that account did they forego a modest claim to the title of philosophers. Those among them, who best deserved it, were actively employed in detecting, exposing, and refuting the fallacies of the modern Voltairian school; and, without affecting the peculiarity of the name, they were satisfied with being philosophers in the ancient acceptation of the term; that is, while they inculcated respect for divine revelation, and for established authority, they never ceased, during two hundred years, to furnish a succession of professors, who unfolded the principles of natural and of moral knowledge. And what branch of human
science was banished from their schools? Their public lessons might be called elementary by deep proficients; but they were accommodated to the capacity of the bulk of their youthful auditors; their object was to awaken in them the love of science, to lay the foundation on which the edifice of deep knowledge was afterwards to rise. It is allowed, that the most distinguished scholars in every branch, in past times, generally had been trained in the Jesuits' schools; and can it be said, with truth, that none of the masters, who had taught them, ever rose to eminence; that none of them were philosophers? That they never affected to assume the title is allowed: their philosophy was more circumspect. On their first principle they accepted, and they taught others to accept, without hesitation, the oracles of the church of Christ; they never blushed for their faith, or, as it was miscalled, their credulity. They believed sublime truths, that surpassed comprehension, because they feared God, who attests them, and knew that he cannot deceive.
Fixed in this first principle, they conceived no incongruity in joining to it eager researches into the secrets of nature, steady pursuit of improvement in every human science. If eminence in these justly confers the title of philosopher, it is strange, that the doctors of the new antichristian school should have overlooked the names of innumerable Jesuits in every branch of science, who were respected as philosophers, until faith in divine revelation was reckoned to depreciate all literary merit. It would be tedious to rehearse the multitude of names, which might be adduced; but I must observe, that the succession of them was never discontinued; and that, in the very last state of the society, there were men among them revered and consulted by the most eminent professors and academicians, who disdained to be mere disciples of Voltaire and D'Alembert. The best mathematicians of Italy bowed to the names of Ricati and Lecchi. The most eminent astronomers frequented the observatories of the Jesuits at Rome, Florence, and Milan, directed by the fathers Boscovich,
Ximenes, and La Grange. Fathers Meyer and Hall were celebrated through Germany, and the Polish Jesuit Poczobult, the royal astronomer at Wilno, was known wherever astronomy was cultivated. The celebrated M. La Lande, and our own astronomer, Dr. Maskelyne, did not disdain his correspondence. La Lande, in particular, in his writings, mentions these Jesuit philosophers with honour.
It is the remark of M. Chateaubriand[[92]], that, without any prejudice to other literary societies, the Jesuits were truly styled Gens de Lettres, because the whole circle of sciences was more or less cultivated among them. It was a rare case to meet with a Jesuit devoid of scientific knowledge. Their reputation, in this point of view, contributed much to the esteem in which the society was formerly held, before the strange concurrence of causes, which has not been hitherto explained, had operated upon the
catholic princes to discard them, and, in so doing, to open volcanoes beneath their thrones.
The destruction of the Jesuits was, literally, the destruction of that education, in catholic countries, by which order was established on its best and surest foundation, the belief of future rewards and punishments, and the conviction, that man was on earth but a transient being, whose chief object was to work out his salvation and eternal happiness in another world; a conviction, that could only be impressed upon the mind by the truths of revelation. It is no part of my object here to enter into a dissertation upon the comparative excellencies and defects of religious systems; but I maintain, that the distinguishing faculty of comprehending religious subjects, and the disposition to be influenced by them, interwoven in the nature of man, are proofs, that it is intended by God that he should be principally and generally influenced by religious motives; and that morality, with all its beauty, to be valuable, must originate in