Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/451

450 NOTES AND COERESPONDENCE. On the other hand, there are three different opinions circulating amongst the Jesuits as to how far such ' orders in council ' have to do with the con- sciences of students or professors. One, which I believe is pretty generally reprobated, asserts that it is quite sufficient for the student to learn, and for the professor to teach, what is laid down, but that each man is perfectly free to enjoy his own opinions. The second, less reserved but more consistent with the spirit of the Order, does not oblige students and professors to believe the propositions in question, but only sincerely to seek truth in that direction, because it is more probable to find truth in the field where they are directed to look for it. The third opinion, seldom maintained to the north of the Alps and the Pyrenees, though held some years ago, to my knowledge, by the ghostly father of more than 120 students of philosophy and theology in one French college, obliges every member of the Society to believe, or at least to do his utmost to believe, that the propositions laid down for his acceptance are true. ' If these propositions are not evidently absurd, you can as easily believe them as you can a dogma of the Church ; and if they are evidently absurd, you had better leave a Society that orders you to learn or teach absurdities.' This seems to me bringing faith into the philosophical field with a vengeance. In a word, the very best and most practical means that can be taken to stamp out an obnoxious opinion from an intelligent and highly cultivated community of men are employed when thought necessary by the su- periors : therein lies both the strength and the weakness of the Jesuits in the way of philosophical doctrine. Every man not only says the same (which is much), but is convinced of the same (which is more). It follows that they have great influence over those who are of their own religion, who do not know, and who must look up to some one for explana- tions. These are aware that what one Jesuit says, more than five thou- sand others l will be ready to say and defend throughout the whole world. To get an opinion from a Jesuit is to get the well-deliberated, matured and settled opinion of the whole Order. On the other hand, this very unani- mity is with others a reason for taking no account of their opinions. Philo- sophers who like to think for themselves are apt to look with contempt on this kind of intellectual drill. Perhaps with too much contempt; for tin- Jesuits are after all very practical men, and if the esteem of the dill'erent schools of modern Philosophy that would be assured to the Society if every Jesuit was allowed to teach a different theory was really worth more than the strength of unity resulting from the opposite process, the heads of the Order would very probably take immediate steps to gain that esteem. Besides, this contempt seems inconsistent at least in such as belong to that very numerous school that thinks " it is as much beside the mark to wrangle over the truth of a philosophy as over the truth of Paradise Lost ". (J. A. Stewart, MIND, Vol. iii. 240.) If the speculative truth of Philosophy is nothing, why despise the Jesuits' proceedings, that are practically speaking, so advantageous ? What is the good of freedom when it is no matter (s; latively) what we think ? And still more may be said : the doctrine held by a Jesuit, though not of account otherwise than as he is able, per- sonally, to give it a superior expression, is important as the result of a vast amount of reflection, deliberation and patient thought. When, for instance, the Jesuits chose as their own doctrine the indeterminism of Molina, it was by no means a simple rivalry with the Dominicans that decided them. Molina's work on The Reconciliation of Grace and Free Will was printed in 1 Amongst the 9000 Jesuits now in existence, I make a large deduction when I suppose 4000 (lay brothers, novices, humanists and regents) to lie unacquainted with Philosophy.