To these probabilistic systems is opposed a system espoused by the more consistent of Romish theologians of the Old Catholic type. It is called Antiprobabilism, and in its austere severity does not allow any influence on man's actions, even to the most probable opinion. It requires that an opinion shall be absolutely morally
certain, in order that it may be lawful for a man to act upon it in the light of Christian truth. But this sys- tem has been rejected by papal authority, declaring er- roneous the assertion "Non licet sequi opinionem vel inter probabiles probabilissimam."
History of Probabilism. — It is commonly said that the system of probabilism is modern ; but this is only true of the discussions regarding it, for the doctrine it- self, in some of its forms, is as old as the study of ethics, even considered as a moral science. The disputes re-, garding it arose with the science of casuistry, when men, in the 16th and 17th centuries, began to reduce morals to a system. It formed a leading subject of the controversy between the Jesuits and the Jansenists; but even in its modern form probabilism dates back to the close of the scholastic period. At the Council of Constance, in A.D. 1415, a debate had arisen on the subject of the murder of the duke of Orleans, assas- sinated in Paris Nov. 23, 1407, at the instigation of his political rival, the duke of Burgundy. The Franciscan Jean Petit had endeavored to justify this crime in an assembly of French noblemen held at Paris March 8, 1408; but his proposition had been condemned, at the request of chancellor Gerson, by the university and the bishop of Paris. When the matter was brought before the council, Martin Porree, bishop of Arras, speaking in behalf of the duke of Burgundy, tried to prevent any conclusions unfavorable to Jean Petit, asserting that several authorities were in favor of Petit, and that, in consequence, his opinion was at least probable, and ought not to be peremptorily disposed of by way of re- jection and condemnation. Gerson defended a contrary view of the matter, and the council condemned as he- retical the doctrine of the legitimacy of murder com- mitted on the persons of tyrants, and stamped with the name of heretic all those who should pertinaciously maintain it (comp. Mansi, Coll. Cone, xxvii, 705, and xxviii, 8G8). This resolution left probabilism untouched, and condemned only a false application of its principles in a particular case.
The Dominican Bartolomeo de Medina is considered as the founder of probabilism in its usual signification. Through his commentary on the theological Summa of St. Thomas de Aquinas it entered the schools : " Si est opinio probabilis," he says (qusest, 19, art. 0. concl. 3), "licitum est earn sequi, licet opposita probabilior." Many Thomist theologians adopted this proposition; among them, Bannez, Alvarez, Ledesma, Martinez, and Lopez. Among the Jesuits, the celebrated Yasquez was the first who (1598) positively took sides with the probabilists, and a number of members of his order fol- lowed in his footsteps. From this time forth the Jes- uits did much for the expansion of the probabilistic doctrines, and the aberrations to which they led. Prob- abilism came to be synonymous with Jesuitism, so largely were the Jesuits identified with the advocacy of this pernicious dogma. This is, however, easily ac- counted for. The Jesuits had come on the stage at a time when the Church of Rome was in danger of being broken up, if not of being entirely dismembered. The Reformation had struck her heavy blows, and in some countries she was felled to the ground. Loyola's order aimed at her recover}' and restoration. The bride of Christ they saw endangered, and their mission was the salvation of the Romish Church at any price. In a strug- gle of life and death, as has been aptly said, one is not very careful in the use of measures; and in all warfare the sentiment holds good, though involving manifold violations of ordinary right, that the end sanctifies the means. The Jesuits were well aware that they were an essentially new phenomenon of the churchly life — that they stood upon purely human invention and pow- er; it need not surprise us, therefore, that they felt called by their fundamental principles to the development of a special system of morality — a system the highest end of which is the glory of God through the exaltation of the visible Church, which, of course, is to them the
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Romish Church. The purpose— zealously pursued by lits in the interest of Romish domination — of : soul-guarding fathers and conscience-counsel- lors, especially l<>r men and women of eminence, re- quired, mi the other hand, that the Jesuits should ac- quire for themselves the highest possible repute in ethics — and hence it. was requisite that they should he literary representatives thereof; and, <>n . that i in- ei hies Bhould be moulded in adap- tation to this end —should make itself not disagreeable and burdensome, but should become as elastic as possi- ble in view of different wants should be a "golden net ding souls," as the Jesuits themselves were wont to call their own pliableness. The nmre ramified and complex the net-work of casuistic ethics became, so much the more indispensable were the practiced con- science-counsellors, or, mere properly, conscience-advo- cates; the mere stairways and back doors they were able to turn attention to in conscience affairs, so much the more prized and influential they became. This explain- the great compass and ihe peculiar character of Jesuitic ei hies. They were but too well aware thai it did not harmonize with the moral consciousness of the aneient Church, and they hesitated not to admit that they did not recognise earlier Church tradition as a criterion for morality, but wished rather to lay the foun- dations for a new tradition. The sophistical .-initio - in the doctrine of right and morality were not then tir-t thought out and invented by Jesuitism; but it learned them by listening to weak, corrupt human nature, as