Probabilism, moreover, is not a merely fortuitously discovered expedient, but it is in fact an almost inevi- table consequence of the historical essence of Jesuitism. I he order itsell arose neither on the basis of Scripture nor of ancient Church tradition, but sprang absolutely from i he daring inventive power of a single man break- ing through the limits of ecclesiastical actuality. It is not i herefore at all unnatural that it should make the au- thority of a single spiritually pre-eminent man its high- est determining power, and subordinate to this the his- torical objective form of the moral consciousness. This. then, is the distinguishing characteristic of Jesuitical ethics that in the place of the eternal objective ground and criterion of the moral it substitutes Bubjective opin- ion, and in I he place of an unconditional eternal end a
merely conditionally valid one. viz. the defending of I he actual, visible Church against all forms of opposition that in the place of the moral conscience it substitutes the human calculating of circumstantial and fortuitous adaptation to the promotion of this its highest end: that ii attempts to realize what is per ee and absolute- ly valid by a wide-reaching isolating of the mean-. and by so doing subordinates morality to the discre-
] tion of the single subject. "Though the ethics of the Jesuits are lax and quite too indulgent towards worldly, sinful proclivities and fashions, yet this is only one phase of the matter. A merely worldly-lax moral sys- tem, in the usual sense, seems but little applicable to the members of a brotherhood the tirst rule of which is a perfect renunciation of personal will and persona] opinion and self-determination, in a word, unconditional
obedience to every c imand of superior.-, and which
has actually accomplished in the missionary field the grandest of deeds, and numbers among it - members multitudes of heroic martyrs. This lack of Strictness in one direction rests by no means on mere worldliness, on pleasure in the delights of this life, but follows, on the one hand, of necessity (as v i ll as does also the rigor of obedience), from the subjectively arbitrary presuppo- sition of the entire order, from the lack of an objective, unshaken foundation, and rest-, on the oilier hand, strictly on calculation; is itself a cunningly devised mean- to the end; is intended to awaken, especially in
the great and mighty of the earth (and the masses of the people- are such under some circumstances), a love to the Church, to the mild, friendly, indulgent mother." Jesuitical ethics is the opposite pole of monastic eth- ics; where the latter requires I ouch, the former ex- acts too little. Monastic morality Strives to win God for the sinful world. Jesuitical morality seeks to win the sinful world, not indeed for God, but at least lor tin: Church. Monastieism says to God, though not in an evangelical sense, "If I have only thee, then 1 ask for nothing else in heaven or earth." Jesuitism says about i lie same thing, but Bays it to the world, and particu- larly io the distinguished and powerful. The former turns away in indignant contempt from the worldly life because the world is immersed in sin; the latter gener- ously receives the same into itself, and turns attention away from guilt by denying it. It is true the Jesuits represent also a monastic order, but this order is also a means to an end. and resembles the other nobler orders about as much as wily Reynard resembles the pious pil- grim; and the well-known hostility of the older ordi rs to this brilliantly rising new one was not mere jealousy. but a very natural, and, for the most part, moral protest against the spirit Of the same. See W'uttke. Christian
Ethics (transl. by Prof. J. P. Lacroix, X. V. 1874, 2 vols. 12mo), i, 2.">."> 272; Staudlin. Gesck. der Sittenlehre Jesu (Gotting. 1799), i. HI ; Schrockh, Kirckengesch, \\. 343 -q.: Coita. 1 1, Prob. Morali (Jena, 1728); Rachel, Ex- amen Prob.Jes. (Helmst, 1664, Ito); De Wette, Ckristl. Sittenlehre, EI, ii, 334 sq.-. Perrault, Morali desJesuites (1667, 3 vols.); EUendorf, Du Moral u. Politik der Je- suiten (1840); Pragmatischt Gesck. der Monchsorden (1770), vols, ix and x; I >, utsch a Kirchenblatt, 1875 (re- view of Gury's Compendium Theologia Moralis, new
ed. Ratisbon, 1874; one of the worst probabilistic advo- cate.-); Mosbeiui. Eccles, Hist, iv, 230; v. 190; Chris- tian Remembrancer, July, 1852, p. 191 sq.; Amer. i>>mi-. /.'./•.xi. 173; EtKn&..Re».xxiii,320; xcii.ari.i. (J.H.W.) Probable (Lat, probabUis), a barbarous technical word which serves to designate the philosophic dogma that anything which does not admit of demonstration may admit the probable as proof, if such a course does not involve absurdity or contradiction. "A- demon- stration," says Locke. " i- the showing the agreement or disagreement of two ideas, by the intervention of one or more proofs, which have a constant, immutable, and visible connection one with another; so probability is nothing but the appearance of such an agreement or disagreement by the intervention of proofs whose con- nection i- not constant and immutable, or at lea-t is not perceived to be so, but is, or appear- for the most part to be so. and i- enough to induce the mind to judge the proposition to be true or false, rather than the con- trary. . . . The entertainment the mind gives 1 bis sort of propositions is called belief, assent, or opinion, which is admitting or receiving any proposition a- true upon arguments or proofs that are found to persuade us to