283.] Side light may be thrown upon Sarpi's judgment of the European situation by considering in detail what he said about the Jesuits.

This company, as we have seen, lent its support to Papal absolutism; and during the later years of Sarpi's life it seemed destined to carry the world before it, by control of education, by devotion to Rome, by adroit manipulation of the religious consciousness for anti-social ends and ecclesiastical aggrandizement.
The sure sign of being in the right, said Sarpi, is when one finds himself in contradiction to the Jesuits.

They are most subtle masters in ill-doing, men who, if their needs demand, are ready to commit crimes worse than those of which they now are guilty.

All falsehood and all blasphemy proceed from them.

They have set the last hand at establishing universal corruption.