Many historians of eminence, and among them so acute an observer as Paolo Sarpi, have been of the opinion that Jesuitry in its later developments was a deflection from the spirit and intention of Ignatius.

It is affirmed that Lainez and Salmeron, rather than Loyola, gave that complexion to the Order which has rendered it a mark for the hatred and disgust of Europe.

Aquaviva, the fifth General, has been credited with its policy of interference in affairs of states and nations.

Yet I think it can be shown that the Society, as it appeared in the seventeenth century, was a logical and necessary development of the Society as Ignatius framed it in the sixteenth.[160] [Footnote 160: Sarpi, though he expressed an opinion that the Jesuits of his day had departed from the spirit of their founders, spoke thus of Loyola's worldly aims (_Lettere_, vol.i.p 224): 'Even Father Ignatius, Founder of the Company, as his biography attests, based himself in such wise upon human interest as though there were none divine to think about.'] Lainez, who succeeded the founder as General, digested the constitutions and supplied them with a commentary or Directorium.

He defined, formulated, and stereotyped the system; but the essential qualities of Jesuitry, its concentration upon political objects, its unscrupulousness in choice of means to ends, the worldliness which lurked beneath the famous motto _Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam_, were implicit in Loyola's express words, and in his actual administration.