The framework of the Order, as he fixed it, was so firmly traced, and so cunningly devised for practical efficiency, that it admitted of no alteration except in the direction of more rigid definition.

Lainez may, indeed, have emphasized its tendency to become a political machine, and may have weakened its religious tone, by his rules for the interpretation of the constitutions; but we have seen that the development of Loyola's own ideas ran in this direction.

The real strength, as well as the worst vices of Jesuitry, were inherent in the system from the first; and in it we have perhaps the most remarkable instance on record, of the evolution of a cosmopolitan and world-important organism from the embryo of one man's conception.
The Bull _Regimini militantis Ecclesiae_ restricted the number of the Jesuits to sixty.

If Ignatius did not himself propose this limit, the restriction may perhaps have suggested his policy of reserving the full privileges of the Society for a small band of selected members--the very essence of the body, extracted by processes which will be afterwards described.

Anyhow, it is certain that though the Papal limitation was removed in 1543, and though candidates flowed on the tide of fashion toward the Order, yet the representative and responsible Fathers remained few in numbers.