ith a perpetual commentary,
which is styled the Declarations. These contain the bulk of those
easements and indulgent interpretations, whereby the strictness of the
original rules was explained away, and an almost unbounded elasticity
was communicated to the system.

It would be rash to pronounce a decided opinion upon the much disputed
question, whether, in addition to their Constitutions and Declarations,
the Jesuits were provided with an esoteric code of rules known as
_Monita Secreta_.[169] The existence of such a manual, which was
supposed to contain the very pith of Jesuitical policy, has been
confidently asserted and no less confidently denied. In the absence of
direct evidence, it may be worth quoting two passages from Sarpi's
Letters, which prove that this keen-sighted observer believed the
Society to be governed in its practice by statutes inaccessible to all
but its most trusted members. 'I have always admired the policy of the
Jesuits,' he writes in 1608, 'and their method of maintaining secrecy.
Their Constitutions are in print, and yet one cannot set eyes upon a
copy. I do not mean their Rules, which are published at Lyons, for those
are mere puerilities; but the digest of laws which guide their conduct
of the order, and which they keep concealed. Every day many members
leave, or are expelled from the Company; and yet their artifices are not
exposed to view.'[170] In another letter, of the date 1610, Sarpi
returns to the same point. 'The Jesuits before this Aquaviva was elected
General were saints in comparison with what they afterwards became.
Formerly they had not mixed in affairs of state or thought of governing
cities. Since then, they have indulged a hope of controlling the whole
world.

[Footnote 169: A book with this title was published in 1612 at Cracow.
It was declared a forgery at Rome by a congregation of Cardinals.]

[Footnote 170: _Lettere_, vol. i. p. 100.]

And I am sure that the least part of their Cabala is in the Ordinances
and Constitutions of 1570. All the same, I am very glad to possess even
these. Their true Cabala they never communicate to any but men who have
been well tested, and proved by every species of trial; nor is it
possible for those who have been initiated into it, to think of retiring
from the order, since the congregation, through their excellent
management of its machinery, know how to procure the immediate death of
any such initiated member who may wish to leave th