; that none
of them were philosophers? That they never affected to assume the title is
allowed: their philosophy was more circumspect. On their first principle
they accepted, and they taught others to accept, without hesitation, the
oracles of the church of Christ; they never blushed for their faith, or, as
it was miscalled, their credulity. They believed sublime truths, that
surpassed comprehension, because they feared God, who attests them, and
knew that he cannot deceive. {242} Fixed in this first principle, they
conceived no incongruity in joining to it eager researches into the secrets
of nature, steady pursuit of improvement in every human science. If
eminence in these justly confers the title of _philosopher_, it is strange,
that the doctors of the new antichristian school should have overlooked the
names of innumerable Jesuits in every branch of science, who were respected
as philosophers, until faith in divine revelation was reckoned to
depreciate all literary merit. It would be tedious to rehearse the
multitude of names, which might be adduced; but I must observe, that the
succession of them was never discontinued; and that, in the very last state
of the society, there were men among them revered and consulted by the most
eminent professors and academicians, who disdained to be mere disciples of
Voltaire and D'Alembert. The best mathematicians of Italy bowed to the
names of Ricati and Lecchi. The most eminent astronomers frequented the
observatories of the Jesuits at Rome, Florence, and Milan, directed by the
fathers Boscovich, {243} Ximenes, and La Grange. Fathers Meyer and Hall
were celebrated through Germany, and the Polish Jesuit Poczobult, the royal
astronomer at Wilno, was known wherever astronomy was cultivated. The
celebrated M. La Lande, and our own astronomer, Dr. Maskelyne, did not
disdain his correspondence. La Lande, in particular, in his writings,
mentions these Jesuit philosophers with honour.

It is the remark of M. Chateaubriand[92], that, without any prejudice to
other literary societies, the Jesuits were truly styled _Gens de Lettres_,
because the whole circle of sciences was more or less cultivated among
them. It was a rare case to meet with a Jesuit devoid of scientific
knowledge. Their reputation, in this point of view, contributed much to the
esteem in which the society was formerly held, before the strange
concurrence of causes, which has not been hitherto explained, had operated
upon th