purpose being to win
over the classes rather than the masses, the Jesuits were particular to
select as members only robust men of agreeable appearance, calm minds and
{404} eloquence. That an aspirant to the order should also be rich and
of good family was not requisite but was considered desirable. Men of
bad reputation, intractible, choleric, or men who had ever been tainted
with heresy, were excluded. No women were recruited.

After selection, the neophyte was put on a probation of two years. He
was then assigned to the class of scholars for further discipline. He
was later placed either as a temporal coadjutor, a sort of lay brother
charged with inferior duties, or as a spiritual coadjutor, who took the
three irrevocable vows. Finally, there was a class, to which admission
was gained after long experience, the Professed of Four Vows, the fourth
being one of special obedience to the pope. A small number of secret
Jesuits who might be considered as another class, were charged with
dangerous missions and with spying.

[Sidenote: General]

Over the order was placed a General who was practically, though not
theoretically, absolute. On paper he was limited by the possibility of
being deposed and by the election, independently of his influence, of an
"admonitor" and some assistants. In practice the only limitations of his
power were the physical ones inherent in the difficulties of
administering provinces thousands of miles away. From every province,
however, he received confidential reports from a multitude of spies.

The spirit of the order was that of absolute, unquestioning, blind
obedience. The member must obey his superior "like a corpse which can be
turned this way or that, or a rod that follows every impulse, or a ball
of wax that might be moulded in any form." The ideal was an old one; the
famous _perinde ac cadaver_ itself dates back to Francis of Assisi, but
nowhere had the ideal been so completely realized as by the companions of
Ignatius. In fact, in this as in other respects, the {405} Jesuits were
but a natural culmination of the evolution of monasticism. More and more
had the orders tended to become highly disciplined, unified bodies, apt
to be used for the service of the church and of the pope.

[Sidenote: Growth]

The growth of the society was extraordinarily rapid. By 1544 they had
nine establishments, two each in Italy, Spain and Portugal and one each
in France, Germany and the Neth