Wednesday, March 3, 2010

The Re-instruction And The Recapture

To the Jesuits, founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556), was mainly due the "re-instruction" of Europe and the recapture of the renaissance. Sufficient to say that their success was so overwhelming that it aroused the violent antagonism of the Universities, and thus ultimately made a contributory cause of their downfall. They were, too, exposed to the peculiar danger of a system which is, after all, in some essential degree imitative. The training of the Society undoubtedly went to produce admirably efficient men of a generally high level of worth, rather than of isolated and very originative geniuses. Such men are perhaps too likely to trade on their resources without really developing them; and doubtless, to some extent, that happened. However, the Jesuits provided the seed plot for a number of first-rate men, and in their special way renewed the work of the early Benedictines in a distracted world.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Does anyone know how to download these Google public domain books?

Anonymous said...

Kindle, Sony Reader and IPad can down load these books. You can always print from the PDF function.

Anonymous said...

Any idea if they can be downloaded to a PC?

Anonymous said...

As a PDF file.

Maria said...

Doesn't Joseph link us to the most wonderful treasures? You have a round of applause from this corner, Joseph.

Anonymous said...

I've discovered Google doesn't offer PDF's everywhere. However, public domain books can also be obtained from the Internet Archives.

For example, get "Catholic Thought and Thinkers" here:

http://www.archive.org/details/catholicthoughtt00martuoft