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143 chapter 6 The Two Faces of Acosta’s Historia natural y moral de las Indias o n February 24, 1554, Ignatius Loyola wrote to Gaspar Barceo, Vice Provincial of India, suggesting that he moderate his apostolic zeal for the sake of his own health. Along with this expression of concern for the missionary’s well-being (a belated concern, for Barceo had died almost six months before), Loyola sent him very precise guidelines regarding his communication with Rome. In these directions, Ignatius noted the curiosity that the nature of far-off lands provoked in the Roman nobles and church dignitaries to whom he sent copies of the letters he received from India:“Some principal gentlemen , that in this city read the letters from India with great edification, usually desire, or many times request, to see something written about the cosmography of those regions where our people are. [Therefore,] if there are any . . . things that seem extraordinary, such as animals or plants that are unknown or not known in such size, etc., give notice of them.”1 This information, remarked Ignatius, could be of great help in gaining the support of influential persons, since it could be used “as a sauce [to enhance] the taste of some curiosity, not a bad desire, that some men have.”2 Ignatius instructed Barceo to include this information either in his regular communications with the Jesuit superiors or in separate letters. Barceo had to be mindful that these letters were to be publicized, so he should avoid writing about the order’s internal affairs. In any case, if inappropriate information was included, it could be expurgated in Rome. What could not be missing was information about Indian nature, for“that cannot be supplied here.”3 Around this time, Juan de Polanco, secretary of the order, sent the same instructions to Manuel da Nóbrega, Provincial of Brazil.4 To be sure, Ignatius’s orders were clearly intended to satisfy the curiosity of noblemen in Europe in order to better attract patrons willing to support the fledgling order politically and economically. As Ignatius’s instructions to Barceo and Nóbrega show, the fact that the production and publication of research about the natural world could enhance the prestige of the order and its members did not escape the Jesuit superiors, particularly in a culture where the study of 144 Missionary Scientists nature was quickly becoming part of the ethos of the nobility.5 But his request to the missionaries stationed overseas to observe and record natural phenomena can also be seen as a consequence of his belief in learning as an integral part of spiritual life, a view that had profound consequences for the development of the order. As I have discussed in previous chapters, although Ignatius’s original idea had been to found a preaching and missionary order, by the 1560s the growing importance the management of schools was acquiring for the Jesuits helped determine a particular relationship between the members of the order and the production and transmission of knowledge. Pedagogy forced the Jesuits to systematize their ties to the different scientific and philosophical disciplines in order to better teach these subjects in their schools and universities. As George Ganss noted in his classic study on Jesuit universities, Ignatius’s aim was to produce in students a carefully reasoned, philosophically grounded, Catholic outlook on life, which would enable them to become active members of society and positive leaders in their communities.6 The idea of a mutually informative relationship between scientific learning and Jesuit spirituality was enshrined by Ignatius in the founding documents of the order. The purpose of the Society of Jesus, as stated in the Constitutions, was“to aid our fellow men to the knowledge and love of God and to the salvation of their souls.”7 Philosophical study and research was considered an appropriate means to that end, both indirectly and directly. Indirectly, the study of philosophy would prepare the student to understand theological doctrines by equipping him with the necessary conceptual tools to deal with the complex treatment of some issues. This was the rationale behind the emphasis on the study of Aristotle’s Organum as a preparation for the study of Aquinas’s Summa Theologica, which by 1599—the year of the approbation of the Ratio Studiorum , the common syllabus for all the schools and colleges of the order—had become the sole textbook of theology used in Jesuit universities.8 But for Ignatius the study of philosophy...

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