ifficulty.

But if we would ascertain with correctness the real course of a
principle, we must look at it at a certain distance, and as history
represents it to us. Nothing carried on by human instruments, but has
its irregularities, and affords ground for criticism, when minutely
scrutinised in matters of detail. I have been speaking of that aspect
of the action of an infallible authority, which is most open to
invidious criticism from those who view it from without; I have tried
to be fair, in estimating what can be said to its disadvantage, as
witnessed in the Catholic Church, and now I wish its adversaries to
be equally fair in their judgment upon its historical character. Can,
then, the infallible authority, with any show of reason, be said in
fact to have destroyed the energy of the intellect in the Catholic
Church? Let it be observed, I have not to speak of any conflict which
ecclesiastical authority has had with science, for there has been
none such, because the secular sciences, as they now exist, are a
novelty in the world, and there has been no time yet for a history of
relations between theology and these new methods of knowledge, and
indeed the Church may be said to have kept clear of them, as is
proved by the constantly cited case of Galileo. Here "exceptio probat
regulam:" for it is the one stock argument. Again, I have not to
speak of any relations of the Church to the new sciences, because my
simple question is whether the assumption of infallibility by the
proper authority is adapted to make me a hypocrite, and till that
authority passes decrees on pure physical subjects and calls on me
to subscribe them (which it never will do, because it has not the
power), it has no tendency by its acts to interfere with my private
judgment on those points. The simple question is whether authority
has so acted upon the reason of individuals, that they can have no
opinion of their own, and have but an alternative of slavish
superstition or secret rebellion of heart; and I think the whole
history of theology puts an absolute negative upon such a
supposition. It is hardly necessary to argue out so plain a point. It
is individuals, and not the holy see, who have taken the initiative,
and given the lead to Catholic minds, in theological inquiry. Indeed,
it is one of the reproaches urged against the Church of Rome, that it
has originated nothing, and has only served as a sort of _remora_ or
break in the development of do