ts own methods, and yet certain
prevalent views of history are offensive to the Pope and explicitly
condemned by him. The consequence is, that in order to study history
with mental liberty, we have to act practically as if there existed a
doubt of the Papal infallibility. The same difficulty occurs with
reference to the great Protestant doctrine which attributes a similar
infallibility to the various authors who composed what are now known to
us as the Holy Scriptures. Our men of science act, and the laws of
scientific investigation compel them to act, as if it were not quite
certain that the views of scientific subjects held by those early
writers were so final as to render modern investigation superfluous. It
is useless to disguise the fact that there is a real opposition of
method between intellect and faith, and that the independence of the
intellectual life can never be fully secured unless all affirmations
based upon authority are treated as if they were doubtful. This implies
no change of manner in the intellectual classes towards those classes
whose mental habits are founded upon obedience. I mean that the man of
science does not treat the affirmations of any priesthood with less
respect than the affirmations of his own scientific brethren; he applies
with perfect impartiality the same criticism to all affirmations, from
whatever source they emanate. The intellect does not recognize authority
in any one, and intellectual men do not treat the Pope, or the author of
Genesis, with less consideration than those famous persons who in their
day have been the brightest luminaries of science. The difficulty,
however, remains, that whilst the intellectual class has no wish to
offend either those who believe in the infallibility of the Pope, or
those who believe in the infallibility of the author of Genesis, it is
compelled to conduct its own investigations as if those infallibilities
were matters of doubt and not of certainty.

Why this is so, may be shown by a reference to the operation of Nature
in other ways. The rewards of physical strength and health are not given
to the most moral, to the most humane, to the most gentle, but to those
who have acted, and whose forefathers have acted, in the most perfect
accordance with the laws of their physical constitution. So the
perfection of the intellectual life is not given to the most humble, the
most believing, the most obedient, but to those who use their minds
according t