point on which all
depended.

Doellinger arrived slowly at the contemplation of deeper issues than that
of churchmen or laymen in political offices, of Roman or German pupils
in theological chairs. After seeing Baron Arnim, in 1865, he lost the
hope of saving the papal government, and ceased to care about the things
he had contended for in 1861; and a time came when he thought it
difficult to give up the temporal power, and yet revere the Holy See. He
wrote to Montalembert that his illusions were failing: "Ich bin sehr
ernuechtert.--Es ist so vieles in der Kirche anders gekommen, als ich es
mir vor 20-30 Jahren gedacht, und rosenfarbig ausgemalt hatte." He
learnt to speak of spiritual despotism almost in the words of his
friend. The point of junction between the two orders of ideas is the use
of fire for the enforcement of religion on which the French were laying
all their stress: "In Frankreich bewegt sich der Gegensatz blos auf dem
socialpolitischen Gebiete, nicht auf dem theologisch-wissenschaftlichen,
weil es dort genau genommen eine theologische Wissenschaft nicht gibt"
(16th October 1865). The Syllabus had not permanently fixed his
attention upon it. Two years later, the matter was put more definitely,
and he found himself, with little real preparation, turning from
antiquarian curiosities, and brought face to face with the radical
question of life and death. If ever his literary career was influenced
by his French alliances, by association with men in the throng, for whom
politics decided, and all the learning of the schools did not avail, the
moment was when he resolved to write on the Inquisition.

The popular account which he drew up appeared in the newspapers in the
summer of 1867; and although he did not mean to burn his ships, his
position as an official defender of the Holy See was practically at an
end. He wrote rapidly, at short notice, and not in the steady course of
progressive acquisition. Ficker and Winkelmann have since given a
different narrative of the step by which the Inquisition came into
existence; and the praise of Gregory X., as a man sincerely religious
who kept aloof, was a mark of haste. In the work which he was using,
there was no act by that pontiff; but if he had had time to look deeper
he would not have found him, in this respect, different from his
contemporaries. There is no uncertainty as to the author's feeling
towards the infliction of torture and death for religion, and the
p