self, nor,
consequently, can she absorb their direction. The political and
intellectual orders remain permanently distinct from the spiritual. They
follow their own ends, they obey their own laws, and in doing so they
support the cause of religion by the discovery of truth and the
upholding of right. They render this service by fulfilling their own
ends independently and unrestrictedly, not by surrendering them for the
sake of spiritual interests. Whatever diverts government and science
from their own spheres, or leads religion to usurp their domains,
confounds distinct authorities, and imperils not only political right
and scientific truths, but also the cause of faith and morals. A
government that, for the interests of religion, disregards political
right, and a science that, for the sake of protecting faith, wavers and
dissembles in the pursuit of knowledge, are instruments at least as well
adapted to serve the cause of falsehood as to combat it, and never can
be used in furtherance of the truth without that treachery to principle
which is a sacrifice too costly to be made for the service of any
interest whatever.

Again, the principles of religion, government, and science are in
harmony, always and absolutely; but their interests are not. And though
all other interests must yield to those of religion, no principle can
succumb to any interest. A political law or a scientific truth may be
perilous to the morals or the faith of individuals, but it cannot on
this ground be resisted by the Church. It may at times be a duty of the
State to protect freedom of conscience, yet this freedom may be a
temptation to apostasy. A discovery may be made in science which will
shake the faith of thousands, yet religion cannot refute it or object to
it. The difference in this respect between a true and a false religion
is, that one judges all things by the standard of their truth, the other
by the touchstone of its own interests. A false religion fears the
progress of all truth; a true religion seeks and recognises truth
wherever it can be found, and claims the power of regulating and
controlling, not the progress, but the dispensation of knowledge. The
Church both accepts the truth and prepares the individual to receive it.

The religious world has been long divided upon this great question: Do
we find principles in politics and in science? Are their methods so
rigorous that we may not bend them, their conclusions so certain that we