ed the fluctuations of science, the multitude of
opinions, the confusion and conflict of theories, he was led to doubt
the efficacy of all human tests of truth. Science seemed to him
essentially tainted with hopeless uncertainty. In his ignorance of its
methods he fancied them incapable of attaining to anything more than a
greater or less degree of probability, and powerless to afford a strict
demonstration, or to distinguish the deposit of real knowledge amidst
the turbid current of opinion. He refused to admit that there is a
sphere within which metaphysical philosophy speaks with absolute
certainty, or that the landmarks set up by history and natural science
may be such as neither authority nor prescription, neither the doctrine
of the schools nor the interest of the Church, has the power to disturb
or the right to evade. These sciences presented to his eyes a chaos
incapable of falling into order and harmony by any internal
self-development, and requiring the action of an external director to
clear up its darkness and remove its uncertainty. He thought that no
research, however rigorous, could make sure of any fragment of knowledge
worthy the name. He admitted no certainty but that which relied on the
general tradition of mankind, recorded and sanctioned by the infallible
judgment of the Holy See. He would have all power committed, and every
question referred, to that supreme and universal authority. By its means
he would supply all the gaps in the horizon of the human intellect,
settle every controversy, solve the problems of science, and regulate
the policy of states.

The extreme Ultramontanism which seeks the safeguard of faith in the
absolutism of Rome he believed to be the keystone of the Catholic
system. In his eyes all who rejected it, the Jesuits among them, were
Gallicans; and Gallicanism was the corruption of the Christian
idea.[341] "If my principles are rejected," he wrote on the 1st of
November 1820, "I see no means of defending religion effectually, no
decisive answer to the objections of the unbelievers of our time. How
could these principles be favourable to them? they are simply the
development of the great Catholic maxim, _quod semper, quod ubique, quod
ab omnibus_." Joubert said of him, with perfect justice, that when he
destroyed all the bases of human certainty, in order to retain no
foundation but authority, he destroyed authority itself. The confidence
which led him to confound the human elem