the same inquiry. In order to solve the
difficulty, we must go back to the time when the theory of Frohschammer
arose, and review some of the circumstances out of which it sprang.

For adjusting the relations between science and authority, the method of
Rome had long been that of economy and accommodation. In dealing with
literature, her paramount consideration was the fear of scandal. Books
were forbidden, not merely because their statements were denied, but
because they seemed injurious to morals, derogatory to authority, or
dangerous to faith. To be so, it was not necessary that they should be
untrue. For isolated truths separated from other known truths by an
interval of conjecture, in which error might find room to construct its
works, may offer perilous occasions to unprepared and unstable minds.
The policy was therefore to allow such truths to be put forward only
hypothetically, or altogether to suppress them. The latter alternative
was especially appropriated to historical investigations, because they
contained most elements of danger. In them the progress of knowledge has
been for centuries constant, rapid, and sure; every generation has
brought to light masses of information previously unknown, the
successive publication of which furnished ever new incentives, and more
and more ample means of inquiry into ecclesiastical history. This
inquiry has gradually laid bare the whole policy and process of
ecclesiastical authority, and has removed from the past that veil of
mystery wherewith, like all other authorities, it tries to surround the
present. The human element in ecclesiastical administration endeavours
to keep itself out of sight, and to deny its own existence, in order
that it may secure the unquestioning submission which authority
naturally desires, and may preserve that halo of infallibility which the
twilight of opinion enables it to assume. Now the most severe exposure
of the part played by this human element is found in histories which
show the undeniable existence of sin, error, or fraud in the high places
of the Church. Not, indeed, that any history furnishes, or can furnish,
materials for undermining the authority which the dogmas of the Church
proclaim to be necessary for her existence. But the true limits of
legitimate authority are one thing, and the area which authority may
find it expedient to attempt to occupy is another. The interests of the
Church are not necessarily identical with those of t