ng on
the same topics. When he left the desk his place might be taken by some
great original thinker or scholar, who would display all the results of
his meditations without regard for their tendency, and without
considering what effects they might have on the weak. He was obliged
often to draw attention to books lacking the Catholic spirit, but
indispensable to the deeper student. Here, therefore, the system of
secrecy, economy, and accommodation was rendered impossible by the
competition of knowledge, in which the most thorough exposition of the
truth was sure of the victory, and the system itself became inapplicable
as the scientific spirit penetrated ecclesiastical literature in
Germany.

In Rome, however, where the influences of competition were not felt, the
reasons of the change could not be understood, nor its benefits
experienced; and it was thought absurd that the Germans of the
nineteenth century should discard weapons which had been found
efficacious with the Germans of the sixteenth. While in Rome it was
still held that the truths of science need not be told, and ought not to
be told, if, in the judgment of Roman theologians, they were of a nature
to offend faith, in Germany Catholics vied with Protestants in
publishing matter without being diverted by the consideration whether it
might serve or injure their cause in controversy, or whether it was
adverse or favourable to the views which it was the object of the Index
to protect. But though this great antagonism existed, there was no
collision. A moderation was exhibited which contrasted remarkably with
the aggressive spirit prevailing in France and Italy. Publications were
suffered to pass unnoted in Germany which would have been immediately
censured if they had come forth beyond the Alps or the Rhine. In this
way a certain laxity grew up side by side with an unmeasured distrust,
and German theologians and historians escaped censure.

This toleration gains significance from its contrast to the severity
with which Rome smote the German philosophers like Hermes and Guenther
when they erred. Here, indeed, the case was very different. If Rome had
insisted upon suppressing documents, perverting facts, and resisting
criticism, she would have been only opposing truth, and opposing it
consciously, for fear of its inconveniences. But if she had refrained
from denouncing a philosophy which denied creation or the personality of
God, she would have failed to assert