iority, or who had written nothing at all. Such a man,
weighing the opinion of the theologians of the Gesu and the Minerva, not
in the scale of his own performance, but in that of the great
achievements of his age, might well be reluctant to accept their verdict
upon them without some aid of argument and explanation.

On the other hand, it appeared that a blow which struck the Catholic
scholars of Germany would assure to the victorious congregation of Roman
divines an easy supremacy over the writers of all other countries. The
case of Dr. Frohschammer might be made to test what degree of control it
would be possible to exercise over his countrymen, the only body of
writers at whom alarm was felt, and who insisted, more than others, on
their freedom. But the suspicion of such a possibility was likely only
to confirm him in the idea that he was chosen to be the experimental
body on which an important principle was to be decided, and that it was
his duty, till his dogmatic error was proved, to resist a questionable
encroachment of authority upon the rights of freedom. He therefore
refused to make the preliminary submission which was required of him,
and allowed the decree to go forth against him in the usual way.
Hereupon it was intimated to him--though not by Rome--that he had
incurred excommunication. This was the measure which raised the
momentous question of the liberties of Catholic science, and gave the
impulse to that new theory on the limits of authority with which his
name has become associated.

In the civil affairs of mankind it is necessary to assume that the
knowledge of the moral code and the traditions of law cannot perish in a
Christian nation. Particular authorities may fall into error; decisions
may be appealed against; laws may be repealed, but the political
conscience of the whole people cannot be irrecoverably lost. The Church
possesses the same privilege, but in a much higher degree, for she
exists expressly for the purpose of preserving a definite body of
truths, the knowledge of which she can never lose. Whatever authority,
therefore, expresses that knowledge of which she is the keeper must be
obeyed. But there is no institution from which this knowledge can be
obtained with immediate certainty. A council is not _a priori_
oecumenical; the Holy See is not separately infallible. The one has to
await a sanction, the other has repeatedly erred. Every decree,
therefore, requires a preliminary examinati