eview_ itself, and more in accordance with the spirit in which it
has been conducted, to interpret the words of the Pope as they were
really meant, than to elude their consequences by subtle distinctions,
and to profess a formal adoption of maxims which no man who holds the
principles of the _Review_ can accept in their intended signification.

One of these maxims is that theological and other opinions long held and
allowed in the Church gather truth from time, and an authority in some
sort binding from the implied sanction of the Holy See, so that they
cannot be rejected without rashness; and that the decrees of the
congregation of the Index possess an authority quite independent of the
acquirements of the men composing it. This is no new opinion; it is only
expressed on the present occasion with unusual solemnity and
distinctness. But one of the essential principles of this _Review_
consists in a clear recognition, first, of the infinite gulf which in
theology separates what is of faith from what is not of faith,--revealed
dogmas from opinions unconnected with them by logical necessity, and
therefore incapable of anything higher than a natural certainty--and
next, of the practical difference which exists in ecclesiastical
discipline between the acts of infallible authority and those which
possess no higher sanction than that of canonical legality. That which
is not decided with dogmatic infallibility is for the time susceptible
only of a scientific determination, which advances with the progress of
science, and becomes absolute only where science has attained its final
results. On the one hand, this scientific progress is beneficial, and
even necessary, to the Church; on the other, it must inevitably be
opposed by the guardians of traditional opinion, to whom, as such, no
share in it belongs, and who, by their own acts and those of their
predecessors, are committed to views which it menaces or destroys. The
same principle which, in certain conjunctures, imposes the duty of
surrendering received opinions imposes in equal extent, and under like
conditions, the duty of disregarding the fallible authorities that
uphold them.

It is the design of the Holy See not, of course, to deny the distinction
between dogma and opinion, upon which this duty is founded, but to
reduce the practical recognition of it among Catholics to the smallest
possible limits. A grave question therefore arises as to the position of
a _Review_ found