to the pilgrims: "I am
very confident that the Lord has more truth yet to break forth out of
His holy word." The reason why it possessed no scientific basis is
explained by Duchesne: "Ce n'est guere avant la seconde moitie du xviie
siecle qu'il devint impossible de soutenir l'authenticite des fausses
decretales, des constitutions apostoliques, des 'Recognitions
Clementines,' du faux Ignace, du pseudo-Dionys et de l'immense fatras
d'oeuvres anonymes ou pseudonymes qui grossissait souvent du tiers ou de
la moitie l'heritage litteraire des auteurs les plus considerables. Qui
aurait pu meme songer a un developpement dogmatique?" That it was
little understood, and lightly and loosely employed, is proved by
Bossuet himself, who alludes to it in one passage as if he did not know
that it was the subversion of his theology: "Quamvis ecclesia omnem
veritatem funditus norit, ex haeresibus tamen discit, ut aiebat magni
nominis Vincentius Lirinensis, aptius, distinctius, clariusque eandem
exponere."

The account of Lamennais suffers from the defect of mixing him up too
much with his early friends. No doubt he owed to them the theory that
carried him through his career, for it may be found in Bonald, and also
in De Maistre, though not, perhaps, in the volumes he had already
published. It was less original than he at first imagined, for the
English divines commonly held it from the seventeenth century, and its
dirge was sung only the other day by the Bishop of Gloucester and
Bristol.[404] A Scottish professor would even be justified in claiming
it for Reid. But of course it was Lamennais who gave it most importance,
in his programme and in his life. And his theory of the common sense,
the theory that we can be certain of truth only by the agreement of
mankind, though vigorously applied to sustain authority in State and
Church, gravitated towards multitudinism, and marked him off from his
associates. When he said _quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus_, he
was not thinking of the Christian Church, but of Christianity as old as
the creation; and the development he meant led up to the Bible, and
ended at the New Testament instead of beginning there. That is the
theory which he made so famous, which founded his fame and governed his
fate, and to which Dr. Flint's words apply when he speaks of celebrity.
In that sense it is a mistake to connect Lamennais with Moehler and
Newman; and I do not believe that he anticipated their teaching,