Protestant, after realizing its tremendous nature and scope, will draw
back perplexed, imagining that a weight like it would crush the human
intellect. He does this only because he loses sight for the moment of
the terrible power of the earth giant. The human intellect is no baby,
weakening under every stroke; it is a tough, wild, elastic energy,
struggling up in every direction, and is never more itself than when
suffering beneath the blows of heaven. Moreover, its natural tendency is
to explain away every dogma of religious truth, from the lowest to the
highest. In that old pagan world this natural process is to be seen.
Everywhere that human genius opened up a way for itself, and had a
career, the last remnants of primeval truth were well-nigh banished.
Look, too, at the educated intellect of the non-Catholic world to-day.
Genius, talent, eloquence, and art, what are they in England, Germany
and France, if we may not describe them as simply godless? Why is this?

Now turn your gaze on the Middle Ages, and observe the difference. It is
scarcely necessary to say that in those times the Church was
pre-eminent, not only having the spiritual power, but often also the
secular. If she had wished it, she could have crushed out every form of
inquiry, and firmly established herself as the one and only source of
all truth. But she did not do it. Never since the world began were such
daring inquiries set on foot, such subtile propositions offered, such a
vast and varied display of the human intellect in all the departments of
theology. The office she claimed was that of arbiter; and surely nothing
was more reasonable. A man would work out some original view or
deduction; he hoped it was true, but could not be certain; he would put
it forth; it would be taken up by an opponent, come before some
theological authority of minor note, pass on to some university, be
adopted by it and opposed by some other; higher authorities would be
appealed to, and at last the subject would appear before the Holy See.
Then, perhaps, no decision would be made, or a dubious one, or minor
details would be rectified, and so the whole matter sent back for a new
discussion. Years and years would pass before anything like a final
decision would be reached; and then, when every defect had been rubbed
off, and every minute bearing of the matter evolved, the Church would
either reject it, or adopt it, and stamp it with the seal of dogma. I
say this is an epito