Page:History of Freedom.djvu/528

 484

ESSAYS ON LIBERTY

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 \vith 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 \vhat is of faith from \vhat is not of faith,-revealed dogmas from opinions unconnected with them by logical necessity, and therefore incapable of any- thing 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 resul s. 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 wbich, 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 founded in great part for the purpose of exemplify- ing this distinction.! In considering the solution of this

1 The prospectus of the Review contained these words: ee It will abstain from direct theological discussion, as far as external circumstances will allow; and in dealing with those mixed questions into which theology indirectly enters, its aIm will be to combine devotion to the Church with discrimination and candour in the