Page:History of Freedom.djvu/556

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ESSAYS ON LIBERTY

\vho \vere to be present at the Council. It had not the merit of novelty or the fault of innovation, but renewed with as little offence as possible the language of the old French school. 1 While Janus treated infallibility as the critical symptom of an ancient disease, Maret restricted his argument to what was directly involved in the defence of the Gallican position. J anus held that the doctrine was so firmly rooted and so widely supported in the existing constitution of the Church, that much must be modified before a genuine æcumenical Council could be celebrated. Maret clung to the belief that the real voice of the Church would make itself heard at the Vatican. In direct contradiction with Janus, he kept before him the one practical object, to gain assent by making his vie\vs acceptable even to the unlearned. At the last moment a tract appeared which has been universally attributed to Döllinger, \vhich exalnined the evidences relied on by the infallibilists, and stated briefly the case against them. I t pointed to the inference that their theory is not merely founded on an illogical and uncritical habit, but on unremitting dishonesty in the use of texts. This was coming near the secret of the \vhole controversy, and the point that made the interference of the Powers appear the only availing resource. For the sentiment on which infallibility is founded could not be reached by argument, the weapon of human reason, but resided in conclusions transcending evidence, and was the inaccessible postulate rather than a demonstrable conse- quence of a system of religious faith. The two doctrines opposed, bu t never met each other. It \vas as much an instinct of the ultramontane theory to elude the tests of science as to resist the control of States. I ts opponents,

1 Nous restons dans les doctrines de Bossuet parce que nous les croyons généralement vraies; nous les défendons parce qu' elles sont attaquées, et qu'un parti puissant veut les faire condamner, Ces doctrines de l' épiscopat français, de l' école de Paris, de notre vieille Sorbonne, se ramènent pour nous à trois propositions, à trois vérités fondamentales: 1 0 I'Église est une monarchie efficacement tempérée d'aristocracie ; 2 0 Ia souveraineté spirituelle est essentielle- ment composée de ces deux éléments quoique Ie second soit subordonné au premier; 3 0 Ie concours de ces éléments est nécessaire pour établir la règIe absolue de la foi, c'est-à-dire, pour constituer l'acte par excellence de la souve. raineté spirituelle.