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Rh conduct, and intentions of the bishops who opposed the definition of the infallibility, are to be judged not by the representations of newspapers, of non-Catholics, or of false brethren, but by their own words and actions.

As for the motives of those who opposed the act of defining, we have already seen that the arguments for and against the opportuneness of defining the infallibility were many and grave. No man would be a safe or competent judge of the arguments in favour of defining who could not also fully weigh the gravity of the arguments against it. These reasons have been amply given already in the last chapter, and they need not be repeated here. As for the motives which governed the fifty-five bishops who absented themselves from the fourth Public Session, we are bound to believe their word. Who should know their motives if they themselves did not? It is mere trifling, or worse, for others to pretend to know better. They tell us that they thought it unseasonable, inexpedient, and inopportune to make a definition. Posterity will believe them rather than their detractors, who are already forgotten or rejected as false witnesses. So much for their motives, which no man may judge, but God only; and when we remember who they were, and what some of them have done and suffered for conscience' sake, history will