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 LIBERATION

independence and could henceforth uphold the great ideal without which it could not exist the inner justification, the autonomous right of the secular order and of civil society. The rime itself could not yet see what had been accomplished; but is ever a time able to see such things? And if we now ask who won this struggle, the verdict must depend on what response is made to the larger question: which of the liberated powers had retained or lost the deeper energies of human nature? The fact that the Papacy continued to thrive renders the reply obvious. For that which is termed its "power or sovereignty*' is inexplicable without the power and sovereignty of the Church, and this in turn is explained (though only of course in part) by the obvious fact that it is a convincing response to the deepest questions latent in human nature.

After the storm had ceased, both Pope and Emperor were laid to rest. What they had done and left undone would figure in a new, still fiercer (because intellectually deeper) struggle their successors would carry on.

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