Page:William John Sparrow-Simpson - Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (1909).djvu/147

 ] Accordingly, Lord Acton's practical solution is as follows:—

From that date accordingly the Home and Foreign Review ceased to exist. The expiration of a periodical may be an exceedingly small incident in literary activity, but the principles involved in this incident are of primary importance. Lord Acton's indomitable belief in the ultimate prevalence of historical truth, when the present tyranny of ignorance should be over-past, is worthy of all regard. The dignified surrender, coupled with frank reassertion of unaltered conviction, is most significant. He bows to an authority which has trangressed its limits, and which rejects to-day what it must of necessity at length believe. His theory that the truth must pervade and possess the members in order that it may reach the head, must have sounded strangely in Italian ears. A silence explicitly self-imposed, lest authority, if further provoked, should commit itself irrevocably to positions fatal to its own best interests, is impressive and pathetic; but certainly it suggests thoughts on the limits of authority incompatible with Ultramontane assumptions. While this subsiding into silence would prevent the irretrievable mischief of imprudent authoritative declarations, it would, at the same time, delay the