Page:William John Sparrow-Simpson - Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (1909).djvu/171

 ] do not appear to have roused themselves against "the Hellenisms of Constantinople," their silence only proves their humility and their prudence, and has no dogmatic weight. The facts meanwhile continue what they are. The fact that the successors of Honorius for centuries went on reiterating his condemnation is not mentioned by De Maistre. But, as he truly says, the facts meanwhile continue what they are. Yet he implies that they do not. For he then suggests that perhaps the Acts of the Sixth Council have been falsified. The possibility of such dishonesty in ancient times is illustrated from the letters of Cicero. The application is then delicately left for the reader to make. As for the author, "Quant à moi, je n'ai pas le temps de me livrer à l'examen de cette question superflue."

De Maistre's argument for Papal Infallibility is a political argument pure and simple. All true government in human society is monarchy. And the ultimate decision in the political order must be regarded as an infallible decision. The sovereign power cannot permit the laws to be called in question. What sovereignty is in the political order, the same is infallibility in the spiritual. We only demand, therefore, for the Church the same prerogative of finality which we demand for the State.

Readers of Mozley on Development will remember his crushing reply to this transparent sophism.

"It is indeed absurd," writes Mozley, "to expect that the mind should be satisfied with it, because what the mind wants is to believe what is true; and this argument does not touch the question of truth or error in the doctrines themselves decided on by this ultimate authority. It tells us the fact that they are decided on, and no more. It views the Church