to be attributed to the changed circumstances of the times. The altered state of the relations between the Church and the Civil Governments has made more difficult their mutual action in the regulation of things religious.

I desire however to hope that the Government of his Majesty the Emperor, fully satisfied with the explanations given by me in the name of the Holy See to the various points of Count Daru's despatch, and recognizing at the same time the difficulties in which the Holy Father might find himself, will not insist further on the demand of communication beforehand of the drafts of constitutions to be examined by the Fathers of the Council. Were such demand conceded, there would be question of things tending to embarrass the free action of the Council. Moreover, since the Church is keeping within the limits assigned to her by her Divine Founder, no anxiety need remain to the Government of his Majesty on account of the deliberations which may come to be adopted by the Episcopal assembly. Finally the French Government will thus give, by the very fact, a new proof of those dispositions of goodwill which it has manifested in respect of the full liberty of the Conciliar deliberations, and of the confidence which it declares it reposes in the wisdom and prudence of the Apostolic See.

Your Lordship will please read this despatch to Count Daru, as also leave him a copy.

Meanwhile receive, &c. &c.,

(Signed) G. CARD. ANTONELLI.

We next place before our readers some most important remarks of the "Civiltà" (June 18th) on the extension of the Church's Infallibility. It is admitted, of course, by all Catholics, that that Infallibility extends over the whole "materia fidei et morum,' but some persons, from inadvertence, are far from realising the wide extent of this "materia." The "Civiltà," then, in reviewing the second edition of F. Knox's classical work, expresses itself as follows:

We have much pleasure in announcing the second English edition, enlarged and improved, of the excellent work of F. Knox ; and we should be glad to have to announce forthwith the second edition of the Italian translation, as soon as the first edition, which we praised at p. 349 of the last volume, is exhausted. As we then observed, though the work embraces all the questions which relate to infallibility, it treats more especially of the object, which is evidently the same both for the Pope and for the teaching Church.

After establishing once for all the subject of the infallible teaching office, the author places, in a clear light, the principle that the object of the Church's infallibility can only be learnt authentically from the Church herself, that is, from the subject of infallibility itself. As the Church, when she has proved her divine mission by the motives of credibility, proposes practically for our belief, as revealed among her other prerogatives, her infallibility, so it belongs to her to teach what is the object, what the limits, and what the extension of this infallibility; in other words, how far the promised assistance of the

Spirit of truth reaches; the more so since this must be contained in the deposit of the revelation intrusted to her.

And it is in this precisely that the peculiar merit of F. Knox's work consists. In order to ascertain when, how, and under what conditions the Church teaches infallibly, he interrogates specially the Church's practice, and from the living exercise of her teaching office, rather than from the various opinions of theologians, he deduces his replies to the different questions which arise relative to the object of infallibility.

"What is the object-matter," he asks, "of the Church's infallibility; i.e., what precisely is the sphere within which she teaches infallibly? To reply to this question, we must consult the Church herself. She is God's ambassador. She alone knows the extent of her powers. We have admitted her credentials and accepted her as God's envoy. It is therefore only reasonable that we should believe her word in what she tells us about the object and scope of her mission. Whatever she declares to be within the province of her infallibility as our teacher, must be within it. If we prove that she has claimed to speak infallibly on any point, we have proved that she has spoken infallibly upon it. Now the Church does not derive her powers from a written document. She came into existence as a living and energizing institution. There was, therefore, no need for her to begin by defining accurately the extent of her authority. She declared the powers which she possessed by using them. Thus, in God's providence, the course of events has served to exhibit, with increasing definiteness, the full extent of the Church's infallible authority as teacher, and to mark out more and more accurately the field over which it ranges" (p. 49).

Hence, according to the practical sense of the Church, he points out that, speaking generally, the object of infallibility is contained in the general formula in rebus fidei et morum. From the words spoken by Christ to the Apostles, All truths (John xvi. 13), all that I have said to you (John xiv. 26), all that I have commanded you (Matth. xxviii. 18);-"i.e., the whole ecomony of salvation, all, namely, that men have to believe and do in order to attain eternal life, falls under the Church's authority as teacher, and, therefore, under her infallibility. Hence has come the common definition that the Church is infallible in all that she teaches regarding faith and morals, since faith refers to what we must believe, and morals to what we must do. And the definition is a correct one, provided care be taken to explain that by matters of faith and morals are meant, not only the truths directly revealed by our Blessed Lord to His Apostles, whether explicitly or implicitly, but also every other branch of truth, speculative or practical, which has any bearing upon revealed truth. On the other hand, if the words faith and morals are so interpreted as to confine the Church's infallibility to revealed truth exclusively, the definition becomes false and dangerous" (pp. 51, 52).

This, he adds, was what the Jansenists wished to do.

"From what has been said," he continues, "it is evident that the sphere of the Church's infallible teaching is very extensive, and embraces a great many different subjects, since there can be very few branches of truth which have not some connection with revealed dogma. This, however, will appear still more clearly when we examine in detail the object-matter of her teaching office" (p. 54).

The author next examines particularly, one by one, the matter of the Church's infallible teaching, taking specially into account the actual practice of the Church, and holding firmly to the principle that if the Church attributes to herself infallibility in regard to the object of her teaching, she cer

tainly does not usurp this prerogative, but possesses it. The primary and immediate object of infallibility is undoubtedly revealed truth; but though the relation in which other truths stand to this, the Church judges infallibly concerning them, as a secondary and mediate object. The author classes them as follows:-1. Truths contained explicitly or implicity in revelation. 2. General principles of morality, including natural morals. 3. Dogmatic and moral facts, as the sense of a book in relation to the faith, the canonization of saints, constitutions relative to general ecclesiastical discipline and worship, the approbation of religious orders, the condemnation of certain societies, the approval or condemnation of certain systems of education, etc. 4. Political truths and principles. 5. Theological conclusions. 6. Philosophical and scientific conclusions in their relation to dogma or morals. After discussing these heads separately, he thus summarizes them in the following formula :

"The object-matter of the Church's infallibility embraces, primarily and directly, all revealed truth, whether explicitly or implicitly contained in the revealed deposit; and secondarily, and indirectly, all natural truths, both of fact and speculation, which stand in such relation to revealed truth that error concerning them would tend to impair the integrity of the faith in the minds of Christians and to imperil their eternal salvation" (p. 81).

Throughout the whole of this particular examination into the object of infallibility, the author, while reasoning theologically, has his eye chiefly fixed upon the actual practice of the Church, whom he has ever before him, as a teacher, not after the fashion of an uncertain abstraction, but as a living person.

In going through the different heads, he draws attention to the more or less evident relation in which many parts of the Church's teaching stand to the Deposit of the Faith, on which is founded the Church's right to teach us infallibly; and, above all, he points out that the Deposit of the Faith is always the norm and rule by which the Church judges of the truth or falsehood of non-revealed doctrines, whether philosophical or political, and which she therefore regards from no other point of view except that of dogma and morals.

"She forms her judgment concerning them, not by working over again the process which the philosopher had gone through, and thus discovering where his error lay, but by comparing his results with revealed truth and estimating them accordingly. Thus, one who sees corrects at a glance the faulty conclusions which a blind man has slowly and painfully arrived at, by touch and hearing, regarding the shape and position of certain objects. This he does not by touch and hearing, but by another sense-sight, of which the blind man is destitute. In like manner the Church, whose eyes are opened to the light of faith, is able, by the aid of this supernatural light, to declare infallibly that a philosophical system, or proposition, or book is unsound; and she has many times in the course of her history exercised this power when her children's needs required it" (pp. 76, 77).

He inculcates once again the same principle, when he speaks of the nature of doctrinal condemnations :

"What," he asks, "is the Church's standard by which she tests and condemns faulty doctrines? It can only be the Deposit of the Faith, including in this, of course, the general principles of the moral law. For

she has no other standard by which to judge but this; and it is only from the point of view in which a given doctrine has a bearing upon revealed truth, and is therefore commensurable with it, that she regards it as subject to her jurisdiction. The Church's doctrinal condemnations are therefore equivalent to formal pronouncements that the particular doctrines she condemns are at variance in one point or other with the Catholic Faith. The various modes in which they may stand opposed to the faith are expressed by a more or less fixed terminology; and a proposition is said to have been censured, when sentenced has been pronounced upon it indicating that it is out of harmony with the faith" (pp. 99, 100).

At this point it is natural to inquire whether the object of the Church's infallibility in pronouncing such censures is to be restricted to the censures of heresy, or should be extended to the minor censures. The author deduces his answer from the same principle of the Church's practical teaching :

"The Church, in the exercise of her office of teacher, claims the power not only of declaring infallibly that a given doctrine is in opposition to the revealed deposit, but of determining, if she pleases, the exact degree and kind of this opposition. In other words, she asserts her right to assign properly to each proposition which she condemns the censure which belongs to it. The particular way, however, in which she has exercised this power has varied at different periods of her history" (pp. 100, 101).

"The same reasons," the author remarks, "which go to prove that we are bound to conform ourselves interiorly to what the Church declares to be immediately opposed to the faith, show with equal force that we are bound to submit ourselves in like manner to her pronouncements when she defines that a doctrine only indirectly deviates from the faith, and so deserves a censure less than heretical. There is no rational ground for a distinction between these two cases, unless we deny her infallibility as teacher in regard to lesser deviations from the faith, while admitting it in respect of the highest kind of deviation. She herself, however, practically rejects this distinction, by requiring from us, under pain of sin, the same submission in the one case as in the other. And since what she claims she has a right to claim, from her practice we may legitimately infer her infallibility."

[This passage occurs at p. 75 of the first edition of F. Knox's book, but, the chapter containing it having been recast in the second edition, the precise words are not now to be found there, though the argument which they express remains unchanged.-ED. D. R.]

So again on the same principle of the different practice of the Church, the object of infallibility is not to be restricted to the use of certain formalities and conditions; for example, the threat of anathema, which some theologians require to be appended to the definitions either of the Sovereign Pontiff or of the teaching Church :

"The shape in which these pronouncements are cast, and the formalities by which they are accompanied, are merely accidental circumstances, which admit of considerable variation. That which makes these utterances infallible, and is at the same time the only sign by which we may know that they are infallible, is the will and intention of the Sovereign Pontiff to teach by means of them the universal flock, with the authority that belongs to him as its divinely constituted Pastor" (p. 62, 1st edition).

In like manner it depends upon the Church to determine what obligation she imposes upon the faithful. Sometimes it will be merely a disciplinary obligation of silence, without defining the question. But if the Church or the Pope passes a decisive doctrinal sentence, a respectful silence or a so

called provisional assent will not suffice. An internal assent, under pain of mortal sin, is requisite, and this must be either an assent of divine faith immediately, if the thing is proposed for belief as revealed, or else an assent of intellectual obedience to the divine teaching authority of the Church, and therefore of divine faith mediately, if the thing is proposed as true owing to its connection with revelation, of which the Church is the infallible guardian.

Thus, by the help of this fundamental principle of the practical teaching of the Church, F. Knox solves with great simplicity and soundness all the questions which relate to the object of infallibility, and the obligations of the faithful towards the teaching Church :

"As we did not choose the Church for our teacher, nor give her authority to teach us, so neither can we set limits to her teaching, nor free ourselves from the obligation of obeying her. Her power comes from Christ, whom she represents. And since He has put no restriction on the obedience which she can claim from us, it follows that whatever she bids us do we are bound to do, and whatever she bids us believe we are bound to believe. Our obedience to her must be absolute, unbounded, and unreasoning, as to the voice of God Himself” (pp. 103, 104).

F. Knox has sought to explain in a simple, positive, and uncontroversial manner the whole doctrine regarding infallibility, and he has succeeded admirably. In preference to reasonings and controversies, and the opinions of theologians, he has attached himself to the acts of the teaching Church and the Pope down to our own time; that is to say, he has gathered together what the teaching Church and the Pope, on the subject of infallibility, has declared concerning the object of infallibility and the questions connected with it. Hence he has not confined infallibility, as is sometimes done by certain theologians, chiefly for the convenience of controversy, within narrow and arbitrary boundaries, now limiting the object of infallibility, now the conditions, now the obligations, or again leaving questions undetermined; but he has set forth the whole truth in its entirety according to the practical teaching of the Church. He concludes with showing the practical importance of holding the whole doctrine of the Church with respect to her infallible teaching office, and the intellectual and moral injury which results from limiting the Church's authority as regards the object of infallibility to matters strictly of faith, and thus considering philosophy, politics, and education in the light of things wholly secular, and altogether external to the infallible teaching office of the Church. In truth the extent of the object of infallibility is in some respects a question of more practical consequence than that which is so much debated at present concerning the subject, though both are of vital importance. Hence the book deals more with the primary, and especially the secondary object of infallibility, than with the subject; that is, the Episcopate and the Pope, though in this second edition the question of the Pope's infallibility is treated of anew and with greater fulness, as present circumstances require. But we will speak of this if another edition of the Italian translation should appear. Meanwhile we have already dwelt too long upon the object of infallibility, either epitomizing or giving extracts from the first edition, as we could not have expressed these doctrines more compendiously or in more appropriate language.