one hand abandoning our humble labours in the Catholic cause, or else, on the other hand, expressing the said opinion and arguing in its behalf.

But it was an extremely great relief to us, that we were never obliged to take action in deference to our own private calculation of consequences. When first we broke silence on the subject, it was in July, 1864, in reference to the Munich Brief. The Home and Foreign Review had just been brought to a sudden end, avowedly in consequence of that Brief; its editor frankly avowing, both that his principles were vitally opposed to the Brief, and that he intended to retain them. We do not fancy that any considerable number of Catholics sympathized with the whole general tone of that Review; but we did and do think that its fundamental principle-the minimistic tenet has a number of adherents, not altogether inconsiderable, among English educated Catholics. The circumstances with which we had to deal were these. The Holy Father solemnly proscribing certain principles as false and most dangerous; and a greater or less number of English Catholics adhering to those principles. It was no act then of private judgment-it was involved in the most ordinary duty to the Holy Father-that we who firmly believed his solemn judgment to be infallible, should earnestly press this doctrine on the attention of Catholics. We should have been disloyal poltroons had we shrunk from the task.

And if even the Munich Brief laid us under this obligation, what is to be said on the Encyclical and Syllabus which so speedily followed? How was it possible to hail that pronouncement with due gratulation, homage, and submission, without enlarging on its full authority?

The objector urges that this is a Protestant country. Here again to our own private judgment it is most clear, that the evil of temporary scandal to the Protestant, nay of a certain retardation (if so be) in the advance of individual conversions, is immeasurably small, when we compare it with that involved in deep and silently growing corruption of the Faith. But we had not to consult our private judgment at all. The Munich Brief itself was primarily addressed to Germans; and Germany is as far as England from being a Catholic country.

But now secondly, if we were to speak on the matter at all, it was necessary to say what we think, and not what we don't think. Here are two propositions. Proposition A. "It is a probable opinion, and one freely debateable among Catholics, that the Church is infallible in her minor doctrinal judgments." Proposition B. "The Church emphatically teaches the infalli

bility of her minor judgments." These two propositions are as distinct from each other, as from the minimistic tenet itself. So far are we from holding Proposition A, that we have not a word to say in its defence; we know of no argument which proves the Church's infallibility in her minor judgments, except those which prove that she herself emphatically teaches that infallibility. It was Proposition B, then, and not Proposition A, which we consistently advocated from the first.

However, to a great extent we failed to make ourselves understood in this. F. Ryder implied at the end of his pamphlet, that we ourselves admitted the question to be an open one. And since his pamphlet came out, we have been severely rebuked in private for using, in behalf of what we admit to be a debateable opinion, language which (on such an hypothesis) would be doubtless intolerably violent and peremptory. It will be necessary then in future to lay still more stress than we have hitherto done, on the precise character of that doctrine which we advocate. Now to say again and again, that those who reject it commit materially (at least) mortal sin, is a practical way of impressing on every one our true meaning.

At the same time God knows how earnest is our desire, for more than one reason, of removing from this controversy every removable asperity. And if any one can devise some less invidious form of expression, which will nevertheless impress on our readers what we really intend to say, we will most gratefully accept his suggestion.

In p. 370 of our present number we cite from a very important sentence in the "Quantâ curâ "; and in a previous passage (p. 284) we speak at much greater length on the same sentence. Since the later passage has been in type and the earlier actually printed off, an elaborate criticism has appeared in the Tablet of September 13, assailing our view of the sentence in question. We are far from sorry that this criticism has appeared; because it will give us an opportunity of urging what seems to us a truth of considerable importance, on the due interpretation of such Pontifical declarations.

We must premise, however, one explanation. The Tablet writes, as though this sentence from the "Quantâ curâ were the principal ecclesiastical authority which we had adduced

for our doctrine on infallibility.* This is a complete mistake. The sentence is only mentioned once in Dr. Ward's whole volume; and then as an argument ex abundanti, for a conclusion already conclusively established.† In fact, though we are very confident that our interpretation of the sentence will be found alone tenable, yet we readily admit that this interpretation is not absolutely conspicuous on the surface. We would never adduce it therefore, and never have adduced it, as the sole or the principal argument for any conclusion, on which we desire to lay important stress. To avoid all questions about the translation, we will here print the sentence in the Latin.

"Atque silentio præterire non possumus eorum audaciam, qui sanam non sustinentes doctrinam contendunt illis Apostolicæ Sedis judiciis et decretis, quorum objectum ad bonum generale Ecclesiæ ejusdemque jura ac disciplinam spectare declaratur, dummodò fidei morumque dogmata non attingat, posse assensum et obedientiam detrectari absque peccato, et absque ullâ catholicæ professionis jacturâ.' Quod quidem quantoperè adversetur catholico dogmati plenæ potestatis Romano Pontifici ab ipso Christo Domino divinitùs collatæ

"Dr. Ward believes himself to have proved, by this passage, that the Pope has declared, not only that he has this infallibility, but that those who will not ascribe it to him are guilty of audacity, and of sefusing to endure sound doctrine. And all this,' says Dr. Ward, 'has been accepted by the Catholic Episcopate.' It must be acknowledged, therefore, that the passage is well worth investigating on its own account, and that Dr. Ward's success or failure in this particular undertaking must have a considerable influence upon the question, what amount of reliance is to be placed upon him as a safe guide throughout the whole inquiry into the subject of which his book treats. We have undertaken to show that what Dr. Ward thought he had established beyond the possibility of doubt' was and is a mistake, and we think, subject to correction, that we have succeeded in showing it to be so. It has been a rather tiresome task; but our reasons for undertaking it were sufficient. In the first place we had been told, both by letter and by word of mouth [by whom?-ED. D.R.] that this passage from the Encyclical, and Dr. Ward's arguments upon it, proved his case, and were unanswerable. Although in the volume mentioned at the head of this article there are many arguments which appear to us quite as fallacious and unfounded as the one to which we have confined ourselves, there is none on which he has laid greater stress (!!) and none concerning which he has spoken with more triumphant confidence. No better example can be given of what we would call (if we would do so without offence) the carelessness and the reckless impetuosity of Dr. Ward's logic, &c. &c."-Tablet.

+ The "Quantâ curâ," we said (April, 1865, p. 445), "gives us several further reasons for holding" what "surely no further reasons were needed" to establish. We then give five different reasons from the "Quantâ curâ,” of which this sentence furnishes only the first.

universalem pascendi, regendi, et gubernandi Ecclesiam, nemo est qui non clarè apertèque videat et intelligat."

Now, as a preliminary to our argument, there are various words in this sentence* of which we must consider the meaning. And firstly "assensum." The Tablet considers us unfair in adding the adjective "interior" to this substantive.† How strange! Unless you suppose the Holy Father to enjoin mendacity, whenever he prescribes "exterior" assent, he must prescribe "interior" assent and something more. What can "exterior" assent mean, except the expression of assent? How can the mere non-statement of dissent be called "assensus"?

(2.) The word "judiciis." No one is said to pronounce a judicium," or to act as a "judex," when he commands something; but when he authoritatively affirms something. Here therefore the word must signify declarations of something as true; doctrinal declarations.

(3.) The word "decretis" is not equally unmistakable; for "decrees" may be either doctrinal or disciplinary. If the word here had the former meaning, then the sentence would refer exclusively to the interior acceptance of doctrinal judgments. On such an hypothesis our own conclusion would at once follow against the Tablet, without the need of further argument. It seems to us however, we confess, far more probable, that the "decreta" here mentioned are commands issued by the Holy Father.

(4.) In the earlier part of the sentence mention is made of "doctrinal declarations" and "commands;" in the later part of "assent" and "obedience " as correlative to those declarations and commands. It is very plain then, that "assent" refers to the "declarations" and "obedience" to the "commands." The Tablet does not admit this:‡ but we must be permitted to think it so clear, that there is no

* We may very suitably call it one sentence, notwithstanding the full stop at the word "jacturâ."

"We pass by the introduction of the word 'interior,' which Dr. Ward slides in here, although it is not found in the passage quoted from the Encyclical, and is not necessarily implied by the terms of the condemned proposition We hold, on the other hand, that the word 'interior' is introduced on Dr. Ward's own authority."-Tablet.

The condemned proposition speaks of judgments and decrees to which assent and obedience may be refused; and Dr. Ward thinks that no one can read the sentence with candour without seeing that the judgments spoken of in the proposition are judgments which determine concerning truth and falsehood, and that the assent spoken of in the proposition has reference to them; while the decrees spoken of in the proposition are, he says, practical commands, and the obedience spoken of in the proposition has reference to

them. But we can see no imaginable reason why both the assent and obedience spoken of should not have reference to both the judgments and decrees spoken of. A decretum, the object of which concerns the Church's general good and her rights and discipline, is a perfectly fit subject-matter for the exercise of assent as well as of obedience; and a judicium, the object of which concerns the Church's general good and her rights and discipline, is a perfectly fit subject-matter for the exercise of obedience as well as of