4 26
ESSAYS ON LIBERTY
logical chairs. After seeing Baron Arnim, in 1865, he lost the hope of saving the papal government, and ceased to care about the things he had contended for in I 86 I ; and a time came when he thought it difficult to give up the temporal po\ver, and yet revere the Holy See. He wrote to Montalembert that his illusions were failing: " Ich bin sehr ernüchtert.-Es ist so vieles in der Kirche anders gekommen, als ich es mir vor 20- 30 J ahren gedacht, und rosenfarbig ausgemalt hatte," He learnt to speak of spiritual despotism almost in the words of his friend. The point of junction bet\veen the two orders of ideas is the use of fire for the enforcement of religion on which the French were laying all their stress: "In Frankreich be- \vegt sich der Gegensatz bIos auf dem socialpolitischen Gebiete, nicht auf dem theoiogisch-wissenschaftlichen, weB es dort genau genommen eine theologische Wissenschaft nicht gibt" (16th October 1865). The Syllabus had not permanently fixed his attention upon it. Two years later, the matter was put more definitely, and he found himself, with little real preparation, turning from antiquarian curiosities, and brought face to face with the radical question of life and death. If ever his literary career was influenced by his French alliances, by association \vith men in the throng, for whom politics decided, and all the learning of the schools did not avail, the moment "vas \vhen he resolved to \vrite on the Inquisition. The popular account which he drew up appeared in the newspapers in the summer of 1867; and although he did not mean to burn his ships, his position as an official defender of the Holy See was practically at an end. He \vrote rapidly, at short notice, and not in the steady course of progressive acquisition. Ficker and Winkelmann have since given a different narrative of the step by \vhich the Inquisition came into existence; and the praise of Gregory X., as a man sincerely religious \vho kept aloof, was a mark of haste. In the work which he ,vas using, there \vas no act by that pontiff; but if he had had time to look deèper he would not have found him, in this respect,
