Accordingly, Lord Acton's practical solution is as follows:—
"Warned, therefore, by the language of the Brief, I will not provoke ecclesiastical authority to a more explicit repudiation of doctrines which are necessary to secure its influence upon the advance of modern science. … I will sacrifice the existence of the Review to the defence of its principles, in order that I may continue the obedience which is due to legitimate ecclesiastical authority with an equally conscientious maintenance of the rightful and necessary liberty of thought."
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
