did not reject the doctrine categorically: he confined himself to the assertion that its definition was inopportune. Yet he marshalled such an array of difficulties and objections as to imply much more than the inopportuneness of definition.
Dupanloup declares that he cannot believe that Pius IX. has assembled the Council to define his own Infallibility. This was never mentioned in the Pope's address as one of the grounds for its convocation. The purpose, according to Pius IX., was to remedy the existing evils in the Church and in social life. Was it credible, asked Dupanloup, that in the midst of the many urgent problems here suggested and implied, a novel, unexpected, and profoundly complex and thorny question was to be thrown in the way, to ruin the prospects of unity, and to provide the world with scenes of a painfully discordant type? Doubtless, he continued, men would assure him that a principle was at stake:—
"A principle!" echoed Dupanloup; "even granting that were so, I answer, Is it then essential to the life of the Church that this principle should become a dogma of faith? How, then, explain the fact that the Church has lived for eighteen centuries without defining a principle essential to her existence? How explain the fact that she has formulated all her doctrine, produced her teachers, condemned all heresies, without this definition?"
Accordingly the Bishop denies that there can be any necessity. It is the Church which is infallible, he says, and the Infallibility of the Church has been to this hour sufficient for all religious needs. Dupanloup earnestly recalled the Ultramontanes to earlier principles which long prevailed in Christendom. The principle to be observed in defining doctrine is that given by Pius IV.
