3 1 4
ESSAYS ON LIBERTY
followers of Gioberti, and the disciples of Rosmini, have not hesitated to utter openly their honest but most incon- ceivable persuasion. But on the German side of / the Alps, where no political agitation affects the religious judgment, or drives men into disputes, those eminent thinkers who agree with Döllinger are withheld by various considerations from publishing their views. Sometimes it is the hopelessness of making an impression, sometimes the grave inconvenience of withstanding the current of opinion that makes them keep silence; and their silence leaves those who habitually follow them not only with- out means of expressing their views, but often \vithout decided views to express. The same influences \vhich deprive Döllinger of the open support of these natural allies will impede the success of his work, until events have outstripped ideas, and until men a\vake to the dis- covery that what they refused to anticipate or to prepare for, is already accomplished. Piety sometimes gives birth to scruples, and faith to superstition, when they are not directed by wisdom and knowledge. .One source of the difficulty of which we are speaking is as much a defect of faith as a defect of knowledge. Just as it is difficult for some Catholics to believe that the supreme spiritual authority on earth could ever be in unworthy hands, so they find it hard to reconcile the reverence due to the Vicar of Christ, and the promises made to him, with the acknowledgment of intolerable abuses in his temporal administration. It is a comfort to make the best of the case, to' draw con- clusions from the exaggerations, the inventions, and the malice of the accusers against the justice of the accusa- tion, and in favour of the accused. I t is a temptation to our weakness and to our consciences to defend the Pope as we would defend ourselves-with the same care and zeal, with the same uneasy secret consciousness that there are weak points in the case which can best be concealed by diverting' attention from them. What the defence gains in energy it loses in sincerity; the cause of the Church, which is the cause of truth, is mixed up and con-
