DÖLLINGER ON THE TEMPORAL POWER 3 I 7
objectivity of truth, and is guided in his judgment by facts, not by wishes. We endeavoured not many months ago to sho\v how remote the theology of Catholic I' Germany is in its scientific spirit from that of other countries, and how far asunder are science and policy. The same method applied to the events of our o\vn day must be yet more startling, and for a time we can scarcely anticipate that the author of this \vork will escape an apparent isolation between the reserve of those who share his vie\vs, but are not free to speak, and the foregone conclusions of most of those who have already spoken. But a book \vhich treats of contemporary events in accordance with the signs of the time, not with the aspirations of men, possesses in time itself an invincible auxiliary. When the lesson which this great writer dra\vs from the example of the mediæval Popes has borne its fruit; when the purpose for, which he has written is attained, and the freedom of the HoJy See from revolu- tionary aggression and arbitrary protection is recovered by the heroic determination to abandon that which -in the course of events has ceased to be a basis of independence -he will be the first, but no longer the only, proclaimer of new ideas, and he will not have written in vain. The Christian religion, as it addresses and adapts itself to all mankind, bears to\vards the varieties of national character a relation of which there was no example in the religions of antiquity, and which heresy repudiates and inevitably seeks to destroy. For heresy, like paganism, is national, and dependent both on the particular disposition of the people and on the govern- ment of the State. It is identified with definite local conditions, and moulded by national and political peculi- arities, Catholicity alone is universal in its character and mission, and independent of those circumstances by which States are estab1ished, and nations are distinguished from each other. Even Rome had not so far extended her limits, nor so thoroughly subjugated and amalga- mated the races that obeyed her, as to secure the Church from the natural reaction of national spirit against a
