4 22
ESSAYS ON LIBERTY
Vienna, by an auspicious omen, Sickel, who was not yet known to Greater Germany as the first of its mediæval palæographers, sho\ved him the sheets of a work con- taining 247 Carolingian acts unknown to Böhmer, who had just died with the repute of being the best authority on Imperial charters. During several years Döllinger follo\ved up the discoveries he now began. Theiner sent him documents from the A rchivio Segreto; onè of his friends shut himself up at Trent, and another at Ber- gamo. Strangers ministered to his requirements, and huge quantities of transcripts came to him from many countries. __ Conventional history faded a\vay; the studies of a lifetime suddenly underwent transformation; and his view of the last six centuries was made up from secret information gathered in thirty European libraríes and archives. As many things remote from current know- ledge grew to be certainties, he became more confident, more independent, and more isolated. The ecclesiastical history of his youth \vent to pieces against the new criticism of 1863, and the revelation of the unknown \vhich began on a very large scale in 1864. During four years of transition occupied by this new stage of study, he abstained from writing books. When- ever some local occasion called upon him to speak, he spoke of the independence and authority of history. In cases of collision with the Church, he said that a man should seek the error in hitnself; but he spoke of the doctrine of the universal Church, and it did not appear that he thought of any living voice or present instructor. He claimed no immunity for philosophy; but history, he affirmed, left to itself and pursued disinterestedly, will heal the ills it causes; and it was said of him that he set the university in the place of the hierarchy. Some of his countrymen were deeply moved by the measures which were being taken to restore and to confirm the authority of Rome; and he had impatient colleagues at the university who pressed him with sharp issues of uncom- prolnising logic. He himself \vas reluctant to bring down . serene research into troublesome disputation, and wished
