4 16
ESSAYS ON LIBERTY
la\v which \vas not given from the altar. It was the outcome of a spirit \vhich had been in him from the begin- ning. I-fis English translator had uttered a mild protest against his severe treatment of popes. His censure of the Reformation had been not as that of Bossuet, but as that of Baxter and Bull. In 1845 1\1r. Gladstone remarked that he would answer every objection, but never proselytised. In 1848 he rested the claims of the Church on the common la\v, and bade the hierarchy remember that national character is above free will: "Die N ationalität ist et\vas der Freiheit des menschlichen Willens entrücktes, geheimnissvolles und in ihrelll letzen Grunde selbst et\,vas von Gott gewoUtes." In his Hz"ppolytltS he began by surrendering the main point, that a man who so vilified the papacy might yet be an undisputed saint. In the Vorhalle he flung away a favourite argument, by avowing that paganism developed by its o\vn lines and laws, untouched by Christianity, until the second century; and as \vith the Gentiles, so with the sects; he taught, in the suppressed chapter of his history, that their doctrines followed a normal course. And he believed so far in the providential mission of Protestantism, that it \vas idle to talk of reconciliation until it had borne all its fruit. He exasperated a Munich colleague by refusing to pronounce \vhether Gregory and Innocent had the right to depose emperors, or Otho and Henry to depose popes; for he thought that historians should not fit theories to facts, but should be content with sho\ving ho\v things worked. 1\'1 uch secret and suppressed antagonism found vent in 1858, when one who had been his assistant in writing the Refo1'l1zatz"on and was still his friend, declared that he would be a heretic whenever he found a backing. Those \vith whom he actively coalesced felt at times that he was incalculable, that he pursued a separate line, and \vas al \vays learning, whilst others busied themselves less \vith the unkno\vn. This note of distinctness and solitude set him apart from those about him, during his intimacy with the most catholic of Anglican prelates, Forbes, and \vith the lamented Liddon. And it appeared
