and remove its uncertainty. He thought that no research, however rigorous, could make sure of any fragment of knowledge worthy the name. He admitted no certainty but that which relied on the general tradition of mankind, recorded and sanctioned by the infallible judgment of the Holy See. He would have all power committed, and every question referred, to that supreme and universal authority. By its means he would supply all the gaps in the horizon of the human intellect, settle every controversy, solve the problems of science, and regulate the policy of states.
The extreme Ultramontanism which seeks the safeguard of faith in the absolutism of Rome he believed to be the keystone of the Catholic system. In his eyes all who rejected it, the Jesuits among them, were Gallicans; and Gallicanism was the corruption of the Christian idea.[1] "If my principles are rejected," he wrote on the 1st of November 1820, "I see no means of defending religion effectually, no decisive answer to the objections of the unbelievers of our time. How could these principles be favourable to them? they are simply the development of the great Catholic maxim, quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus." Joubert said of him, with perfect justice, that when he destroyed all the bases of human certainty, in order to retain no foundation but authority, he destroyed authority itself. The confidence which led him to confound the human element with the divine in the Holy See was destined to be tried by the severest of all tests; and his exaggeration of the infallibility of the Pope proved fatal to his religious faith.
In 1831 the Roman Breviary was not to be bought in Paris. We may hence measure the amount of opposition with which Lamennais's endeavours to exalt Rome would be met by the majority of the French bishops and clergy, and by the school of St. Sulpice. For him, on the other hand, no terms were too strong to express his animosity against those who rejected his
- ↑ Lamennais, Correspondence, Nouvelle édition (Paris: Didier).
