470
ESSAYS ON LIBERTY
For isolated truths separated from other kno\\'n truths by an interval of conjecture, in which error might find room to construct its works, may offer perilous occasions to unprepared and unstable minds. The policy was there- fore to allow such tru ths to be put forward only h ypo- thetically, or altogether to suppress them. The latter alternative was especially appropriated to historical investigations, because they contained most elements of danger. In them the progress of knowledge has been for centuries constant, rapid, and sure; every generation has brought to light masses of information previously unknown, the successive publication of which furnished ever new incentives, and more and more ample means of inquiry into ecclesiastical history. This inquiry has gradually laid bare the whole policy and process of ecclesiastical authority, and has removed from the past that veil of mystery where- with, like all other authorities, it tries to surround the present. The human element in ecclesiastical administra- tion endeavours to keep itself out of sight, and to deny its own existence, in order that it may secure the unquestioning submission which authority naturally desires, and may preserve that halo of infallibility which the t\vilight of opinion enables it to assume. N O\V the most severe exposure of the part played by this human element is found in histories which show the undeniable existence of sin, error, or fraud in the high places of the Church. Not, indeed, that any history furnishes, or can furnish, materials for undermining the authority which the dogmas of the Church proclaim to be necessary for her existence. But the true limits of legitimate authority are one thing, and the area which authority may find it ex- pedient to attempt to occupy is another. The interests of the Church are not necessarily identical with those of the ecclesiastical government. A government does not desire its po\vers to be strictly defined, but the subjects require the line to be drawn with increasing precision. Authority may be protected by its subjects being kept in ignorance of its faults, and by their holding it in superstitious admiration. But religion has no communion
