a more universal and unanimous acceptance on its definition and promulgation. Even in France, the only country in which, for a time, and under the pressure of political causes, the doctrine has been opposed, the opposition exists no longer as a theology or a school. 'La doctrine française,' as its friends truly but unwarily call it, lingers as a national tradition; surviving rather as a reminiscence than as a conviction.
11. The definition of the Immaculate Conception has filled up and completed the analogy of the new creation, and of the Second Adam and the Second Eve. It has also rendered precise and complete the doctrines of original sin and of grace. In like manner the treatise of Divine Faith has one part as yet undetermined, which would be completed by the completion of the doctrine of infallibility. The virtue of divine faith has for its formal motive the veracity of God, and for its ordinary means of knowing the revelations of God, the proposition of the Church. But if the proponent be fallible, the certainty on which the revelation comes to us cannot be divine. The Church, by the divine assistance of the Holy Ghost, is infallible, and the certainty of the truths proposed by it to our faith is divine. But if the Head of the Church be fallible, the certainty of truths because proposed by him—as, for instance, the Immaculate Conception—cannot be divine, and is therefore fallible; but if fallible, it cannot exclude doubt, and for that reason cannot generate faith. Where faith is, doubt cannot be; and where doubt is, faith ceases to be. The treatise
